I totally agree. The prevailing perception that Silicon Valley (the original MAE-West) and Virginia's MAE-East are the touchstones of high bandwidth Internet i

I totally agree. The prevailing perception that Silicon Valley (the original MAE-West) and Virginia's MAE-East are the touchstones of high bandwidth Internet is not true either - while they are the peering points for (inter)national networks, the local access Internet offerings in those regions are indeed laughable. Meanwhile the small rural towns in fly-over country tend to enjoy networks that are gigabit to the home or better for under $100 MRC. I know of businesses in Philadelphia that had to relocate to Winona, Minnesota simply to lower their Internet costs from thousands of dollars per month (with Comcast) to under $200 MRC for a direct gigabit optical Internet connection.