There are few more articulate supporters of high speed broadband access than Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper. Not only does he think Americans should have the right to high quality broadband, but he also thinks that it is the key to innovation in the broader economy. Home video is, of course, increasingly dependent on broadband and so, Japser told me when he came into our San Francisco studio earlier this week, is innovation in our healthcare and education sectors.
Jasper doesn’t see the actual cost of broadband as the problem. Internet access isn’t finite, like coal or water, he insists – and the cost of bandwidth is actually plummeting to zero. Indeed, a stunning 98% of his costs, he confessed to me, go on things outside the product. It’s staffing, he acknowledged, which suck up most of his costs – with investment in customer service being 20 times higher than his investment in product.
For Jasper, innovation can solve all our problems. Even the seemingly endless issue of piracy, he told me, can be solved by rights-holders becoming more innovative in making their product readily available on the Internet. It’s that kind of innovation, Jaspers insists, rather than legislation such as SOPA, that will save the entertainment industry.
This is the second of two interviews with the straight-talking Jasper. Yesterday, he told me why fiber is the future of wired connectivity.
Dane Jasper is the co-founder of Sonic.net, the largest independent Internet provider in Northern California. Dane is also the past president of the California ISP association, a trade group of independent Internet providers in the state.
Sonic.net is a full-service Internet provider, dedicated to delivering fast, reliable and inexpensive connectivity while providing award-winning technical support. Based out of Santa Rosa, California, we were one of the first ISPs to bring DSL access to the wine country, and continue to lead the way in making new access and hosting solutions available to the public.
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