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Why You Don't Have a Broadband Connection
blandthrax writes "I ran across this article on The New Republic. The long and short of it indicates that the reason why almost 90% of Americans don't have a broadband connection is because current broadband providers are preventing other ISP's from entering the fray. The result: higher prices for broadband connections and a general lack of innovation. An interesting read full of good details. And, as usual, we learn that countries such as Japan and Korea are far ahead of the US in terms of innovation and technological saturation."
I agree with the post, havent read the article yet, but...
We work at a small ISP that used to (try) to offer DSL service, it worked for a few buisness clients, but the problem is, we are in california, and our telco is SBC/Pacbell/Devil-Company. It was so much of a hassle to deal with, and also too expensive. I don't think we made much profit on that deal at all...pacbell were whores. We ditched that pretty quick.
i haven't read the story yet, but i wonder if this is one case where the "new republic" might advocate federal regulation to stop companies from abusing their positions...
nah.
never happen.
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Part of the reason that Sprint canceled their ION service was that the local telcos were screwing them over when it came to provisioning customer lines. When I had ION installed, the local telco told me it would take them 30 days to install a "conditioned" line that was suitable for ION....
:(
Of course, when I called the telco the next day to inquire about their own DSL service, the "conditioned line" could be installed the next day....
In the end, it did take 3 weeks to get ION installed, and it was far better service than anything that DSL could provide.... I really miss ION
I have AT & T broadband. So I get this advert from Earthlink, basically offering the _exact same_ service for the _exact same_ price. I bet it's just AT & T with the Earthlink name. Why go through the hassle? Is this competition?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Apparently "The New Republic" doesn't have a broadband connection, either. ;)
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
It's like I'm always saying. The free market only benefits the consumer as long as laws and senators are not for sale. Telecom laws in this country are being handed out like utility contracts in some single-resource dependant dictatorship.
When is the US going to get it's head out of it's sphincter and realize that telecom is a public resource. Or that public resources are to be protected for use, not auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
I have many collegues overseas. For starters, the [overwhelming] percentage of Japanese and Korean weathy enough to acquire broadband is highly suspect and inflated. Secondly, the degree of this "saturation" you speak of is much easier to attain in a relatively small country such as Japan or South Korea, south Korea being about the same size as Indiana and the total sum of Japanese islands being comperable in area to California. Got the smaller land mass? Build the infrastructure quicker and "saturate" it. If this is how "advanced" a country's 'broadband' (ugh) situation is, then Liechtenstein or Luxembourg might as well be the technological capital of the world.
Could it be that most users on the internet are just there to send e-mail back & forth between their families, or to hang out in chat rooms?
This is because most people do not need broadband and cannot justify the increased cost just for the online activities listed above. That is why by 2005 broadband will will just be catching up to dial-up percentage wise for users of the internet..
My broadband connection just is not very good. There are many restrictions on how I use it. I cannot run servers, for instance, or even have a static ip. Downtime of a few random daylight hours a week is not unusual. Recently my bill was increased by $5, to a total of $45 per month. No increase in quality of service accompanied this price hike. I will not name my service provider, but it is a major one and is currently being investigated by the SEC.
I'm considering moving just to get [an Internet connection with throughput greater than 56 kbps and ping less than 1 second].
It costs $200,000 to buy a new house, generally with 360 month financing. For that price, you can probably get a T1 line to your current home.
Will I retire or break 10K?
That said a month to month contract (and no install fees) for a reasonably priced Unix and Unix like friendly provider with a self install kit in NoVA and I'd probably grab it.
~~ What's stopping you?
In my area, the two LECs (Local Exchange Carriers) are Verizon (evil!{my opinion}) and SWB (not as evil anymore{my opinion}).
When I or friends have tried to obtain broadband service from companies other than these, we come up against a brick wall: although smaller companies have the ability to provide dsl service in our area, they actually have to lease the lines from these LECs (verizon and southwestern bell).
It took weeks sometimes just for the LEC to have the access on their end set up, and any time there was a technical problem, we'd have to speak to both sides, where each party generally needed cooperation and information from the other. Needless to say, this was not something that was easy to get accomplished and it totally ruined my (and others) experience. On monday, I'm ordering broadband at my new residence, and guess what? I'm going to be getting it through one of the big boys. The reason, the hassle of trying to get service through two companies that are in competition with eachother is too painstaking.
Fine! You don't have to yell at me! But do repeat what you just said though because something's going on in my head.
I work for a small ISP and one of our competitors thats much larger than us is going to start offering cable broadband through Time Warner. From what I understand, Time Warner provides the actual hookup and hardware, and then the ISP would provide mail, DNS, and tech support. The ISP would get $5 per month, per user that chooses the ISP.
This seems to contradict, the stories of excessive bandwith etc. Or perhaps, it helps to explain how it is possible to have all the supposed excess capacity and yet there is no "demand". There is no doubt that the demand is there, it always has been.
If the demand wasn't there we would all still be using 9600 baud modems, or perhaps 300 baud C-64 modems. But, instead we have tried to squeeze out every possible bit per second from our modems and it is still inadequate.
And, in case you didn't know, this doesn't change with today's broadband. Almost anyone who has used broadband (xDSL/Cable) for any period of time will tell you that the speed is the best available and that it is much better than dial-up but, they are still wanting or needing more speed. I assure you that if everyone could get a T-3 (45Mbps) for a decent cost, everyone would have one and still complain that it wasn't quite enough for them. The demand is there!
(north raleigh, that is)
i have the choice of TimeWarner or AOL using TimeWarner or EarthLink using TimeWarner. BellSouth won't bring DSL to my neighborhood and MCI's sphere of influence doesn't come this far east. so, i have TimeWarner.
i guess it's better than no choice at all. but i sickens me to give them yet another $50 every month.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
And guess what? The FCC is not only allowing them to do this, they're actually encouraging it!
Why? Well, it seems that a couple of months ago, the FCC determined that the Communications Act of 1996 doesn't apply to the Internet. Remember all that bullshit about Clinton using the 'net to digitally 'sign' said act? Remember him saying how this act was going to revolutionize the 'net? Not any more. It turns out that the act was just a big land grab for companies like Clear Channel Communications and CBS.
Naw, really!?
What I think we should see more of is alternative delivery methods explored. Sprint PCS just deployed their new wireless network, I'd think wireless access would sidestep the Baby Bells entirely. Even better are satellite internet options (no new ground infrastructure required).
But instead we have... well... you get the idea.
It's a very common misconception that Japan is way out ahead of the US in the absorption of technology into the culture. (and that's NOT what the article says, by any means) Anyone who has lived outside of Tokyo/Osaka (and probably those folks as well) can tell you that Japan is NOT the leader of the pack in this respect. DSL (YahooBB) just came available in Mito, which is a small city north of Tokyo. Compare this to a comparable size city, Lubbock TX, which has had DSL and cable BB for years and years.
The computer lab in the school where I taught from 1996 - 1998 had 286 machines running Windows 3.1 They kept applications on floppies. The machines weren't networked at all. Schools started getting internet access after I left. The teachers were absolutely CLUELESS re computers. Most of them used wapuros (word processors) or nothing at all.
As the article mentions regarding BB: the NTT monopoly held Japan back for a long time, but BB is finally catching on.
There are lots of neat GADGETS in Japan, but proliferation of computing is slower than in the US. In the "real world," not standing Akihabara (an electronics district) or at Shinjuku station (with a video screen on the entire side of a building) Japan seems much less technologically advanced.
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
The only thing I have a problem with is when I think of my monthly $75 cable bill as one big bill, instead of two really separate services. I only pay $40/month though, but I think I'd pay $60 if it came to it (which it may, my provider is Adelphia).
I would say the main reason the best laid plans of telecoms to convert everyone over to broadband failed because the high quality/high datarate content never appeared.
The reason for this 'more infrastructure than content' phenomona, I believe, is that the telecoms overestimated how willing the entertainment industry (@see MPAA and RIAA memebers) would be to move their content to digital formats. For example, if all the major record labels all had their entire libraries online, available for purchace and download in a fair-use friendly format, then the demand for broadband would be much higher. If you could buy, download and burn DVD's over the web, people would probably be complaining that current broadband isn't fast enough and might be willing to pay more for access to all those fiber networks out there, which currently, are sitting dark.
Fantastic article, this piece really caught my eye:
In February, Powell, who enjoys a three-to-one majority on the FCC, announced a "proposed rulemaking" on "telephone-based broadband." According to the FCC's decision, telephone-based broadband services are "information services, with a telecommunications component, rather than telecommunications services." The distinction sounds semantic, but it has profound legal implications. According to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, telecommunications services have to grant open access to their facilities, but information services do not. By defining telephone broadband as an information service--a designation originally intended for content providers like LexisNexis--the FCC removed it from regulation, allowing the Baby Bells to ban other ISPs from transmitting over their lines.
What he's saying here is that the FCC can't regulate DSL because DSL is a service which provides content like AOL, MSN, Compuserve, etc. So if you have a DSL line, and you're reading Slashdot, the chairmain of the FCC believes that your DSL provider brought you this story.
Mike Powell is a damned industry whore, and a disgrace to his father.
yeah, except that with each purchase of a $200k house you get... A FREAKIN $200k HOUSE!
Ahem.
Having said that, I have cable access, but I'd rather have cheaper access and more choices. But that's because I'm a greedy bastard... But hey, that's capitalism at work!
m00.
I hope you have been here and told them you want broadband (you have to phone an ISP, cant register interest online). If you live anywhere near the EMROTHW exchange then it is really important that you do this becuase I want broadband too ;).
BT seem to not bother adding all the registered people to the count tho, not very quickly anyway.
but we have laws to ensure fair competition so that even the biggest telco cannot say no when the owner of the house switch to their competitors. Even the telco own the physical network implementation of that house, they must let their competitors share with it at a rate.
It's because we always think that networks system is like sewage system which can be owned by private sectors but must be regulated by Government for the best of the public interest.
I thought US has similar laws on fair competitions?
I'm tired of seeing and hearing all the broadband commercials that make high-speed connectivity seem like such a panacaea.
Such ads usually concentrate on some particular aspect of broadband that makes it superior to dial-up. For instance:
1) No waiting to connect!
Now seriously, of ALL the reasons to go to broadband, this is the most idiotic. Since most people aren't running servers on their home systems , the connect time isn't that big of a deal. I have also seen DSL systems that still require you to actively connect to the network, and it takes about the same time as a 56K handshake.
2) I get my email in seconds!
I guess this is just because we get so much spam or something. I rarely receive an email that huge attachments.
3) Watching streaming video
I have yet to see streaming video on the web worth watching. Maybe I'm not looking in the right spot or something, but until I can watch DVD quality movies online, I don't care about streaming video.
4) Listening to streaming audio
This is much more plausible, but probably doesn't justify the much higher cost of broadband vs. dial-up. I do like listening to streaming audio.
Dial-up is more practical simply because it is far less expensive, and is more than adequate for most users.
Now, when it comes to:
5) Getting the latest linux distros that are upwards of 400 MB and...
6) Downloading tons of pr0n
well, broadband just can't be beat.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Another problem with the lack of choice is that often the few choices you do have, don't let you do what you want to do with the internet. My local cable company has broadband cable, but their Acceptable use policy reads like a Microsoft EULA. I don't like it and won't use it. It bans servers of any kind, bans P2P sharing, I think it even attempts to tell you that you must support community deceny standards. (I thought that was the whole point of the internet, letting you determine your own deceny standards)
My other problem is that I'm in a DSL dead-zone and the only one even willing to try and offer me service is Ameritech, which has a similar draconian Acceptable Use policy, and they use PPPoE.
My only hope is that I can get a wireless broadband connection with a local ISP (who has a decent Acceptable use policy and allows servers... their only restriction is that you don't use the connection for illegal activity), but currently my house is situated too high to have a good line of sight to their antenna. The only way to get to it is to have a larger antenna then my community allows (I'm petitioning the Building Dept for an exemption). Hopefully they'll agree and the antenna won't make my neighbors nervous about "death rays" as the Building Dept Manager put it.
There are lots of people out there who just don't care about having faster Internet connections. You always hear about some freak out in the sticks, salivating to get his paws on a fast pipe. What about the millions of people who have access to broadband connections but don't sign up!?
Let's face it: People like us are not normal at all. Most people dial in, check email, buy a CD from Amazon on occasion, and that's about it. I've told several people that DSL or cable is easily 50x faster than dialup. They look at me like I'm crazy, "Now why would I need to go so much faster? And doesn't that cost a whole lot?" It's like, you just want to bang your head against the wall. But when you consider how much TV normal people watch, it makes perfect sense. They don't really want unfiltered knowledge. They can't handle it. Why go looking for information when all most people want is the pap and pizzle the spews from the their TVs?
I recently ordered Verizon DSL (NY suburb area, optimum online not available). I asked the sales rep why I should go with Verizon and not with another equally priced DSL provider: He said something about how Verizon has much more experience with DSL.
I found out the real answer later. When the rep was checking my phone line to see if it was DSL capable, he implied that if my line hadn't been DSL-capable (if it was on older wires) then it could have been fixed, by speaking to a local Verizon phone line technician, usually by catching him on the job and asking him politely to hook it up (or possibly by requesting a service job through my local Verizon office, although they wouldn't be obligated to do it).
This gives Verizon a completely unfair advantage, since no other company is authorized to maintain the phone lines in the area. DirectTV DSL can't sell to non-DSL enabled customers, but Verizon DSL can since they can enable just about anyone who asks!
$8.95/mo web hosting
You mean a country full of greedy individualist companies is technologically behind contries with a strong sense of the common good? Amazing.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
I live in broadband hell. ... everywhere all have DSL but not me... ... ..
Namely Aurora, Illinois.
I'm close enough to the Central Office (12,000 ft) but Ameritech/SBC claims their CO is full (which I think may be true).
No problem, they are working on project pronto which is supposed to offer DSL for all the suburban neighborhoods. Notwithstanding the legal issues, they started rolling out project pronto in Illinois this spring. Of course it's completely half-assed and there are no rhyme and reasons to the way they are doing it.
So they keep calling me to tell me that DSL is finally available. They send me a DSL modem and they tell me, oups sorry, not yet for you and I send it back.
I played that game 3 times. Now I stopped.
So technically the remote terminal (the project pronto Fiber to the neighborhood part) is supposed to be up in October for us, but I heard that one before.
So I left Ameritech/SBC alltogether and went with another local phone provider (cheaper).
As for Cable, it is still not available, as ATT inherited some really crappy and old system from the previous cable company and they haven't had a compelling reason to upgrade yet. (they have the monopoly). So there again, I refuse to use ATT and I have satellite (much better).
Of course satellite Internet sucks (pings terrible, no good for VPN) and will probably go bankrupt soon.
There are some wireless options but it's all mom and pop and most of them have been known to get our money and run with it.
Plus they can't subsidize the cost of HW as much as DSL and cable so the upfront cost is too high for me ($250 to $500) and the monthly cost is also too high.
So in the mean time, I just pay $5.95 for cheap dial up access.
I still think it's ridiculous. I live in America!
People in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, France
The perverse nature of the capitalist system:
No money (not enough) for the big guys and they won't get in
Sad sad
I think my situation sums up the situation of many many millions of American.
Just my 2 cents...
and usually the proceeds of sale from your previous house.
Which are taxed out the wazoo. After taxes and other fees, the amount a typical homeowner keeps from the sale of a house is barely enough to make the downpayment.
Besides, you can't buy a $200,000 house for $200,000. The bank will want a lot of that in finance charges.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Try substituting "citizens" every time you mean to say "consumers". It will get rid of that sick feeling, and give you lots of Karma! (The cosmic kind, not the /. kind!)
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 seems to have put the lie to that statement. If they want access to the long distance market so badly, all they need to do is open their local circuits more to competition and have the FCC rubber-stamp the whole deal. Six years and counting, and it would seem the Baby Bells would rather enter the long-distance market and hold on to their local monopolies...
Yup. That's the obvious answer.
From the story:
While other kinds of telecom prices--from long-distance and wireless-phone rates to super-high-speed oc-3 lines--have fallen, prices for high-speed cable and DSL connections have actually risen.
People vote with their wallets. If you want to sell more of anything it has to be percieved as being worth the money.
For most people, internet connectivity is not nescessary, and a faster connection is even less so. Especially for 3x the money.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Broadband is definitely cheaper in Canada (average $40 USD per month in the U.S., average $40 CDN in Canada), but Canadians are still not as connected as Americans.
It's not like we have a huge amount of choice in Canada though. I had this choice: Cogeco for a cable modem, or Bell for DSL. I wanted a DSL, but when I signed up with Bell, they did a line test and said my phone line wasn't good enough quality. That left me with a cable modem, or satellite I suppose, but to me that's no option.
The fact is, even though I can choose from dozens of long distance providers, I still can't choose from different cable internet, or DSL providers unless they run a new wire to my house. The last mile is very monopolistic. Perhaps wireless will change that, but I'm still waiting.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
The article mentions a few times the poor effects of declaring data traffic to be "information services" instead of "telecommunication services" which are regulated differently.
However, I seem to recall when that happened that people generallly took it to be a good thing - are there not unpleasant implications to declaring data traffic as "telecommunications" that would hutr us more? I can't remember the full implications of each type of service.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When I see so many posts commenting on how expensive 40-60 bucks/month is, I have to smile. Here in Tokyo, I jumped at the opportunity to install ADSL in May last year. My price for the telco fees + ISP port connection/services was just under 80 bucks/month. It has since dropped, thankfully.
However, prior to ADSL, my dial-up charges were on the order of about $250/month. The North American all-you-can-eat dial-up courtesy of no-charge local calls would have delayed my adoption to xDSL for a very long time. The move was made because the pricing was so much more attractive.
Of course, now things are different. Telecommuting and doing the VPN into the office network wouldn't be possible with dial-up, so when the company asked me if I wanted to work at home, I was suddenly VERY pleased to already have ADSL installed.
Hmmm. It occurs to me that some of you folks stateside might have a good argument to present to your local representatives. Telecommuting really does require broadband. If the broadband providers are forcibly slowing the adoption of broadband in wide areas, it's plausible that there are negative economic consequences coming about as a result.
"In Virginia, when one small town, Bristol, wanted to set up its own broadband system, Verizon lobbyists persuaded the pliant, Republican-controlled state legislature to pass a law prohibiting any town from doing so."
I found that quote very disturbing. Fortunately, I read more on the subject and found out that Bristol won a lawsuit that overturned the decision. The state is appealing the decision (imagine that), but for now, Bristol has set a precedent that says that municipalities can set up their own broadband service. It's insane that Bristol even has to go to these lengths, but at least they won.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
To synopsize the synopsis, we've screwed regarding broadband. But then, anyone that's been keeping even a casual eye on broadband for the past couple of years already knew that. The Baby Bell shutout this year was just the last nail in the coffin.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Speaking as someone who goes from a cable modem at home, and a T3 at work, I'd much rather have the T3, you just don't know any better.
3 megabits/sec (~300kbytes/sec) is slow.
If I get transfer speeds like that from sites I'm downloading from at work, I look for the file elsewhere and see if I can get it quicker. Most of the time, this is a whole linux distribution download, where 300k/sec is awfully slow for 1-2 gigs of ISO images.
You want to know why I don't have broadband? Because despite living within 10 miles from AOL, PSINet, WorldCom, as well as big corp. offices of several other well known firms, there is still no viable broadband for most people out here in Loudoun County.
Rumour is, eastern Loudoun was a failed experiment in "fibre to the curb" a few years back. There's more fiber out here than in a Metamucil factory. Thus -- no DSL.
"Fine," you say, "what about cable?"
Well, we're in a real jiffy of a situation in that aspect too. As if the fact that we've got Adelphia out here isn't bad enough, the bit of broadband roll-out that they are doing is going west-to-east -- leaving the areas with the highest population densities out in the cold.
Finally, since you likely live in a TH/Condo out here -- myself included -- unless you have access to southern skies, you have no satellite options.
A while back, I wrote a letter to my local Representative about the fact that they lured all the high-tech companies out here w/o having the infrastructure in place for high-tech workers. His reponse was typically clueless.
Verizon themselves also recieved an angry letter from me, very recently, as they incessantly flood my mailbox with DSL ads, despite the fact that I can't get it.
Bitter? No, not at all...
You might check with other ISPs in your area, some of them may have an agreement with QWEST, such that QWEST provides the DSL loop to you, then to your ISP.
The loop charge is $29/month for 712Kbps in my area, and my ISP is pretty reasonable at $25/month.
It's more expensive than cable and plain 'ol QWEST service, but it suits me well--my ISP is the type that's very non-restrictive, I can have servers or whatever, and they don't care. They have mutiple DS3s to a level3 backbone, and techs that know what to do when some asshole puts a rogue DHCP server on the ethernet segment.
In all, a very good comprimise.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
The US is a heck of a lot bigger than these other countries (Japan etc). When one ISP can cover a country well, like the cell phone situation in Japan, it is very easy to be quick to market. When you are a huge country, in terms of area, it is a much slower, and more costly, process. The dead spots in between (area of minimal population) make it much less attractive for companies to spend the money on it, especially now after the dot-com fiasco.
How many people in the US can say they don't have cable TV? DSL is dependent on short range transmission, satellite has huge lag.
There are problems... we have to come up with the fixes...
Actually, I know nothing about Japanese economics. I AM fully aware that big companies in Japan are not out for the common good, but that's another issue. Regardless, I was speaking in terms of culture. American culture is 99% about "me." I'm fairly sure that the East is still better on that than we are.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
Americans want broadband. They just can't justify spending $50 for it when their $20 AOL does the job just fine. When broadband costs $19/month everyone will get it.
And no, Japan at least is NOT technologically ahead of the US. Not even close.
;-)
As a European I hope I can give an unbiased viewpoint to your USA/Japan technology mud-slinging match. Here's my opinion:
All the cool toys and gadgets seem to come out of Japan. Americans just copy them. But Americans make fancier bombs and guns and stuff to kill people than Japan.
I hope that helps.
I'm guessing one of the reasons 90% of Americans don't have a broadband connection is because a huge percent of them don't want broadband.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
top of that list is, they don't want it for 40 bucks a month. If it was 25 bucks a month, everybody would be able to afford it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Monopoly/oligopoly depends on scope.
Nationally, it's an oligopoly, but in to any particular customer/metro area it's a monopoly... unless they're allowing 2 companies to coexist on the same poles in certain places now.
m00.
Here in the UK, we were a little slower with broadband, but it's taking off here now to some extent.
Rather than the 12 month contract, leased modems, astronomical prices and company monopolies, a new method has emerges that seems to be working. Approximately 40 to 70% of UK exchanges are dsl capable now, dependign on how far along you think they are. Oftel (the UK telecoms regulator) ruled that BT was obligated to allow other ISPs to offer dsl over BT's existing phone lines with no punitive charges in order to aid competition.
As a result of that, I have a dsl service (640k down, 256-300k up) that costs me $35 (equiv) a month with no 12 month contract. The only outage I had was when lightning struck my house and cut the phone off (hardly the ISP's fault!) and I own all the hardware at my end.
You buy a small dsl splitter from your ISP (or an online retailer) that you plug into your existing phone socket allowing you to connect your phone and modem. This way, no engineer needs to call round and install any hardware. The setup is a breeze, and I can have a static ip and run my own servers for a small fee if I need that capability.
The other option is to get your broadband with cable TV. NTL offers cable internet with their cable TV service. The modem is built into all of their set top boxes, so if you want to use the service, all you need is an ethernet cable from your tv box to your PC and a phonecall to them to get set up.
I think the driving force for this is the way the phone system works here. Local calls are not free, so dialup access is either through an ISP that offers a toll free number (AOL, Compuserve etc) which are expensive or an ISP that offers free use, but with a normal local call rate number, costing you 2p per minute off peak, and 3.5p per minute on peak.
For the amount of time I spend on the net daily, I'd easily rack up the same cost in phonecalls as I'm paying for my broadband access, except at dialup speed. No contest.
Comparing something like this in the US to Japan and Korea doesn't make any sense at all. They have much less space to deal with, and a far smaller rural population. The US is full of big empty spaces and would better compared to Russia or China as far as how many people are connected. It's a lot easier to connect large numbers of people when they live in a small area as opposed to a huge mass of land where they are spread all over.
What?
68% of US residences can get high-speed Internet access, but only about 13% do. That's about typical penetration for a luxury good.
Where's the problem?
You can promote socialism all you want, but you cannot discredit an economic system that doesn't exist.
free-market.net
A: Obviously you've never been to SF.
I'll ask again. Why on earth would you continue to live there? I've been to SF, and except for the great chinese food, why?
I currently live in MD, in the distant DC suburbs. $300k in this area will buy you a basic 3bed 2bath house. Get closer to DC and you're looking at around $500k-$800k for the kind of house that would run you $150k anywhere else in the country.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
The importance of "content" (remember when we used to call it "art") to the Internet has always been overstated. Take a look at this article.
> Secondly, the degree of this "saturation" you speak of is much easier
> to attain in a relatively small country such as Japan or South Korea, south Korea being about the same size as Indiana
> and the total sum of Japanese islands being comperable in area to California. Got the smaller land mass?
Then what are the figures for parts of the US that are densely populated, relatively affluent, & under the same local government? If this lack of density were the sole cause, I'd expect the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, & Delaware all to be either at the top or near the top in terms of saturation.
(I'll concede that there are probably enough low-income folks in Delaware & Rhode Island to make keep them from the ideal of a broadband line for every household, but last I checked Connecticut had one of the highest average incomes in the US. Anyone who wants a high-speed internet connection in that state should have one, unless the market wass hamstrung by hide-bound ILECs.)
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
I live in a mostly rural area, too far from any switch for DSL. Adelphia Cable has promised cable modem service for my county for well over a year now and still zip. And, now of course, Adelphia has 'restated' their earnings and we've seen their CEO lead away in cuffs. We may never see cable modem at the rate. But the good ole boys in county government renew them anyway...
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
I just got back from my first business trip to Tokyo, and I was surprised to see there that they had numerous competing DSL providers, each providing much higher bandwidth at lower prices than you can find in the U.S.
Yahoo!/Softbank had the best offering: 12Mbps DSL for ~ US$19/month!!! This would be amazing in the U.S., but factor in that Tokyo is a ridiculously expensive city, and it's even more amazing. A cappucino in my mid-range business hotel costs ~ $6.
What do we need to do for that kind of service here? I am paying over 3x that much, for a 1.5Mbps DSL service.
In most cases, the cable internet situation is in fact a monopoly. If Cox, RoadRunner, AT&T, et. al. actually went head-to-head in THE SAME MARKETS, then you'd have oligopoly. Unfortunately, most municipalities have one cable franchise with a long-term license. Here in Mass., it doesn't really matter whether Cox offers cable modem service for $30/month in Georgia (I know, probably not true, just a hypothetical situation); Cox isn't an option here. If you want cable modem service, it's either AT&T for nearly $50/month or "Hit the road, Jack." A situation where one must spend several thousand dollars to move to a town with a different cable company is not my idea of competition at work.
In terms of broadband access as a whole, many places are lucky to have a duopoly (cable plus a single DSL provider). Slightly better, but still not enough competition for my blood: when one raises prices, the other is just as likely as not to sacrifice an increased market share and choose a higher price and profit margin.
Granted, there might be places where there really is an oligopoly at work, but my belief is that those places are the lucky, small minority. Now, if you had no choice (i.e. like auto insurance in most states, doing without was not an option) but to buy cable modem service from your city's franchisee, then I suppose one could say that cities with a less expensive cable company were competing on the cost of living there. I really hope the U.S. doesn't reach that point of corporate domination, however...
I can't speak for Korea, but in Japan the situation is no different for a startup broadband isp. Distribution of access might be better, but check out Professor Collins' post, below. NTT's blatant monopoly and unabashed abuse of power makes ATT's actions here seem insignifigant. The dot-com boom never happened in Japan. Can you guess (one of the major reasons) why?
For more info on Japan and NTT, look for Tim Clark's "Japan Internet Report".
At the same time, a coworker up the road from me in Daly City had a 1.5/784k ADSL for $69.00/mo.
I resigned and relocated to Westerly, RI and Cox Cable was my only choice. I now pay $109.00/mo. for 256/256 with 1 static address. The service is absolutely slush (and I'm on a "Business" class connection, no blocked ports, separate non-residential subnet, etc.). Cox has now started capping people below their subscribed bandwidth, and has begun to shut people out of their own cable modems, so you can't get traffic statistics from the modem any longer... even if you own the equipment!
The nearest DSL around here is from ChoiceOne, and it's 2x the price for 128k SDSL. I'm 2,000 feet from the CO. 1.5m SDSL from ChoiceOne here is $499.00/mo. That's almost what it would cost me to get a T1 dragged into my house.
That same friend recently moved from Daly City to Fremont, and now pays $79.00/mo. for his 1.5/768k DSL line and he also has a cable line, which he pays $29.00/mo. for. He's getting two broadband connections at more than 10x my speeds, for less than I pay for one cable connection, per month.
Broadband pricing varies WILDLY from location to location, even a few miles apart, from the same providers and CO.
And for those who don't know what the "Brass Rail" pricing is, "..just firmly grasp this brass rail on the front of my desk as I step behind you for a moment.." -Broadband Provider
It just struck me that the USA is increasingly seems to be getting behind when it comes to new technology.
Broadband is just one example where the USA lags behind other parts of the first world. Mobile telephones is another where the Euros and Japanese seem to be in the lead. With technologies such as Digital Cameras, Camcorders, DVD etc. Japan seems to be clearly in the lead. The XBox is trying to catch up with the Japanese PlayStation and Gamecube. With cars, it seems that the Germans increasingly have the lead.
Thinking through all the technology I have, hardly any of it is American. My laptop is Sony. My mobile phone is Ericcson. My car is German. My watch is Swiss. My DVD, television, Playstation, PDA etc. are all Japanese. My building architechture is European. About the only American technology I have is a HP printer.
The funny thing is that this is probably going to provoke a load of responses from Americans saying what bullshit it is to suggest that the USA does not lead the world in technology and it will probably get modded down to -1. Go on then. Whatever.
I think it's time we had a good, healthy debate on whether or not America is a good country. That matter has been swept under the rug for FAR TOO LONG on the internet.
As a side note, I defy anyone out there to give me a single good reason to buy a $70.00/month broadband connection (the cheapest that's available out here in the boonies). For what? Download songs? I can do that on a dialup. Download movies? I can pay less per month and get them on DVD. None of my favorite sites require broadband.
So what's the point? I can think of a hell of a lot more things to do with that money...
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Actually, I suspect it's more of a case that dial-up is an entrenched market in the US whereas it wasn't in either Japan or Korea. Oh, sure, it existed and people used it, but they hadn't had the years of dial-up exposure before cable and DSL hit the scene like the US did. Again, dial-up is an entrenched market. Sure, the limited pool of cable/DSL providers may have something to do with it, but lets get some perspective here.
As to the "And, as usual, we learn that countries such as Japan and Korea are far ahead of the US in terms of innovation and technological saturation." bit, Gee... no biased there, huh? Granted, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in their workforce and schools as well, in addition to the huge number of unreported rape cases, but hey, they are saturated with innovative technology... As usual. It's not nessisarily the topic, I realize, but loaded comments like that so irk me.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I think that yours is just a case of bad luck (DSL problem) rather than general Canadian problems.
The DSL market in Canada is actually wonderfully competitive. The govt. regulators did a good job in forcing the monopoly telcos to offer up the last mile at (almost) reasonable wholesale rates. In most major cities you have several DSL suppliers to choose from.
Cable broadband, however, is not open. If the regulators would do the same thing to cable that they did to telephone broadband, Canada would be broadband nirvana.
Here in SF, I have one option for broadband at home - ADSL. Cable modems are beginning to show up, but are not available for me yet. All other options (other than leeching off others 802.11b) are more costly.
The cost, per month, is $50, from PacBell. Of this, $40 is the rental fee to use the same line they had already installed for my phone. Due to government regulation, anyone can be my ISP, as long as they pay PacBell $40 per month to rent the line. This process effectively killed all competition, since the ISP margin is razor-thin, whereas PacBell is raking it in. Now, the ADSL works fine, outages are rare, and service is pretty good (excepting the slow time to get connected after ordering). But if the line rental were $10/month (or even $20/month - about what local phone service costs), I would have something that approached the value I receive. Remember - this uses the SAME LINE that my phone uses.
Recently I visited Japan. The hotel had free high speed access with DHCP. This wasn't even a costly hotel. It is seemingly ubiquitous there. And the blame in the US is a complete lack of appropriate government regulation on the people who own the lines.
The funny thing is, I signed up for DSL 3 years ago, and got a static IP address. Recently I moved, and now I have to use PPPoE - for the same price. That is right, after three years, they offer me worse DSL service for the same price. Something is rotten in Denmark.
I've always suspected that reguar high speed internet connections (T1, OC3, etc...) are horribly overpriced. The broadband connections are probably closer to what it actually costs per byte to offer that kind of service. The problem with the traditional high speed solutions is that they are priced for businesses, which don't mind paying $1500/month for a 1.5Mb connection. There wasn't enough competition to lower the price, and the businesses weren't balking at the prices like a home user would.
I read the internet for the articles.
...Okay whatever. I don't think so but apparently anyone with an opinion that differs is a troll.
It has been pointed out in previous commentaries that the main reason why many other countries can achieve a higher amount of technical sophistication is the cost of roll-out.
Japan is a lot smaller than the US. They can deploy new technologies with the risk [cost] of failure a great deal lower. In addition to that, US consumers don't often pay the prices that the Japanese routinely pay.
History has shown, however, that companies in the US have to be forced into compliance and into change very often. For example, the mandate of touch tone service... the utility commissons of various states had to insist they upgrade their equipment.
Broadband is another matter since it's not yet seen as a "utility" as I consider it to be. Soon enough it will be I think... give it about 5 years.
Price has nothing to do with it for me, availability does. I can't get cable, dsl, or anything. I live in a heavily populated near suburb of Chicago so it's not like I'm out in the styx either. If I can't get it at any price, then price doesn't even enter the equation.
You can promote socialism all you want, but you cannot discredit an economic system that doesn't exist.
Okay, you've piqued my curiosity now. The U.S. isn't a pure free market economy -- I can accept that. So are there any examples of a pure free market economy in the world? If not, which countries qualify as the closest to pure?
How would you respond to the suggestion that no pure free market economies exist for the same reason that no pure communist states exist? That is, perhaps society demands some degree of compromise between these two ideals, and where countries differ is in the blend?
I work at an independant ISP in northern California. We offer broadband DSL, using SBC's DSLAMS. DSL is distance sensitive. If a customer is too far out from the DSLAM, a repeater (RTCLLI) is necessary to keep the signal clean. Part of our agreement with SBC that allows us to use their DSLAMS and sell DSL is that we can't use the repeaters. If we do, all traffic becomes property of SBC. So, if a potential customer is too far out for a direct connection, but is in the range of the repeater, we can't service the customer. They must go with SBC. Can't tell you how much that sucks.
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Actually, you CAN get cable modem access in the NWT and probably the Yukon as well.
No really, can you come over my house and tell me which soaps and cereals to buy too? Hey maybe you could tell me which sexual positions to use because of course it comes straight from God's brain to your keyboard.
Get this straight Nimnertz:
Your usage is not my usage. My usage requires it. My dialup was capped at 21.6kbaud, there is no xDSL and there never will be and ISDN is hundreds of dollars a month plus 1500 in setup charges. If it were not for Earthlink or Roadrunner I would not have multiple computers in my house. I would probably not have a job since I could not work at home and I have to work from home at least sometimes.
I get at least 1Mbps rock steady on cable and I would not move to new home without it.
It may be convenient to blame 300 pound gorilla monopolies, capital markets, and even the FCC chairman for the pitiful state of broadband in this country....but the real story is way more complicated that that.
Throughout America's history, every nationwide, life altering technology was deployed by private companies with financial assistance from the federal government. Technologies like electrical power, public roads, running water, fuel, even the telephone, were all deployed with the assistance of the US government. This is why most households have access to running water, electricity, and telephones.
How do the people on captital hill expect broadband to have universal, affordable deployment without government help? It is painfully obvious that the private sector and capital markets are not up to the task. These instiutions require a quick return on investment to keep the rank and file happy. Deploying a network on this scale is VERY capital intensive and will not show big returns for decades due to slow adoption rates (it took cell phones 20 years to get to where they are now).
Wake up Washington! If you want to get the economy going, it's time to create a government authority with the money and resources necessary to deploy (or assist in the deployment) of a nationwide broadband network. This program would have a similar effect as the parks program during the depression...it will create jobs, better the nation's infrastrucutre and feed a future economic recovery.
-ted
About your comment on adding numbers from the phone book, thereg just put this story up about that :)
Regulation is not the answer. Look at the CA power crisis. It occurred because government regulation caused there to be no real profit in CA energy. Therefore, there was no incentive to build new power plants, even though the increase in demand was obvious. Now, only after threat of blackouts and therefore loss of re-election by govt. officials, is anyone doing anything about the power crisis in CA. If you allow broadband to be regulated, you will have a similar situation. The network will become so overused due to lack of incentive for upgrades, that the effective bandwidth users will get will decrease instead of increasing over time. We'll start seeing commercials to conserve bandwidth by not using your computer during peak hours. The solution is to allow competing companies to lay their own redundant phone lines and cable. This will allow real competition. Deregulation of long distance has been successfull when more than one company has its own network. We just need to fix the "last mile" problem in the same manner.
Vote for Pedro
You're just noticing this? Not that I disagree with most of it, but you're neglecting a minor point-- Most of the R&D is "made in the USA" when it comes to technology, and farmed out to foreign markets for production. And just for something to chew on, who developed the technology for the CPU in your computer? Your high end graphics card? Who has been the leader in computer developemnt and innovation for the last few decades? Not saying your wrong, but it's a relevant point to study. When it comes to stuff like this, I think America is on the wrong side of the scales. It's not national pride when I say more stuff should be made in America... It's financial security. Hey, lets go to war with... China. Ow. That's gonna seriously hurt the marketplace for a bit. We're way over-leveraged when it comes to our relaince on foreign markets for daily items. World trade is good... To a point. Unfortunately, the US is past that point.
Fact is (speaking as an American if it isn't already obvious), the US is the leader in technological development, not always, however, in its application into the market at large. I think Japan has everybody beat in that arena...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
If you're unfortunate enough to live in a rural area as I and my henchmen do, most of the towns simply do not offer broadband regardless of what you are willing to pay. The phone lines are outdated, the infrastructure has to be completely redone, and we can't offer them enough of a customer base to make it profitable.
I suppose that ties in with the point made elsewhere about how the sheer land mass of the USA makes connectivity difficult... there are MILLIONS of us scattered out here in cornfield
country with simply no choice for broadband, period.
(You know you're in the sticks when AOL doesn't even offer a local dialup # for you...)
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
The reason most people don't have broadband is because there isn't any fine, high quality content on the internet for them to download! And the reason for that is because the poor media companies know that making that stuff available will lead to rampant piracy of said content. That's why we NEED to support CBDTPA, because it's entire purpose is to promote broadband! I mean, that's why it's called the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act. It's right there in the name! The fact that it gives media conglomerates obscene amounts of control over what basic electronics and personal computers can do is merely beside the point.
Yeah, right.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
Actually, what you have here is the opposite of a free market--you have an over-regulated series of local monopolies with rent-seeking regulatory bodies .
Adam Smith's insight was when you put business and government together, you get corruption and the consumer gets screwed. If it's senators and laws are making the decisions of who gets to buy what and what gets sold, then it's not a free market.
Telecommunications de-regulation was simply telecom re-regulation, a botched job, and is being attributed to everything except the inability of governments to fairly and productively regulate a "public resource" such as privately-built wires over private property.
The Alberta Supernet
:)
Not to mention that cablecos and telcos have been providing steady, stable, and inexpensive broadband in the major centres for 4+ years.
I love living here.
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
Backbone prices are falling through the floor. T1s to the internet can be had for as little as $200/month in some areas. The telcos would love to be able artificially inflate backbone prices, but competition has driven the price down. ALL the high costs of boradband are in the last mile.
Anyway, I'm in Frederick, and I'm so sick of the housing situation here, I'm ready to move back to Ohio. Friggin people spending $300k on a damn townhouse. They deserve to loose their shirts when the bottom falls out of the real estate market here.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Cable and phone companies rarely compete with one another, and both have effectively discouraged independent service providers (ISPs) like MindSpring or EarthLink from using their connections.
Kinda hurts your credibility if you don't understand something so basic...
What exactly the fuck do you know about my life? So stick to what you actually know instead of what you think the rest of us should appreciate about you, asshole.
And, as usual, we learn that countries such as Japan and Korea are far ahead of the US in terms of innovation and technological saturation.
Saturation...maybe, but the U.S. is behind in technological innovation?! Give me a break. Take a second and think about who innovated the technologies you are using right now to read this message. Yep, the Internet was a U.S. creation. So was the transistor, and the integrated circuit, and the microprocessor, and the web browser (i know, berners-lee wasn't U.S.), and the cell phone. Shall I go on? What else do we sit in front of for more than an hour a day? Television? Yep, another U.S. innovation. Automobile? Ok, the Germans invented the first auto but it became mainstream because of U.S. innovation. Ballpoint pen? CRT monitor? Microwave?
The U.S. still produces the most innovative ideas. Other countries, such as Japan, are more efficient and better at manufacturing but we still come up with new ideas and products more often than other countries. Sure, there are numerous exceptions...the Sony Walkman comes to mind. However, take an inventory of what products and technologies you use daily and do a little research as to who came up with them first.
Oh! I thought the reason I didn't havw broadband was that cable blows away DSL in terms of raw speed, so I'm waiting for that.
Thanks for clearing that up.
It's been a long time.
Gradually recouping the cost of laying fiber and of keeping some equipment alive is a no-brainer business!
The real expense comes in being recruited into a polcing role to enforce the interests of others (like RIAA) because of the DCMA.
Qwest one day just turned off my DSL after a year of service, resulting in my first ever call(s) to their tech support line, after several hours of hold/idiot/hold/idiot/hold/idiot They told me it had been turned off, they wouldn't tell me why, only that a FedEX was on it's way. Well, the next day an overnight FedEX ($14) informed me that MPAA had sent an email claiming that I was distributing a copy of "101 Dalmations"! WTF! I've never seen the movie, it's certainly not something I'm going to waste my bandwidth sharing, even if I had it.
Cost to MPAA to send Qwest an email - $0.00
Cost to Qwest to enforce interests of MPAA
$14 - Sending FedEx
$30 - 50 minutes of Tech support call time!
$20 - to deactivate and reactivate the service
at least $64.00!
Cost to me for MPAA's mistake - 2 days broadband withdrawal pain, 3 hours wasted on the phone.
The other main expense is supporting customers that won't RTFM! If Joe consumer wants on-(the phone)-line training they should pay for it not me just because we use the same ISP.
If legislation continues to increase the cost to ISPs, the cost to consumers will continue to rise in direct proportion (plus a margin).
...or the Ulysseses ($50), but that doesn't have that cool ring to it.
Your average consumer doesn't want to cough up fifty bucks for broadband. I'm not an expert on bandwidth costs, but I'm willing to bet that they'd find bandwidth a lot less expensive if they ever really had to compete for customers.
My guess is that in a few years, it's theoretically possible for people to have cable modem speeds for $20 a month -- what the average person is willing to pay. The problem is, with broadband costs still ridiculously high, there's little incentive for average folks to jump on the (brace yourself for a bad pun) "band" wagon. Hell, I don't like paying fifty a month for my cable modem.
So are there any examples of a pure free market economy in the world? If not, which countries qualify as the closest to pure?
According to the "Economic Freedom of the World" report from the Cato Institute, the most free economies are Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by the USA, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and Switzerland.
It should be noted, of course, that economic freedom is different depending on where you are. For example, the UK has introduced private alternatives to their old-age pension system, whereas meddling with Social Security in the US is still the "third rail" of politics.
Western European countries generally ranked high in all areas except size of government and labor market regulation.
Life expectancy is higher among more economically free nations, and they also enjoy higher levels of income and faster levels of growth. The poorest 10% earn much more income in economically free countries.
The bottom five nations in terms of economic freedom were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Guinea-Bissau, Algeria and Ukraine. However North Korea and Cuba were not included in the report since their data is not available.
300 kroner ($27) a month for 10mbit in sweden.
Everybody just assumes that USA is slow or incompetent.
Only because that's what the evidence suggests.
This is the first time I've seen soembody bring up the point that the United States has a LOT of ground to cover.
True, but Canada has EVEN MORE ground to cover, and we don't have the same problems as you. As an example, take Morinville, Alberta. Population of 6400. They have access to both Cable AND ADSL. And at reasonable prices ($35-42CDN per month.)
And Morinville is not alone (I just use it as an example because I happen to know lots of people who live there.) As another poster pointed out, even Inuvik has broadband.
Most other countries are roughly the size of 1 (one) of our states.
Most, but not all, and there are bigger countries than you that don't have this problem.
I recently moved to the Orlando Florida metro area. I have previously lived and had broadband access in San Diego California, Phoenix Arizona, and Denver Colorado.
In San Diego California, around 1998-1999, I had access to a Time Warner cable Internet ring. No other competing broadband services existed at the time other than perhaps ISDN, though that was not viable due to costs. Rates were usually between 128Kbps and 1200Kbps bidirectional with 20 - 80ms latency to the first hop. The rate and latency varied wildly at times but you could usually get through. I could get only one static IP address assigned to me if I begged for it if I remember correctly. I think I paid around $100 monthly for this service.
In Phoenix Arizona between 1999 - 2001 I had varied choices at different apartments for Cox @Home cable Internet service, ISDN to Primenet (for who I worked, otherwise would not have been viable), and at one point Sprint offered a wireless service that was being market tested and later was canceled and folded. DSL was never available to any of my apartment complexes because I was either out of range (Scottsdale) or the End Office was not equipped with a DSLAM yet. Some other areas had DSL access through Northpoint, Covad, Jato, and Qwest. Jato was the first to go, then Northpoint. Covad pulled some DSLAMs and Qwest installed more. Getting static IP addresses from anyone other than Northpoint, Covad, or Qwest was not possible. Qwest gets bonus points for allowing DSL customers to get a
In Denver Colorado between 2001 - 2002 I had an apartment which I could get DSL through Covad or Qwest only. AT&T Broadband was available only seven months after I first moved in to a brand new apartment complex. The complex was all wired with Cat5, which made me happy. I was 17400 feet from the Qwest CO. I chose Qwest DSL service. I got an ADSL line, DMT signaling, PPPoATM, routed, Cisco CPE and Cisco DSLAM, 40ms to first hop consistently, 640Kbps bidirectional. The CPE cost me almost $300, but a free PCI Intel card was given to me. The service was $150 or so every month for 640Kbps bidirectional and a
Here in Orlando Florida where I have just moved, I found that getting BellSouth DSL in an apartment complex is completely impossible. Every apartment complex which I looked in, and I did look over the entire west side metro area, either was out of range or used Digital Line Compression (DLC), which breaks DSL. Time Warner cable Intenet services are available in almost all of the complexes, but user complaints are high and no allocations under any conditions. No wireless out here. I am screwed for any kind of IP allocation unless I own a house right next to the EO. BellSouth will do IP allocations, but they are bridged with PPPoE (BAD and completely defeating the purpose) using Alcatel DSLAMs in most cases, but it will really cost me to get any kind of upload speed like I had in Denver.
But rejoice! I have found an Oasis. An apartment complex where some little limp-dick piddly place called Orlando Telephone Company (website made by "ImageProz") who offers a strange VDSL solution using Cisco Long Reach Ethernet switches in the complex. They do not advertize anything about their service and the techs have no clue about what they are doing with their equipment. Check this out, the connection allows for 1500Kbps bidirectional, which I almost always get. They give me access to Time Warner DNS servers because they do not have their own. They use DHCP to lease out real world IP addresses, but they have misconfigured their server so that ANY MAC that requests an IP off of my line gets an IP address -- as many as I want! All for $55 per month with a $100 deposit for the Cisco 575 LRE CPE. Oh, another minor issue -- no neighbor can communicate with any other neighbor because the ISP uses "port protected" but not VLANs on their switches. Thus, no customer port can communicate with any other customer port. A rather broken network I would say, but they do not know how to trunk the VLANs to a router port. Oh well.
So, Orlando really sucks for broadband. Nobody knows what they are doing here, or access is just not available. Getting static IP allocations seems to be a growing problem, preventing users from being real members of the Internet.
See my earlier comments on the number of Internet users in the U.S. and worldwide:
> Once you have it you can never go back. Never.
:)
I guess that depends on what you used it for, and whether you have fast net access at work. I use the net basically for email and news/info, and occasional chat with some friends who don't live near me anymore. I don't tend to play games on my computer (that's what the Dreamcasts, Playstations, etc. are for).
I have a fast connection in my office should I need to download a large file - say the latest release of Open Office.
So why should I pay $50 a month *at home* for broadband?
I haven't been able to come up with a convincing reason yet.
> Most people that do not have indoor plubming
> also claim that it is far too expensive.
Bad analogy. A more apt one would be, say, your house is equipped with a low-flow toilet. Is it worth the cost to buy an old-school flush toilet so you've only gotta flush once after a trip to the Chinese place?
-- Rick
Anyone interested in following up on this "mound of documentation" of his? I certainly don't have the expertiese to pursue an FTC action or anything like it but maybe someone out there would be interested. I don't know if he's still contactable since last I heard he took off with the remnants of his equipment to another state somewhere that he didn't specify but if there's someone who is reputable (ie: connected with EFF or other verifiable institution with a history and appropriate absence of conflicts of interest) I might be convinced to try and track him down based on the contacts I have.
Seastead this.
What the fuck is up with that? If you're so sick of the perceived lack of technology here, move to Korea or Japan, you fucking whiner.
Because I'm not a lazy slob like you who just accepts his crappy situation and won't do anything to change it.
I believe America can do better. I would hardly think it's that radical a notion but from the incoherent "love or leave it" arguments that jarheads like you constantly screech, I'm apparently wrong.
So I have to ask, why do you hate America so much? Why don't you want to make it a better country to live in? Why are you such a quitter?
The FCC determined that the Internet wasn't a 'telecommunications service' hence the Comm. Act of 1996 doesn't apply to it. They've already cut back cable TV's requirement to allow competing ISP's onto the cable...and Chairman Powell came out with a statement that ILEC's "can do the best job of providing broadband". I guess that the Qwest/MSN alliance can give me the best broadband experience? Let me clue you in: I had it and it simply sucked! The CLEC'S well know that things are tenuous for them....trust me..I know my DSL ISP and they're bummed that the FCC is probably going to leave them out in the cold..and they do a great job, too! As far as my land grab statement: The Comm Act of 1996 also deregulated Radio and TV allowing companies like Clear Channel to happen.
It's not surprising that Toronto and other cities have decent broadband, particularly considering the higher tax rates in Canada than the USA. However, I doubt that the rest of Canada has good residential broadband service.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Comparing something like this in the US to Japan and Korea doesn't make any sense at all. They have much less space to deal with, and a far smaller rural population. The US is full of big empty spaces and would better compared to Russia or China as far as how many people are connected.
... the idiots can't even distinguish between static and dynamic IP addresses.
... the same as the 1.5 Mbit SDSL I had from another ISP three years ago.
That is complete and utter bullshit.
I live in downtown Chicago. Out of my window I can see ground zero ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ the Sears Tower, which is a short 5-10 minute walk away. I am in the heart of the financial district, probably the most connected part of the city.
I cannot get decesnt Broadband, and believe me, with the demise of Sprint ION and my soon-to-go-away 8mbit ADSL service, I've been looking.
RCN? Crappy broadband service, flakey network, connections which crawl during peak hours.
Ameritech? The less said the better
XO? Covad? Not bad, but to get circuits analogous to the 128 kbit service I had years ago costs $80
With the demise of so many DSL providors, Sprint being the latest, affordable, quality DLS or broadband simply doesn't exist, and the reason is exactly as the article states: SBC Ameritech and their ability to use their last mile monopoly to fuck with the market, thanks to that corporate slut at the FCC, Colin Powell's son.
Broadband is less available now, in one of America's largest cities, than it was just a couple of year ago, and what is more, it is less avaiable here, in the heart of Chciago, than it is in typical rural portions of Western Canada, as numerous people fortunate enough to live north of our borders have pointed out several times in this thread already.
Nepotism, cronyism, and George W. Bush are who we have to thank for this fiasco more than anyone else, and I for one hold those corrupt, evil fucks personally responsible.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
According to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, telecommunications services have to grant open access to their facilities, but information services do not. By defining telephone broadband as an information service--a designation originally intended for content providers like LexisNexis--the FCC removed it from regulation, allowing the Baby Bells to ban other ISPs from transmitting over their lines. The next month Powell struck again--getting his majority to declare that cable-based broadband was "an interstate information service" and not either a "telecommunication service" or a "cable service." Here again, by defining cable broadband as an information rather than a telecommunication service, Powell permitted cable to ban other providers from using their lines. Moreover, by defining cable as an "interstate" information service rather than a "cable service," he removed it from any local regulation over prices and service. I rest my case....
Mod this guy up, he's on to something.
I remember reading an article about some scientist in the USSR who had the privelege of leaving the country on a trip because of his prominence. Before he was going to go back to his country, someone asked him what he will miss the most once he's back home. His answer: photocopiers. Apparently, the USSR very tightly regulated photocopiers, so it was available to almost no one. He would have to copy scientific articles by hand.
I suppose the fact that he said "napster" and not P2P makes his comment seem outdated, but essentially what he's saying is entirely true. Someone please mod him up.
Sources. In anycase, I didn't say we were the end all be all of technology. Just a major force in it. And I do think "leader" is an apt discription. Production? Oh hell no. We're outsourcing so much of our production as is unhealthy. Neither am I saying Europe as a whole isn't a major force in technology. To say otherwise is a misake. But to simply right the US off as a minor player as is implied is kinda (very) shortsighted.
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I'm currently doing battle with the Quintessentially Worst Example of a Stupid Telco (bet you didn't know that Qwest was an accronym!) to get them to let a Covad reseller provide me with sDSL since they can't/won't. Needless to say, the last thing Qwest wants is a "competitor" even where they aren't competing.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Greed of the people or business?
That's codgeco: the single worst cable provider in Canada. Shaw had to replace almost everything when they bought my home town's cable service from them before they could even outpreform the classic antennas.
Not sure what happened there everyone else(Roger's shaw, videotron) seems to be better.
Aside from the gratuitous and annoying bashing of Republicans, it was an interesting article. However, it missed the real reason that broadband is such a pain in the ass.
About 4 years ago, I got a cable modem from Marcus, our local cable provider. The infrastructure was designed so that few homes would share a line, and the speeds were estimated to max out at 6Mbit/6Mbit. There was no cap on bandwidth. There was no hassle about servers. I had 5 static IPs for $45 or so per month. I did not get any cable TV service. The provider was @Home, but I ignored them. Marcus' tech support was clueful and useful, the few times I had to call them. Uptime was excellent.
Charter bought out Marcus about 2 years ago, I think. The first thing that happened was that the prices started rising (to about $55 per month). Then the bandwidth got capped at 3Mbit/512Kbit. Then they hassled me about the server. Then the uptime started getting a little iffy. Then they required that I have basic cable service in order to get the cable modem, split the fees, and ended up charging another $5 per month net. Then they tried to rent me the cable modem I owned (that failed when I threatened them). On top of all of this, their technical support was miserably uninformed and useless.
When @Home died, I lost the ability to get static IPs (DHCP only) and the price was going to go up. Despite my $200 investment in a cable modem, I switched to DSL from Verizon. The cost was about $55 per month, the data rates were OK, but they set me up on the wrong service plan. I was unable to get static IPs, and to switch from the (wrongly-provisioned) home service to the business service (complete with IPs) would not only take 3 weeks, with all of the coordinating done by me (even though Verizon owned both DSL services, the modem, the phone line and so forth), but it also cost me another $30 per month to switch over, and I'd have to send back my DSL modem and get another one! On top of that, their uptime was not good, and their tech support was clueless. (Once, I called them to let them know that their nameservers were down. The tech support person told me it was not them, it was me, and that I would have to fix my problem. Note, I was on the DHCP only service, and was using their nameservers, etc., with nothing on my end but clients. I asked the tech to go check, and he came back with (I kid not!) "I can't check, because the network is down.")
I decided to get Earthlink's DSL, because I could get a static plus several dynamic addresses for $65 per month without any hassle about servers, and with better bandwidth, and because the sales guys appear clued in. I didn't want to wait weeks without service, so I reattached my cable modem and got it turned on for the interim period. I was told that for $45 or so per month, I could get 5 dynamic IP addresses. (Bandwidth now 384Kbit/128Kbit!!! and no possibility of static IPs.) When it was hooked up, I could only get three. I called tech support, and was told I was on the wrong package. I should only have one. Tappity, tappity, voila! Two of my computers stopped working. Call to sales got my package upgraded to one that "supports home networking" for another $10 per month. Still no additional addresses. Call to tech support informs me that while my package supports home networking, I had not purchased any additional addresses. Call to sales gets me 4 additional dynamic addresses for $7 per month each, total now up to $85 or so. I can get 3 addresses. When I bring my laptop home from work to use the VPN, I have to unplug the cable modem, turn off all of the machines, plug in the cable modem, and turn on the machines in the order that I want them connected to the network. Usually, I can get three, and sometimes four, to work at one time. I have stopped calling customer service or tech support, because they don't want to help me very much, and appear unable to help if they wanted to. I am expecting the Earthlink service to be working any day now, so I can shut off the Charter crap.
In the end, bad customer service, high prices and terrible difficulty just making things work will drive me off of traditional broadband. I am looking very seriously at moving to a community that has broadband installed throughout and run by the homeowners' association (they are building a number of these in my region now) rather than put up with the hassle of dealing with any of these companies. Maybe Earthlink will save me (I've heard good things) or maybe I'll move.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Try not to confuse societal issues with technological issues. Cell phones take off in countries where land lines are expensive. Console saturation is high where PC penetration is low. Architecture is a cultural aspect outside of basic considerations for stuctural soundness.
Political issues are also not technological ones. Government granted monopolies are the reason broadband adoption is slow. Cheap foreign labor is why most production is farmed out to other countries - how much you wanna bet that Sony laptop is 100% made in Japan?
A much more accurate assessment of technological prowess, if such a thing matters, is Research and Development. Does it really matter that your Gamecube is "Japanese" if the chips powering it were developed by IBM and ATI?
How many different places did the technology for your digital camera come from? Who owns and collects on the patents? Cars are even more complex, believe it or not.
If a laptop is manfactured in Taiwan for a Japanese company using technology from the U.S. and chips made by a European-owned factory in Singapore, and then loaded with an OS from Microsoft... does it make a sound?
Who cares if it means more U.S. bashing! Woo!
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
he govt. regulators did a good job in forcing the monopoly telcos to offer up the last mile at (almost) reasonable wholesale rates.
Probably not for long.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
One county near to me watched its revenues crash to the point where they couldn't pay teachers or policemen. So they voted to reinstitute a car tax to keep them solvent. Gilmore went out of his way to try and get rid of the county government. But hey- he cut taxes! What more do you need?
*You know you're a moron when the RNC fires your ass after only a year. Took him almost nine months to find another job.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I am getting 512kb/s for $30 a month. It's only $20 for 256kb/s. I am using Charter cable, powered by HSA Corp. The only other choice is bellsouth DSL (BLECH).
I can run a server through it (here) and connect as many computers as I want directly to it.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It's not as bad in Canada, but in Ontario and Quebec, Bell, Videotron and Rogers Cable are starting to impose download/upload caps (combined) at ridiculously low levels of 5 Gb per month.
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of alternative DSL ISP's. Most of them can be found at:
canadianisp.com
You can search by region, price, and service type, and each ISP's details (per dial-up, DSL or both) are listed in a table with such information as low-end price, high-end price, upload caps, download caps, allows usenet, webservers, or webspace.
This space left intentionally blank.
While you're idea might sound neat in theory, you need to add some basic common sense.
- WHERE I AGREE -
1. Our government IS too large.
2. 50% tax rate is way too much.
- WHERE I DISAGREE -
Anarchy isn't 100% pure Capitalism
Go to Africa if you want to see your extreme form of capitalism at work or any other fucked up area on the earth where governments don't protect people from enterprising warlords.
Real Capitalism needs a Foundation
First you need a legal framework that applies to everybody equally. Then you'll need institutions to enforce and execute the law. You'll need to make sure these institutions are resistant to corruption, especially when the goal of corruption is to circumvent the law. If you don't, you end up modeling yourself after many 3rd world countries.
Here's the real truth: You don't have a clue as to why capitalism has worked in many first world countries and why it's done very little in many third-world countries.
Here's a hint: Turn off the pundant on the radio, he's probably a divisive asshole who's just trying to get ratings by making his listeners feel vindicated when he explains the real simple answer.
You'll figure it out when you realize you're not as smart as you think you are.
Lastly, Realizing your stupidity is the first step towards getting smarter. I should know. I got this smart by realizing my stupidity A LOT. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but give it a shot! Admit to yourself you don't have a fucking clue, and you're really making up answers.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
You mentioned strong property rights...
I didn't notice that...
That changes everything...
Now can you why comparing pure capitalism to anarchy is a bad idea? Anarchy suggests no legal framework. Use minimal government instead, suggesting anarchy gets guys like me in a fit.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
.. idiots. I got a flyer yesterday from Cablevision telling me all about family cable and their high speed cable modems.
I have both already.
Live web cams
Does anyone know of a good source of fresh statistics for connection speeds? For general web stats, The Counter has decent free aggregate stats for things like browser, OS, monitor resolution, etc. But I'd really like to find something similar for bandwidth speeds. Any ideas?
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
Oh brother.
a.) Canada only has a population of 30 million.
b.) Name two countries as big as USA both in size and in population that have high percentages of broadband.
"Derp de derp."
You forgot about his oh-so technologically advanced German car... And how that pertains to the topic, I have no idea considering. And since we're straying off the topic, lets not forget how the Dodge Viper has been dominating the LeMans...
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Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Please explain. They say that Canada is the most connected country.
"They" actually were saying the government wanted to *make* Canada the most connected country. How about this quote:
"Canada ranks second in overall connectivity only to the United States (Conference Board, January 2001)."
Here's the article.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Alberta doesn't have anything on Saskatchewan for broadband. You can get ADSL from Sasktel in almost any town or city with a hospital, school, or government building with more to come. Sasktel was the first to offer ADSL in North America, with access in Saskatoon and Regina, then a few months later in Moose Jaw and Swift Current. I think you could get broadband in Swift before you could in Calary, but I could be mistaken.
Not to mention that cablecos and telcos have been providing steady, stable, and inexpensive broadband in the major centres for 4+ years.
We've had it in the major centres for 6 years now.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
I think there's growing evidence that the marketplace will soon find its own solution to dawdling on the last mile over monopoly-owned wires.
Wireless.
Already I see where more than a few people are foregoing traditional land-line voice service in favor of cellular wireless phones. That same trend you're seeing for plain old voice traffic will be mimicked for IP service.
With all the war{walking,chalking,driving,flying} going on, I can see where a few strategically-placed public access points (maybe 802.11a with directional antennas) will start an avalanche of users to using wireless for their IP service needs.
Maybe then some of us poor slob end-users can start to see some benefits from that 12 month doubling period for BW/cost ratio on fat pipes.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Actually, I have to agree with your assessment. Too many advantages for the entrenched monolith and too few for the up and coming innovator. The small business has more penalties working against it than ever via the US government. Combine that with the "defenders advantage", your idea has to be pretty outstanding to make it off the ground (depending on the business environment). Small business innovators are what led to the America's boom (despite the current economical bump) and they need better protection. The government needs to take a cue from nature-- Offspring generally get picked off by the bigger fish before they have a chance to grow. You either have lots of offspring (we have a bit of that going for us thankfully) or you protect them. Ideally, you do both. It's the individual that made the US great, not the corporate monolith. Even those had to start somewhere.
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Far better than using taxpayers money on things like the DCMA (usa), RIP (uk) or bombing the shit out of [insert favourite rebel country].
Universal broadband is something i'd be more than happy to see government money spent on.
I prefer the Old Republic with all them Jedi Knights and shit. Oh, and Natalie Portman.
graspee
All this discussion reeks of very short memories.
It was only a decade ago, or less, that you were
just as likely for your phone company to imply that you were some kind of deviant for having a
modem, especially if you wanted to use that modem
for *inbound* service. The smallest BBS ran the
risk of being pegged for "commercial" phone lines, on the whim of the telco. You'd have to think of ways to describe your line noise without explaining that you had a modem. Which was widely considered a very weird thing to have.
It has NOT been a long time since then, until today, when every joe, jon, and jeremy has some kind of internet service (albeit mostly dialup), but the MIRACLE that there is high speed wire AT ALL to ANY residential areas is not something we should be taking for granted.
When I started my "internet experience", 9600 baud wire to the home would have been $300/year, the best I could get. Maybe a little better with my university connections, but not much.
Today I pay $100/mo to my ISP (for a routed block of IP's, so I can run my own DNS and services on a 1.5 megabit bidirectional DSL line), and I guess about $60/mo to my telco, for their extortionate price on the nothing that they actually do once the line was punched down. But you know what? I consider it a friggin MIRACLE that I can get that service AT ALL, for ANY price.
The message I get from the discussion is that people are upset that they can't get the service I get, and pay dearly for, at a price more like $30 bucks a month or something. To me the most significant thing about the situation is that I CAN'T MOVE, because I can't get a definite answer about whether I'll get this same DSL capability at a new address until AFTER I MOVE THERE.
To me, that's a bigger issue, and amounts to a far larger cost (opportunity cost) than the price of the service.
It's not that some people have and some people don't, but that you can't even find out in advance where you need to be if you want to be one of the people who have!
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Building out a high speed network "beefs up" the economy by providing high-tech jobs, encouraging spending on high-tech networking gear, built by high-tech employees....etc.
When the telephone was invented, the immediate application was for voice traffic only...that "voice only" network evolved into a massive data network that connects millions of computers (T1, T3, OC192, and others are really telephone circuits). Broadband to every household has an immediate application...the internet, but it will eventually evolve into a medium capable of carrying other services...video on demand (no more blockbuster trips), and other things not yet imagined.
Like the pharmaceutical industry, many new technological ideas evolve from unintended applications of existing technology. The military has advanced research projects that may, or may not, turn into useful defense technology, yet the research proceeds(the ARPANET turned into the present day internet). Unfortunately, many people in washington and wall street think like you, and are too focused on the short term. America needs to invest in its technology infrastructure to secure a better future.
The US markets are way to monolithic, and cannot really expand anymore. There is a variety of reasons for this.
As I have said many times before, this is OK when there is little outside competition.
But, the world grows smaller by the hour. Countries such as the far eastern block, will have massive production and technological break throughs that will crush our markets like a grape.
New innovations introduced by foreign countries, will create market upheaval on a scale that will make the market cap of Linux companies in the 90's seem like small potatoes...
This will result in the following:
1) No big tax revenues for the US.
2) No big armies or navies, or space programs, can't afford them.
3) No big investment in research infrastructure. Can't afford that either.
4) Have to send people to the far east to learn about new business methods and new technologies.
Sound familair? Thats what the up N comming nations of China and many far east countries do now.
All countries have a time and a place when they walk on the world stage and command attention.
The USA's era of dominance will come to a close in the 21st century. You WILL see it in your life time if you live in the US.
Primary reasons why this is:
1) Economic illness of the US economy due to the collusion between government and business is resulting in unhealthy markets for competition, slowing innovation to a crawl.
(i.e. examples include Microsoft, Cable Companies, Power and Energy, oil companies, etc.)
2) The corruption of our markets has just begun, and will continue as no real progress is made or planned by politicians who were bascially bought by the same people investors are screaming to be brought to justice.
A few executives will be sacrificed for scape goats to appease, but the vast majority of fraud, illicit and illegal business activities by major companies in this country will continue.
Just in a MUCH more secretive manner so that any bankruptcies are declared "bad business, bad economy, 9/11" and never a reason for corruption mentioned, with new and IMPROVED accounting measures congress is promising will "fix the situation".
3) "Bad business" will cause increasingly large flows of investor moneies in the US to foriegn markets that have FAR MORE future growth and the US has anyway.
This has in some ways already begun. It will simply speed up as people who invested in "blue chip" companies now, at 50, find thier entire retirement plans invested in some executives house, and is building his 4th one with thier retirement money.
4)As the US loses power and influence, do to the same strategies we imparted on our enemies in the USSR, economic warfare, we will be defeated by the very same people who were once our enemies. Not militarily, but by the sheer power of 3 Billion people unleashed in a much healthier free market system.
This will take about 50 years to come about, but it is plain too see, some of the largest projects in the world, are being built and attempted in the far east using construction and advanced computer technology never before applied ANYWHERE.
The future eyes of world look to the far east to lead us into the 22nd century, and our current politicians and CEO's and other business leaders, due to thier selfish interests, will hand that future to our Far East "friends" without batting a an eye lash.
At least I HOPE TO GOD they are our friends, because there will be very little we can do about if if they really DON'T want to be at that point.
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Yes, WTF is up w/ not being able to get DSL in San Jose, CA? All your base are belong to AT&T.... SBC Pacbell owns nine *9* of the original baby bells now. And AT&T "Broadband" is supposedly rolling out cable-modem service to a "select" portion of San Jose, CA... that's not all, they are also competing with PacBell by offering phone service and "Digital" cable. Screw that crap, $80 for utilities that used to cost $60. %$#@*@ city-hall and their goddamn "franchises." Pretty soon, you'll have to have a franchise license from the local gov't to run an ISP.
Oh, and PacHell wants to keep sucking on dumb-ass companies that pay $1k for internet access when they could *potentially* get 1.5M SDSL for $270. And forget the PacBell FUD that xDSL is a "best-effort" service; hell, all telco products are best-effort.
In conclusion... it makes you wonder what ISDN is going for these days.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Current restrictions on development of alternatives or enhancements to current DSL technologies are preventing many telcos (who otherwise couldn't care less, since they wouldn't want to lose precious business to middleman ISPs) from extending the range of their connectivity beyond 15,000 (or 2.8 miles) of their offices...
This leaves MASSIVE gaps in available service, and additionally, gives AT&T near broadband monopoly powers, because frankly, not everyone can afford to get alternative services (T3, ISDN, et al)... And of course, simply moving house to make sure you live a little closer to the phone company is ridiculously expensive (in most cases, installing the T3 may be cheaper)...
The fact that AT&T has the FCC in their pocket doesn't help anything either... I'd LOVE to have more choices, but currently am forced to subscribe to the evil empire, just to have decent bandwidth...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Yes, I understand there are other restrictions to industry in China for example.
But, the kinds and degree of restrictions I do not believe are the same as in Europe or USA. They don't have copyrights, DMCA laws, and patents to slow them down. They don't have a corporate legal system bent on destroying competition, or startups. They also don't have as many crooked politicians as we do.
Furthermore, I am will to bet, that the far east continues it progress that it has made, to even more open markets over the next 50 years.
Leaving the USA and Europe, in the dust.
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
It's true that Verizon and other American telephone companies have successfully gotten themselves classified as "information services", as a way of avoiding laws that require them to offer their lines to all customers. However, they argue on the other side of their mouths,too. In the recent interview about the Verizon VP about the DMCA, we see the argument:
...
The content community would like to expand the scope of the DMCA to have the service provider block infringing sites that are not located on our network and to use digital rights management tools to stop peer-to-peer transmissions. But these infringements occur on the users' hard drives, not (on) our networks. We're just a conduit.
So they don't need to provide lines to competitors, on the grounds that they are an information service, not a telecommunications service. But they shouldn't be held responsible for the data going across their lines, because they are a conduit, not an information supplier.
With government "regulation" like this, there's no surprise that the customers and competitors are all losing.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
BellSouth did this to me. I moved less than mile and lost DSL over it, without even changing phone numbers! I was first told that DSL was unavailable. This state lasted for two months. I killed my Telocity account. Next thing you know, a friendly BellSouth rep calls me to sell me DSL service! Great, I called Telocity and asked for them to reactivate my account - I still had my old modem and everything ready. Nope, BellSouth had still not closed my old account so I could not open up a new one AND I had to send back the old modem. By the time all that happened, DSL was no longer available again and has not been available for more than a year. I suspect that it never will be available until all DSL competitors are out of business and DSL is viewed as hoplessly slow and obsolete. Silly Bells. They will sit on their network and prevent people from using it until it is worthless. This is a blatant violation of federal law.
I now have a cable modem with blocked incoming http and mail ports. Federal law, however, does not require the cable folks to do much more than broadcast local TV stations. Suck. When will US lawmakers get a clue about what they are holding back?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.