The Internet has suffered mightily in 2001. Peer-to-peer networking [read: free music] took a hit when the RIAA bent Napster over its legal knee and gave us all a spanking. Dozens of once-dominant content providers took dirt naps as banner-advertising revenues plummeted. And now even the shining grail of broadband is vanishing before our eyes.

Over the weekend Excite@Home received permission from a federal judge to discontinue service as part of its bankruptcy reorganization. Broadband advocates decried the Excite's callousness, leaving thousands of customers without any connection at all. Exfite@Home users who have had endured repeated connection outages wondered what all the fuss was about.

Already e-pundits have begun penning their obituaries for the technology.

The whole scenario brought one unnamed columnist to write: "The Broadband revolution may not have brought about a utopian virtual economy, but one thing we can say for sure: it certainly has changed the way America masturbates."

Indeed, since @Home affiliates began shutting down, ratings for MTV and Baywatch re-runs have nearly doubled. From all indications, the demise [or near demise] of cable Internet has caused a disruption in the space-time continuum, sending Americans back to the wild and wooly proto-Internet days of 1993.

Market research firms are telling us that AOL subscriptions are back up as well. Look for those "furry erotic fan fiction" chat rooms to fill up faster than ever before.

Broadband may be dead, but it is certainly not alone. As a matter of course, DSL was unceremoniously cremated at some point last summer. Although customers lucky enough to get DSL installed have reported satisfaction with the service, a majority of the market has no access to it due to geographical constraints and baffling phone company incompetence.

It seems that the "communications competition" measure Congress passed a few years ago is working flawlessly. According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association's web site, allowing various local monopolies to enter the markets of other local monopolies has vastly improved "service" [glossary: "service" = "shareholder value"].

In a recent Godby poll, Americans were asked which companies they would most trust with vital services. Cable and landline phone companies landed near the bottom of the list, faring only slightly better than undocumented day laborers.

Some folks began playing broadband's funeral dirge months ago. The dream of the "fat pipe" that had fascinated and enchanted the web community for nearly a decade turned out to be far less than the high-speed electronic utopia it once seemed to be.

Rising prices and tightening service restrictions combined to make the service less palatable. For example, in San Diego, California, "Basic" cable Internet service used to cost $19.99 per month. Earlier this year, hundreds of customers were switched to "Super Basic" service which is pretty much the same as "Basic" but includes four HBO channels and a $49.99 price tag.

Advertisements for cable & DSL still taut the ability to easily download and stream myriad large video files. However, many users found the videos available on the Internet [usually amateur porn, snuff films, home movies, or a hideous combination] less than worthwhile.

Certainly, some jealous modem users were only too happy to see the failure of Excite@Home. An anonymous Indianapolis-area man e-mailed the following missive to his brother only yesterday:

"Ha! Mr. 'I can download DivX movies faster than you can watch them' can suck it! Dig that 14.4 out of your basement, Buddy. It looks like your going to need it!"

For the sake of accuracy, we are required to state the following: In many markets @Home cable Internet service has not been interrupted, and deals are currently being brokered that may restore service to areas recently cut off.

However, it may be months before broadband users can once again download necrobeastasodomy mpegs in the blink of an eye.