Slashdot Mirror
Europe Net Users Now Outnumber US/Canada
palefish writes "From
this article in the
Media Guardian: According to Irish-based industry monitor Nua.com, Europe has almost 186 million users, while Canada and the US register 182 million. The difference may not seem substantial, but Europe is still a growing market. I've always thought of Europe as lagging somewhat behind the States in the internet uptake stakes (probably because some of our telecoms companies are yet to
understand the internet). So, I don't know about you lot, but this statistic came as a bit of a surprise to me."
Maybe there are some lessons we in the States can learn from our European friends!
------
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
This is not a suprising fact. The US is not ahead in technology. They have cell phones that make our look like 900mhz cordless.
www.oobersworld.com - For those that ride.
Does anyone know of any other statistics showing the rise of this trend?
Wonder if this explains why so many telecoms are going belly-up -- Americans aren't "getting it".
Click here or here.
Ok, this coming from a european based company?
According to Irish-based industry monitor Nua.com,
That's like me saying that I did a study that shows that I'm the best.
The anti-salmon
I would SERIOUSLY doubt this is true. Those of you who have web pages, look at your web stats, where are most people coming from? US probably. I know my webstats still show majority from US. I would like to know what this company based that research on, sounds really bogus to me.
I guess here in Europe we jumped some of the development steps and could deploy some newer technologies faster.
On the other hand, telecom in general might be more expensive here, so the telcos can offer Internet service "for free", ie. the price of the call itself.
Score:1, Unread
182 vs. 186 says nothing if you don't know how many live on each continent.
In other news, 77% of all Americans think Europeans are wusses based on a poll just made up by me.
the use of increasingly costly phone lines. Europe users have to pay the internet access PLUS the cost of the local phone call. They pay the price we pay for broadband and only get dial-up access. And they pay double for broadband.
Personally, I don't think this is a big deal. How many countries make up Europe? How many people are in those countries? And they're comparing all those to just two countries in North America?
Perhaps this poll wasn't representative either, then.
This statistic includes the number of users that access the Internet via SMS gateways and thier cell phones. Considering NUA's stake in European Internet Adoption, it isn't at all surprising that they would try to pass this number off as accurate.
I don't have the links, but I remember that they tried something similar in late 2001.
It could be a very profitable opportunity, for any young, IT people that are looking for work. I know it'd be one hell of a culture shock, but I suppose we all understand the international language of geek?
in Linus's book "Just for Fun" he tells how Finland is often all over the latest/greatest technology product and how everyone understands technology at a reasonable level. From the sounds of this article, it seems that the rest of Europe is the same way, especially given the amount of prosperity over there being greater than that of many parts of North America. Hence, NA, despite being way larger in population, has a much less percentage of people who are tech savvy. I wouldnt blame this entirely on US telecoms, as independent dial up ISPs (and AOL) are available nationwide (the real definition, not Sprint's def). If it were amount of broadband usage that were less, then yes, US telecoms take a large chunk of the blame.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
... you sure bet we do! I've been hearing about cable access and so forth in the US for years and I've only gotten my first 'boardband' Internet access (a measly 256/64 DSL line at around 75$/month) 2 months ago. Before there was simply no option (no flatrate, no cable, no nothing) and even now we're limited to only one DSL line provider given the fact that we still have got our telecoms monopoly.
At least the neighbouring countries are a little better off as their size and deregulation are now allowing for more and more competitors to enter the market.
oh, and BTW the world wide web was invented in Europe..
The number of internet users in Europe may outnumber those in North America, but the total population also outnumbers North America by over 2 to 1. A quick Google, and I came up with 314 million for NA, and 727 million for Europe. Put in this persepective, NA still has over twice as many people online, but also leaves Europe with a lot of room to grow (and hence probably faster uptake in the future).
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
(probably because some of our telecoms companies are yet to understand the internet)
Ours tried to claim patent on Hyperlinks
In other news :
"Take-up of broadband in the UK lags pitifully behind other countries in Europe, according to the latest stats from Nielsen/NetRatings."
UK Govt. sold off the monopoly telecoms company. We could have had fibre to the door from the profits but instead licences were sold to foreign investment. They have spectacularly failed to recoup their investment, not least because BT won;t open up the local loop. I have fibre to my street but copper to the door.
OK hindsight is easy but selling the country's comms to finance slashing income tax wasn't really in the best long term interests of that market.
It is correct that there was a lot of overcapacity of the workforce in the nationalised industries but why it takes private investment to sort it out is a mystery. Reducing expenditure and increasing profits isn't the only way to operate. Providing jobs with lower work rates is good for the emloyees.
The promise of technology bringing more leisure time has come true. The unforseen consquence of that was that the time would not be evenly distributed. We now have millions of people without work and millions of people with too much work to do. Crazy.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
and I wonder why I cant get a DSL line here in tha 'gong.
Surfing terminology: longboard == 56k modem
Sapere Aude - Homer
The population of the USA is what? 250 million? Canada ain't much more than 30 million.
The population of the European Union is about 350 million. Europe itself is much bigger than the EU. So even if the EU is "behind" in percentage terms it can still be way ahead in total numbers.
Never mind that there's a lot more PEOPLE in Europe as a whole than in US/Canada. It would be more telling to see the ratio of Net/no Net as a percentage of population.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Something to bear in mind is that Europe is far less homogenous than the US when it comes to adoption of new tech (and a great many other things as well, I might add). Generally speaking, northern Europe has been on par with the US in internet use since years back, whereas southern Europe is just picking up speed.
This, and the mere fact that the population base of Europe is larger than that of the US means that with time, as the market saturates, Europeans will certainly outnumber Americans (from the US anyway) on the net.
<grumble>Okay, I lived 1/4 mile from El Camino in Mountain View, and stupid PacBell said I couldn't get DSL (toooo faaaar). If you can't rely on broadband in the densest area of the world's technology capital - where can you?</grumble>
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
A large part of the reason that Europe was lagging behind (at least from what I saw in Germany over the summer) is that internet is very expensive. Germans however are nuts for cellular phones (which are often cheaper to use than their home phones) and have ways of downloading music to them and burning that on minidisc. I was staying with a family that had an ISP but still gave me money to go to an internet cafe rather than use their service because it was so expensive. I believe the issue is that the government has allowed a monopoly on all existing phone lines and the only companies that can get around it are newer, like cellular providers.
And what would you (or they) say if the same survey was made by a US company? If the company is reputable, that shouldn't change a thing to the results.
Umm... Let me guess - your site is in English? Yeah, Europeans speak more than one language you know. You have to think of all the sites out there in French, Italian, Polish, Swedish, German, etc.
Your statement is like me saying "My Swedish web site has more than 95% Swedish visitors, therefore us Swedes must make up 95% of all Internet users, woohoo!"
All your internet are belong to us now
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Since Europe is still larger than the Gringo-land by a fair amount, a somewhat smaller per-capita net usage stat will put the total number of users ahead of the US. Its still only in small countries with a concerted effort to push the internet that net usage per-capita tops the US. And that may only be in broadband - I don't remember off the top of my head.
The US, between immigration and a rebounding birth-rate, will outstrip the population of Europe before 2050, if current trends hold. But net usage should be around 99% by then throughout the developed world.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
I heard somewhere that one of the reasons Europe is slow on the uptake of Interenet is that we have had Teletext since the early 80's, and therefore 'instant news' was regarded as not that big a deal here. Don't know if that's true, and another reason will certainly be the high telephone costs here in Europe.
-- Cheers!
According to The UN Population People, Europe has a population of 727,304,000. This is compared to the 270-280 million in the US. So, Europe practically triples the US in size. However, I think that if there were more European net users than US net users, then there would be FAR more hits on varius websites from Europeans than Americans. *shrug* I wonder if this NUA place is counting people that are behind firewalls in business networks and whatnot.
The anti-salmon
Ah! A summer away from /. and I return to find the same stagnant backwater mentality. In a world desperately in need of a sense of community and, all the more so, in talking of a technology carrying with it the hope of *communication* the /. talk is of _them_ against _us_. O me, O my it's back to my cabin in the woods I go.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I once encountered a US girl who was surprized that we, the dutch, actually speak... dutch. According to her everyone here in Europe speaks english. Hence why I wouldn't be surprized if some american would reply with "Europe? What's that?"...
It's a bad thing people think of american people at stupid... It's even worse when most of them you know online actually confirm it.
Hate me!
Damnit, it's those europeans that are stealing my International Bandwidth! ;)
how about asia? they should be close, too. while the % of population online would be much smaller, the base numbers would be much higher.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"Now `Outnumber "
I thought slashdot wasn't going to continue to use directional apostrophes, which don't show properly on every machine.
Other than that, look at the number of people in europe vs/us+canada, and draw your own conclusions.
Now, the majority of net users will start migrating to Linux instead of Windows.
Local American retailers have published a new study, saying that the reason that the economy isn't doing as well as it should be is because there are more people OUTSIDE this country than inside.
A spokesman for the industry has been quoted as saying that it is time for Americans to do their duty, and have lots and lots of sex, especially with an overlooked segment of the sexual economy - geeks.
A spokesman for Slashdot, when presented with this news, was heard to exclaim "Whoa.. sweet!"
Where our beloved ex-monopoly telecom company delayed the introduction of DSL 'til last year "in order to protect the massive investment done in ISDN" ...
The American flag bumper stickers help, but economics always favors areas with less threat of computer hacking.
considering Europe's population is more than double that of Canada/US.
Trying is the first step towards failure.
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
There are a lot of differences between countries in Europe. Ireland sucks when it comes to internet infrastructure (There's barely broadband available) and the phone system sucks (I'm on a multiplexed line, so I get 16.200bps dialup). And there is no such thing as 'uncapped' or 'flat rate'.
Compare that to Norway where flat-rate, uncapped broadband has been widely available quite a few years, with a VDSL test-project the last year. Or Sweden, where "Bredbandsbolaget" (Dunno if I wrote that correctly) can deliver 10mbps-lines to normal people.
A few telecom companies are confused about internet. The Norwegian "Telenor" started building a *good* infrastructure back in the '70s. Ireland OTOH seems to have a hodgepodge of systems that won't quite work, or works slowly.
Depending on how the study defines Europe, Europe is either slightly larger or substantially larger (100+ million people) than North America. The real news is that it took this long for Europe to pass North America, serving to illustrate North America's head start.
All this may have changed yet again in the coming decades, thanks to demographic trends, as this article in the Economist illustrates.
Very interesting trend shift. The US has led the world in technology inovation for longer than I've been alive but has always lagged behind in cell phones, handhelds, high speed networks and other adaptations and refinements of technology.
;-P) have provided an environment where in the next 10 years they will crush us in technological achievement. Could it be that they had more vision and saw the world moving to specialized ubiquitous devices? Lord knows we didn't. We can't even get or Telcos to string up anything more useful than ISDN in most of the US.
Until recently(5 years) there wasn't enough demand for such things but perhaps by building early the Euros (yeah I said it you limies and froggies
Seriously - who cares?
:)
Maybe I'm just a typical pig headed American, but I could really give a shit how many people in Europe are online.
Europe sure seems obsessed with "beating" the United States in things. I would think if they're really so far ahead of us in technology, they wouldn't spend quite so much time trying to explain that they're so far ahead of us in technology.
Well I don't know if this is true or not, but it sure seems pretty saturated in Scandinavia, where I live. I live in a town with 35K citizens and we have had DSL and Cable broadband available since early 2000. Everywhere I go (except most of the old folks read over 60) I find at least one PC and they are nearly always if not always on the internet. It is also getting into everything now. My homework and stuff from the university (I recently returned there to finish up my CS degree) I can get over FTP, all contact with the teachers and faculty in general is strongly encouraged to run over email. Our enrollment includes an university email address, our enrollment list has not only email but ICQ on it. And this goes for all faculties not just the CS and Engineering ones. There is a lot more (e-learning portal, webmail, information and so on) and they are constantly expanding (currently they are working on getting a complete wireless coverage, while they build the new university down by the sea). The student housings for the entire town offer 100 Mbit internal LAN and a mighty big pipe out (I don't know how big, but it is a leased part of a fiber) with all the student housings organized by the independent student housing organization (the school has no say over what goes on).
:)
So the internet has spread fully around here and again this is just a very small town in Denmark
A person is smart, people are deeply stupid
Things have changed rapidly over here during the past few years, which is what the articles says when it mentions "growth".
For example, there are now 2 competing broadband ADSL companies in my hometown, one offering 2mbit download, the other 1.5 (2x768). Both are flatrate. Other cities are very similiar, and it's selling itself. One company I know actually stopped all their advertisement because they were getting customers faster than they could handle.
There are also Internet Terminals next to the public phones in many places, where you can throw in a or two or use your phone card and surf the web while waiting for your train. These, too, have appeared largely during the last year or two.
Internet cafes seem to be closing, which shows that more people have access at home and just don't need them anymore. Those I know all get their major revenue from online gamers, not from people surfing.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Kinda funny to see: Europe being three times as big as the US/Canada and only a small number of more users there. There are a lot of explanations there, one probably being the price of internet access in Europe
Now to the funny part, if you look at the replies the North Americans jump up to defend their numbers. Show everyone that technological they are far ahead, and no one should be even thinking the other way around. As if numbers tell who is better.
Okay it has to be clear:
in cultural Europe we still live in stoneages and there is only a small percentage of our populations allowed access to high tech. Don't be afraid: we might outnumber you guys, we will not 'oupercentage' you. Remain calm, take a breath you're still #1.
The site where: "I'm right, as long as you ignore the things that prove me wrong", became a valid method of debate.
"It should be a surprise because you think that all
is USA.
So you have discovered USA is not the center of the universe and SO??"
Hahahaha. I have to belly-laugh, because this is just what I expected. Europeans all feel so put-upon by the US, that any time any report shows they might be gaining on us in some sector, they all do their happy-dance and go Nyaa Nyaa. We (US) probably made the report up just to give you something to smile about. We're nice like that.
Oh, and BTW. We are still the center. I'm glad you spelled it right.
Many countries in Europe has far better phone net coverage than the US. Since there isnt huge areas with very few inhabitants. Makes live as a telco much easier.
For example in 2003 about 99% in Denmark will be able to buy relatively cheap DSL. Since the phonelines are already there.
still reading?
That isn't necessarily true. Remember that .com != US. I have quite a few visitors from Europe with .com, .net and .org addresses, for example. I just happen to recognize the DNS entries as being from European ISPs.
Also, European visitors don't necessarily frequent US sites, and vice versa -- as an example, Germans are going to be all over spiegel.de, stern.de and so on, but probably won't bother much with cnn.com, news.com or wired.com for their news.
English-language sites still dominate the Net, but the vast majority of non-English speakers of course prefer to read things in their own language, even if they speak English. So your site, presumably in English, won't have that many non-English speaking visitors.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Don't know about the rest of you, but I've long believed in the (admitted) stereotype that Europeans basically have no access to home broadband, and are charged on a per-minute basis for internet access (similar to telephone calls), and that this was what was keeping the European community from being front-line adopters.
Whether this is a bad thing or not, in light of the recent dot-com collapse, is up for debate, and I thought this article would shatter my preconceptions on this, but I was wrong.
I mean, these numbers track the number of active ISP accounts (if I'm not mistaken), which does nothing to indicate how many people actually USE the internet. As was mentioned in a previous comment, lack of hi-speed access, as well as punitive access rate$ is keeping these people down!
FREE OUR EUROPEAN BRETHREN!!!
I am alone, yet I also surf the universal backwash of undifferentiated Being, which is LOVE.
"The US, between immigration and a rebounding birth-rate, will outstrip the population of Europe before 2050, if current trends hold."
You have got to be fucking joking. And for once I'm using the word "fucking" in the correct context.
Europe's population is approx 730 million people. The USA is approx 250 million. If you're telling me that the USA is going to TRIPLE in population in 50 years, then you're fucking mental! (ok, a bit of a stretch)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Rural America
Trying is the first step towards failure.
The remarkable thing is that all you 'Yanks' are so defensive. Is it perhaps that only a small percentage of your country has the brains to read and write never mind get online..
UK % connections is runninng at 55% and we lag way behind Finland and Norway.
We also have a greater percentage of PhD's, Degrees, millionaires, Nobel prizes, etc.
Lets face it Iraq will probably be catching up with the US next (theirs got to be a reason you want to go to war with them).
Why didn't they count the often neglected North American country, Mexico, into these figures? It would seem to me that if Mexico were included into the North American user base figures that perhaps North America would still have more users.
And let's not forget that Mexico is also a "growing" market...
Europe outstrips the US in cell phone usage and now internet because for years their governments have used the telcos to soak the consumer and several countries (the uk in particular) have never moved to flat rate service which is the standard in the US.
What the new cell phone service and internet service does is allow consumers to get around their outragiously high traditional land-line phone bills (especially if the net access is thru satalite or cable) at least partially. Using email and instant messaging for communication in europe is just a whole heck of a lot cheaper than reaching out and touching someone using a telephone.
" (theirs got to be a reason "
How about THERE HAS, or THERE'S, you stupid eurofag. What were you saying about PhD's and degrees again?
I hope Slashdot will act accordingly and move
immediately to the use of Celciuses and kilograms.
I don't know about you lot neither but your slack-jaw English skills are real embarassment to the united jackboots of amerika.
Combined with the current poll it doesn't look good for a US centric, Linux based news site.
How funny that poll is. If you're going to compare continent to continent, why are the Euros leaving out Mexico and the rest of Latin America. After all, if they're north of Columbia, they're in north america. I've also been told that, once you get past the border region, much of Mexico really is well developed.
I have certainly come across plenty of latin americans in the years I've been online...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Whatever yall say... my vote is we Blame Canada!
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Does this account for people that might have one ISP for home internet use, and another ISP for wireless internet, which is a lot bigger in Europe than the U.S.?
Okay, I lived 1/4 mile from El Camino in Mountain View, and stupid PacBell said I couldn't get DSL (toooo faaaar). If you can't rely on broadband in the densest area of the world's technology capital - where can you?
Yeah, but you should have been able to get AT&T cable broadband there, at least I could when i lived in Sunnyvale near El Camino. And it's much better than DSL, I never experienced any slowdown due to over subscription.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Actually I am surprised that it is not until now that Europe passes the states.
Until I moved here several years ago I too believed USA to be a leader in many ways but sadly the are behind on almost any IT.
Figures from http://cf.geocities.com/populationdata/europe.htm
- mipe -
See look what hapens when you throw a bit of socilism into the mix.... Capatilism good?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Please do remember that Europe is far more open to "foreign opinions" then US. In Europe they've been able to overcome country borders and they are trying to be one World. In US -- nah! "One nation under *censored*..." Americans are so proprietary, man. No wonder they are doing not as well as Europeans on Internet, since net is the most diverse communication medium. Americans to Europeans is like Windows to Linux.
Yes, this is provacation. I am serious, though.
Yet another thing for Europe to brag about. Could it be due to the fact that the Telecomm's here in the states are lagging behind in getting areas wired? As a country that's essentially the bastard child of European countries, you'ld think that this new finding would make us kick ourselves into high gear. We surpassed their centuries of being a dominant force in under 250 years. Now they're coming back in like 10 years. That's just wrong. Everyone knows we're the better nation...
So, does this mean that the French are online more, and are finally learning that women with hairy pits are just nasty? One can only pray that they discover the razor blade. Otherwise, France's nude beaches are just display showcases for nasty broads who look like they have Don King in a headlock...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
...and American's actually WONDER why people think we have our heads up our ass.
This has nothing to do with Canada. Broadband is everywhere here, and it is dirt cheap. Canada is one of the most wired countrys in the world, and the vast majority of people have internet (everybody I know has at least DSL in their homes).
The problem is, Canada just isn't that big of a country, population wise, when compared to the US or most of Europe.
Missleading figures, as always.
There's really no good way to measure the actual number of net users for the various reasons you mention. What is likely to be the case is that the Internet users are determined by using a statistical sampling approach. They ask a question like, "Do you use the internet?" to some statistically significant portion of the population and then extrapolate to figure out the total.
:)
We don't know how they came up with the statistics though so I guess we are left to ask if the the statistics make sense. Given that EU's population in 2000 was 379 million and the U.S./Canada combined population is only about 310 million and given that EU, in general has a number of well educated people, it makes sense that they'd have more Internet users. Now, given that europe has 186 million and US/Canada has 182 million that means that the US/Canada leads in per capita internet users. If these numbers are accurate, 49% of europeans use the Internet where as 59% of Americans/Canadians do.
So, the number makes sense when you think about it. But does it really matter?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
that Canada's and the US' population combined would be lower than Europe's even if the percentage of users was the same or slightlyh smaller going on raw numbers Europe would have a larger user base.
(**disclaimer** no actual numbers were used in this comment)
I get 8MEG ADSL (always on, unlimited download) for ...
:-)
(7500/3=2500) + 2500 = 5000 yen, whats that, about US$50 give or take.
128k for $50 you say?
BARGAIN
No warranty of any kind is offered as to the quality of this post.
from http://www.nationsonline.org, these are estimates.
European countries total 728,659,000
U.S and Canada total 309,504,000
Europe has 2.35x the population of Statsians and Canuks.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
In regards to all of Europe having more Internet users than the USA and Canada combined, we have to consider the following factors:
1. Europe's total population is 350 million plus, and given that Europe is a highly developed continent technologically I'm not surprised that Internet usage has gone so high.
2. Does the Nua.com survey also include users of cellphones? If it does that skews the usage equation since cellphone Internet connections are usually done in short bursts, not the long, continuous connections you get with a desktop computer. Subtract the cellphone users and let's see how many Europeans are accessing the Internet using desktop/laptop computers via dial-up or broadband connections.
However, I am happy that the European telcos are finally getting the message that one fee per month unmetered Internet access is the way to go. The fact I've read on this message thread that DSL access is rapidly growing in Europe tells me we'll see some very rapid growth in Internet usage in Europe over the next decade.
Hello there over the great lake. I'm coming to visit /. 2ce a day and these polls and threads running here make me just wonder if any of you ever have been to europe, or just even know how to get there... ;-). (2 the swedish ppl: i know even if i havent been there...)
I'm actually swiss, thats where all the bad money in the james bond movies is located. And it's not sweden, this country is more north where it's snowing all day long
I'm wondering about US at least twice a day. How can such a great country have such stupid laws. How can such a country get such a &!%* president. And why the hell do you think you're alone on earth... Eigther it's the education, or you ppl are just to proud to ever look anywhere else then next door.
Over here we think (at least 90% of the ppl i know) that america makes a lot of shit. Look at afganistan where you bomb civilists even after all ladens are gone. Look at your ecological thinking where you'll soon be behind any 3th world country. (us is the only country on world where a global environmental pact was not accepted, everyone else did). Look at your informational standart of things not happening in your country.
Think about this, learn more of other places that are on this blue ball and you may see a bit clearer out of your eyes.
Is it perhaps that only a small percentage of your country has the brains to read and write never mind get online.
Lets face it Iraq will probably be catching up with the US next (theirs got to be a reason you want to go to war with them).
That gets a +1? How very cute...
2001 population estimates show Europe still lags far behind the US.
US Pop: 284.5 Million
US Online: 182 Million
Percent Online: 63.9%
Europe Pop: 727 Million
Europe Online: 186 Million
Percent Online: 25.5%
Both population values are possibly 1 year older than the 'number of connected users' values, but I doubt that the population has changed enough to make even the slightest difference. When you look at the important number (the percentage of the population that is online) you can see that Europe actually has alot of catching up to do.
Score: US: 1, EU: 0
Thats sooo funny it got modded up.
:-)
posting anonymously because I am stoned
35% of US high school seniors couldn't find THE USA on an unmarked map of the world. About 50% couldn't find Europe. THERE HAS GOT TO BE A REASON. I dare say most EU year 12s could draw an unmarked map of the world with major rivers and mountain ranges.
From the Americans I've met, I'd say it's a safe bet you couldn't. (BUT you could name your states and explain why the Mississipi is REALLY the biggest river in the world.)
I think the subject says it all, other than fuck you !
Maybe it's because Europe isn't as litigious as the US is. With all the software/business patents it no wonder things move slower here.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
As well as special information regarding, "E-stonia" (Estonia), the Baltic state that is making the internet an integral part of its politics, culture, and way of life.
Then it doesn't matter what language you read my english in. Spelling on the other hand, only god could help me.
| - | - |
Population of Canada: 31,081,900
.582/person
.500/person
population of US: 281,421,906
Total 2000: 312,503,806
per capita usage:
European (EU)1995 371,930,000
per capita usage:
Hahahaha, we still win. And if you take into account the US and Canadien census is more up to date, well, we really win.
I think the poll was accurate of the /. readership.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
That probably just means that the European Polltakers are more efficient that ours. I think there are a lot more Internet users in the US than most people realize. For example, until recently, I refused to buy anything over the Internet because of the security problems. I was very adamant. Then I found out that my wife had been doing it anyway, for years. Then, again, if anyone gets hold of my bank and credit card accounts, they'll be in for a rude surprise. They've already been drained. (I have children.) Maybe that's the best security measure of all -- always be BROKE! Works for me.
Judging by the number of the Nigerian fraud spam I get a day, thre must be several billion Nigerian professors on the net.
:-)
But seriously, internet connections have improved massivly in the UK at least. There are many free ISPs where you just pay for the phone call (about £0.02 a min), then there are various flat-rate offerings, and there is also a flourishing broadband market now - I can get 3 flavours at my house 512/256 adsl (which I currently use), 512/128 cable and 1024/128 cable. All are very reasonably priced - my adsl connection is only 25% more than the cost of a 24/7 flat-rate 56k dialup account. The rest of Europe is either rapidly catching up or already a long long way ahead of us in this respect.
There is also a glut of public internet terminals just on the street, in train stations, post offices, bus stops etc not to mention email and websites on mobile phones (cell phones to US people).
Anyway guys, calm down! Its not a competition. If I were you, I'd get more worried about the day when the Bush administration decides that the internet is used for terrorism so it will be banned over there....get out whilst you can!
I don't have any hard numbers, but I'm confident there are a lot more net users in Asia. Living in Taiwan for the past many years, I've noticed that there is a FAR higher percentage of broadbrand users than in the US or Europe. Competition here is healthy with ADSL and cable modem services available for as low as $20/month. The Taipei City government even provides FREE dial-up access, so those with broadbrand can still get internet access. When returning to the US this past summer, I was very surprised how many of my friends rarely use the internet and how even fewer people have broadband.
The US is WAY behind when it comes to anything hi-tech. Here in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, etc., we get all the latest and greatest gadgets well before the US. In fact, many of the coolest cell phones, MP3 players, CD players, and other electronic gadgets never even appear in the US.
Its really quite pathetic how behind the US is technologically (especially the consumers and general population). As I'm moving back to the US, I hope that they can quickly play catch-up to Asia!
I watch this talk show called TvTotal, which is hosted by a guy called Stephan Rabb. Since in Germany there is an election he did a series on "First voter check". Basically in the first voter check he tested the "intelligence" or lack of the first voters. Folks, ignorance is not specific to Americans. Some people were REALLY DUMB! For example they asked the people to place where countries were in Europe, with the boundaries drawn in. And hardly anybody got it right. They kept putting the capital of Germany, Berlin near Paris.
So I think we Europeans and we North American's should come to the conclusion that idiots exist everywhere and nobody has an exclusive contract on them!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The US has better hardwired infrastructure than many other countries. There's less of a cultural interest in single-purpose devices that do one interesting thing -- general purpose computing is more popular in the US than in, say, Japan, but Japanese gidgets sell better than in the US.
I think that complaints about 3G not being adopted are silly. 3G has some seriously unpleasant bits. Cell phones could already monitor your location (and do constantly, letting the telco/govt build a map of where you go), but 3G ones can be switched on remotely to eavesdrop. Furthermore, most cell infrastructure in Europe associated with 3G is key escrow, and bits of it are even unencrypted. 3G security and privacy blow chunks compared to US cell phone standards.
May we never see th
However you tend to forget that Luxembourg is in a very particular situation: we have not enough critical mass to make DSL and/or cable profitable. Above that we have no competition (P&T only), okay I go for the service over Visual Online but I have to pay the P&T share anyway. Yes, it is expensive, but that is because we *actually* pay more for the bandwidth than our neighbouring countries do. In neighbouring countries they can spread the bandwith over many more suers. The fact that we did get DSL is mainly because there was demand, but with that demand people were willing to pay it. Don't forget we are a damn richt country (look at the rents for christ sake!) Honestly, to get even the 256kbps/64kbps option (considering price of course) you have to be quite a hefty internet user (which I am, 7 computer network at home doing NAT on OpenBSD)
We only have this disadvantage because of our size, but our size has often proven to be a strength as wel. I suspect that when DSL providers in neighbouring countries will start to put caps on the downloads and/or block ports...we will be able to keep unlimited non-port-blocked. Because we pay a premium. Of course, I'm quite optimistic.
Broadband has been around for a very long time in Germany, France, Belgium and The Netherlands. I can tell you, I studied in Antwerp when "Telenet Vlaandren" (Belgian Cable Company for broadband) was building up and that's nearly 8 years ago (when I started studying, not when Telenet vlaandren was started). ;-)
Besides, I'm quite glad I could get DSL. It would be pretty sucky only to get Cable which is a shared medium after all
Besides, don't you remember the times Internet over the P&T was 5LUF/minute? Oh, I do... I had to finish a project on the University server (from home in Lux) and I coded the whole night over a 28.8kbps modem to the HP/UX machine in Antwerp. Those were the days. (And that bill was huge!)
Ma, dann nach ee scheinen daag!
1. Italy is not so much of a player in Europe because they are still trying to recover from having one telephone company. Two Italian companies are not as "customer friendly" as they are in America. I was told 1.5 years ago that my area would have ADSL in three weeks...the reason for the delay? No clue, they don't even have one.
2. Think about the countries in norther Europe too! Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and Finland they have some of the higher usage rates. Could be for the fact that there's not so much to do when it's so cold, snowy, and dark. Could also stem from the fact that European web users are using the web in different ways that we Americans use it.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Worked for Catholicism.
May we never see th
Proof that while our total online population lags about 2 million behind, our online percentage still whoops theirs. Take that, Europe. And after this news kicks our online stats into growth mode, we'll again overtake their prissy asses.
--
Generic AC Sig - Copyright 2002 Anonymous Cowards Generic Sigs, Inc.
35% of US high school seniors couldn't find THE USA on an unmarked map of the world. About 50% couldn't find Europe. THERE HAS GOT TO BE A REASON. I dare say most EU year 12s could draw an unmarked map of the world with major rivers and mountain ranges.
:-)
I suspect that there *is* a reason -- most US citizens don't really care about anythin outside of the US. They know where the action is. On the other hand, most Europeans spend their days dreaming about how they can emmigrate to the United States.
Yay for Slashdot nationalism.
Oh, and that river would be spelled Mississippi, you geography whiz.
May we never see th
The US is, overall, the richest reasonably large country in the world (note: I am not even an American! I'm a Canadian, and our purchasing power isn't nearly as strong as the mighty American $), so clearly one cannot simply say "Uh, they're behind in technology!"
And why not, if I may ask? Purchasing power does not equal technological advancement. Technological advancement usually implies having purchasing power. The converse, however, is simply untrue. Also, I have no idea whatsoever what "reasonably sized" is supposed to mean.
If they want, they can have the best of every technology worldwide: The best, most cutting edge wireless technologies, with handsets that'll clean your teeth while you talk, and compute the next million prime numbers while they slumber.
Your argument is basically this: if the US would buy technology it does not have it would have it, and thus be equally advanced as other countries with regard to this technology.
This is true, and fairly obvious, but then you go on and conclude that this must mean they are equally advanced now, which is absurd.
I don't want a colour screen on my phone, I just want something that I can talk to people on.
This may come as a surprise for you, but regardless of your reasons for not having a certain technology (in this case, not being interested) you still don't have it. Do you think it is fair to say that a country is technologically inferior if they don't have any computers, regardless if this is intentional on their part? I'm sure you do. To see how this applies to your fifth grade reasoning is left as an exercise to the reader.
Who modded this nonsense up? His head on a plate!
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
That's pretty funny, considering where the Internet began and was created....heh _________________________________________________
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
Ever heard of it? Jeez...
Does anyone know what percentage of those two groups (US/Canada and Europe) is on broadband? That would be just as noteworthy a figure, if not more so.
PS2 and Xbox are both launching their online gaming services, but I think they (and everyone else) expected broadband to spread much faster than it actually has. Likewise, any business basing their distribution on streaming media has had to deal with the grim realities of sluggish broadband adoption.
The OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT ports linux to the xbox! woo woo!
According to GeoHive, the population of Europe in 2000 was approximately 729 million while US/Canada's was only 307 million. Do a little simple math and you find that US/Canada have 59% connected while Europe has only 25% connected. Any high school math teacher will tell you to watch out for skewed results.
...as I expected India or China to be the first societies to outpace Americans online (so to speak). Now, can someone tell me that what languages are most popular? I'm sure that English is shrinking as a precentage of the whole but what will surpass it first?
figures for 1998 where the most uptodate I could find with google.
The population of Europe is approx. 730 million
The population of US & Canada is approx 310 million.
Therefore, about 59% of "Americans" have access to the internet as opposed to 25.5% of Europians, however, this picutre isobsucured by the fact that the figures for Europe inculed several countries that are still classed as developing, or are "new" nations having recently emerged from war.
If the report were based solely on people within the EEC then the picture would more likely show that Europians are more "net-aware" than our neighbours across the pond. After all, didn't both the web and the computer originate in Europe?
PS I didn't post this, a big boy did it and ran away.
this statistic is questionable as nowhere does it say what "Europe" is comprised of. It may or may not be the EU. It may include eastern europe and Russia. The article is incomplete. Couple this with the fact that the EU has 100,000,000 more citizens than the US and Canada, and the statistic is less impressive.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
A previous Slashdot Poll comes amazingly close to the same statistics.
... in my opinion the good thing is inet is becoming less american and more global...
There whas a Question asked by a website recently that asked name me the company that build there technologie entirely in the USA so that whe can promote them above the others
Guess what there where not even 3 named
A good example is IBM
Compaq they resale OEM from Asian ODM
Hp is the same
Dell is the same ( assembled in Canada
etc
They are behind in computer
They are behind in transport
They are behind in communication
They are behind in eductaion
They are behind in Health care
For your information Acura , Honda , Sony , LG , etc are not american at all
And lastly last time I checked the Euro is higher then the USD and so does a lot of other recognized money
Considering that Europe's population is (I think) larger than North America it would happen sooner or later. Don't forget that Europe is a technologically advanced region (and actually leads the world in certain tehnology areas, U.S or Japan being the leaders in others).
Ok... now compare this to the number of ip's available for each continent. It really sucks to live in Europe when I can't get an affordable internet connection without NAT. //fatal
Then Chinese are 10 times more likely to get laid than Americans ...
How hard did you say Mandarin was to learn, again? ;)
There whas a Question asked by a website recently that asked name me the company that build there technologie entirely in the USA so that whe can promote them above the others
...
...
I think you should learn a little about worldwide trade, and how companies work in the real world: You see, there are silly things like manufacturing costs that they can reduce (especially when the US $ is overly strong) by outsourcing less demanding jobs to other countries. Even for engineering, a forward thinking organization sets up shops throughout the globe to get the best of each prospective country without having to deal with immigration, etc. I find it absolutely laughable that you would try to find a single big company that is completely contained within one country: THEY DON'T EXIST. Is Nokia Finnish? Nope, Nokia has engineering all over the globe. Is Honda "Japanese"? Nope, Honda has engineering and manufacturing all over the world. Is Sony Japanese? Nope, they have engineering all over the world. Is LG Japanese? Nope, they have engineering and manufacture all over the world. Could you please point out an example of a great company that makes you puff up your chest with pro-yourcountry, anti-American pride?
They are behind in computer
This one is just too funny, so I'll leave it alone.
And lastly last time I checked the Euro is higher then the USD and so does a lot of other recognized money
I don't want to explain how monetary conversion works, however I will say that it doesn't work like "$1.00 of my dollars is worth $1.00 of your dollars!". If it makes you feel pride that you get 7 hogs heads to the rhuppie, then kudos to you.
In almost every way, Europe does lag the U.S.
In this case, you're talking about 182 million
out of 325 million, versus 186 million out of
something over 600 million. Europe is not just
Norway and Switzerland. It includes Albania
and Moldova... some places where a straw roof
is a luxury.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
They should be much more reliable than your website to gain a feeling for what kind of peope are online. Check out http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html and look at the Languages Used stats. Keep in mind that a significant percentage of English queries do not come from the US but countries like the UK, Australia, Holland, India etc.
And I'll tell you why..pretty soon we're all going to have to face up against hardware that hates us, for lack of a better word. DRM systems built directly into hardware that treat us as the enemy, and our software and privacy as rentals from Microsoft and Friends. The EU is -not- going to like this, and they now have enough clout to put a stop to it if they so desire.
Can you tell me , as an european then why I should trust US study as being more "trustworthy" when they say that Europe lag behind ?
And who cares anyway if the number is untrustworthy. Does it change anything as long as Europe don't product any content and we have to get everything from the US... ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
european friends?
all your base are belong to us!
Since we're being picky, you English whiz, allow me to correct "anything," and "emigrate."
>Let's just say that I saw two teams in a tug of
>war, and both sides aren't budging either way.
Except this isn't really the case with WW2.
Without US intervention, Britain was doomed to fall eventually. Did we sweep in just in the nick of time and pull the Brits from the jaws of defeat? Not really.
Would the Brits have eventually been defeated? Yes.
Operation Sealion had been postponed indefinitely, but eventually Hitler would have turned his sights back to Britain. Probably after conceding that he was not capable of sweeping through Russia as planned. But it would have happened.
Perhaps a more valid comparison would have been two teams playing tug of war... but one team has a big picnic basket full of sandwiches and sodas, while the other team just keeps getting tired. Eventually, the team with supplies will win.
The US didn't win the war for everyone, but it couldn't have been won without their help.
-l
USians are breeding more now than 20 years ago, whereas nearly every other developed or developing (China, India) country has lowered their birth rate. In the case of Italy they are well below replacement levels. So the US is trying to outbreed the rest of the world
In a way, a European visiting a US-based website is a bad thing for the website, because most advertising networks available to US-based sites have stopped serving advertising to non-North-American IPs. I guess their theory is that no one in Europe would want to buy a GM car, Verizon wireless, etc.
This is becoming more and more of a problem for websites (such as mine) that appeal to an international audience (hockey related). A few years ago when it seemed apparent that the future of the web was truly international, I included quite a bit of content for Europeans. But now that 30% of my traffic is from Europe, I'm finding that this traffic simply increases my server and bandwidth costs without providing me with a dime of income.
In retrospect, my European content was a mistake.
Until revenue can be derived from European visitors, I can't see people actively trying to recruit those European visitors.
Some of you must be kidding. :D)
1.In Germany almost everybody has internet acesses at home. There are 10 Mio Broudband accounts in Ger (we have a pop. of 80 Mil) and I dont know how many people are using Routers or ISDN/56k Modems.
2. mobiles
the european mobile producers are very sucessfully (Siemens, NOKIA, Ericson...) and we are launching UMTS in some mounths (2000k/sec
Pity that everybody seems to be arguing about who is more online than the other. The great news is that more people on the WORLD are online today than ever! Maybe this is the real important thing, I don't worry that tommorrow there will be more users from Asia online than from Europe, I'm happy that we keep the momentum going and that soon no Chinese filter will be able to stop us. Come on guys/girls! There must be more to life than to compete with each other... The way I see it we wouldn't have gotten far without eachother anyway!
Shouldn't they be counted in any NA vs. Europe stats?
And are they talking about europe as a whole, or just the EU?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
'Official memo of the French Ministry of the Internet'
Any website containing non-government approved words not found in the official French government dictionary will be blocked.
Additionally, these filters work 35 hours a week for 40 hours pay.
Population density. When you have to run cable that costs thousands of dollars per mile, you're not going to invest in areas that have low population density. The population density for the U.S. is MUCH lower than Europe. The U.S. has a little more than 275 million people. China has over 1 billion people, in an area much smaller than the U.S. India has over 1 billion people. Europe? To be honest, I don't know for sure. When you live in a "Backwater" area such where I do, which is Arkansas. (The U.S. State Bill Clinton came out of) you'll see what I mean. It's even less populated in other areas! Take a trip out to New Mexico some time, or Nevada. Take a trip where you don't see a single person for 500 miles on a lonely strip of highway, and you'll see why broadband hasn't caught on here in the U.S. as quickly, why the Internet isn't as prolific.
In Europe you can drive through multiple different countries in one day.. In the U.S. you're lucky to make it 1/3 of the way through the country in one day.
It's GEOGRAPHY and population density. The kind of thing where middle-class people can have 80 acres of land if they live in the country and only have to spend 5 years of wages on aquiring the land.
Faugh.
What is going to be intresting, is when the internet find it's way onto the cell phones.
Will North America lag behind Europe then?
Of course you've got good connectivity - you're near a university, and universities are good at getting stuff like that done, and in your case there's also a student cooperative which is good at getting things done. Last time I tried to get an E1 line installed for a customer in Denmark was 1-2 years ago - the PTT was telling us 4 months, and I think the real time was about 6 months. (For you non-Europeans, an E1 is a 2Mbps line, a bit bigger than a US T1 line.) I've sometimes seen similar delays in the Netherlands, where there's even less excuse for it. Some of this may be because we had our partnership with BT Concert at the time, so several different phone companies were involved...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
OK, so the web started in Europe, or more precisely in Academia, a country that doesn't play by the same rules as the mundane world. That was a decade ago. Now that you guys are getting all this broadband, and generally without the same stupid rules as US cable TV companies (can't run a server, etc., so you can't develop anything new or interesting), what else have you developed that's new and interesting?. US college students took advantage of campus LANs to develop Napster (note: students, not university-organized activities); I got the impression that some of the MP3 craze started in Europe before becoming common in North America. What's next? Korea's also heavily wired for broadband, and somebody here said Taiwan is. What are people doing with it?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Over and up here in Finland we actually used to have the most internet connections per capita, but latest global surveys show USA has almost caught up. Well, glad to see you guys are improving... Do you have it in every, and I mean every public library yet?
You've misspelled "resume" in your sig, unless my font is rendering it wrong.
You've used the accente grave.
Or is this some sort of subtle French joke?
fifth sigma, inc.
The best thing you have to boast about is the % on the net?
Poor sad little country.
60 million British (are there any people left who only speak Welsh?), 4 million Irish (again, maybe a small proportion who only speak Gaelic?). What fraction of the population in other EU countries speak English to a sufficient standard to write a comprehensible post on Slashdot? (yes, I know that rules out half the /. posters whose native language *is* English).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
However, that doesn't mean that the US situation is any better - analog cellphones aren't encrypted, and none of the encryption protocols used in the common TDMA systems are at all strong, and in most cases they're not turned on (if you've got a Nokia phone, the message is "Voice privacy not active".) The first generation of CDMA phones also had bogus encryption; the people who designed it were competent but under political pressure. I don't know if newer CDMA standards are any better.
The only encryption in these systems that has any strength at all is the authentication side that's used for the billing, and with GSM, that's also been broken. But that's ok, you're secure in the US, because the US government made it illegal for anybody but them to eavesdrop.
The real problem with 3G was that the government was convinced it could get billions of euros in revenue by auctioning off the spectrum licenses, and the telcos also believed it. The governments got most of their money upfront and let Darwin sort out the impacts on the telcos. Fortunately or unfortunately, the US wireless carriers were in a different phase of their build/deploy/sell/replace cycles, so they didn't deploy that infrastructure before the market crashed. If Europeans can use their 3G data services at a reasonable flat-rate price, say 30-50 euros/month for unlimited service, they may really accomplish something, but otherwise it's mostly a waste - and with the debts that the telephone companies accumulated, it's unlikely that that will happen.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Does Europe suffer from the same problem that we in Australia have (had? it's been a while since I actually checked if this is still the case) - that is, America assumes that the vast majority of content is held in the US and so everyone else has to pay to connect and download from "America's" internet. While traffic in the opposite direction isn't charged because it's assumed it's going to be minimal by comparison.
The UK unemployment rate is the lowest for a couple of generations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...are very few, specially relative to the size of the country (100 million people).
That would badly unbalance the comparision, because there is no similar entity in Europe (yet, when countries like Turkey or some former USSR republics join, there would be grounds for including all of NAFTA in comparisions of development).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The biggest increase has been in the shittiest end of the job market. No contract protection, minimum wage etc. etc.
The point still stands, leisure time has increased but has not been distributed evenly.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Of course not, but they sometime like to be considered in Scandinavia, so that, if you include Scandinavia in Germanic countries, you end un woth Finland too, every second time.
But, well, I just overreacted, since I did't feel like I was in a Germanic country (Italy).
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
I would ;-)
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!""Since we're being picky, you English whiz, allow me to correct 'anything,' and 'emigrate.'"
Good rebuttal.
*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*
I think six times the price (take 1Mbit/s in Belgium and do the same in LU) of what our neighbours have is pretty expensive
Indeed...but only because you compare price/speed. Are there offerings in our neighbouring countries that are 256kbps/64kbps for a *very* low price? No, those do not exist: they have the choice between a (as half expensive as ours) DSL line or no DSL at all. Granted, they get faster access, but for low-budget families a 5Eur/month DSL access with 256Kbps/64Kbps is surely preferable over a 75Euro month DSL line they now can get.
Besides, do not forget we are frigging rich here in Luxembourg. Compare the rent of apartments her in Luxembourg to the rent in Antwerp. Or even the price of a house. Living is just more expensive in Luxembourg and that's just life. Cope, or move to Belgium (or whatever).
Gaming
You do realise you are a special kind of public? Do you? I do my share of big downloads: Linux ISO's, Service Packs etc... But I'm also a special kind of public, you know those of the "Nerd" kind. Normal users don't do this. Normal users do surf, email, chat... And P2P, and it's only the latter that need broadband.
surfing slow
Granted...but just don't visit sites with Flash. It's what I do...I don't think I ever missed anything. I hate flash as much as the next geek.
email jokes
I have the connection, I don't care. Since I run my own mailserver they get in during the day and I push "check mail" and not 10 seconds later I have the in my mailbox. It's the forwarding part that is hard for the line, but of course I do not have to forward ;-) The normal user however either gets not much of this email, or likes this kind of stuff. So if he likes it, he has to wait. It's what I did in the modem and ISDN days.
ISDN
Re-read my previous post: most important selling point was the ability to have two phonelines. That is: you are online and and can call. It is more reliable, and if you do not buy a silly 10Euro card you will not have any problems. Heck, I have used ISDN for over 4 years and never ever had any problems regarding drivers. But of course I buy decent hardware and I did run NT4 (now W2k, but I don't use ISDN anymore anyayy). You do not need the modem-emulation, what for anyway? You use your modem for anything else than the Internet? I surely don't. You only *need* the CAPI drivers, that's it..done. I think you never actually installed an ISDN solution.
My reliability remark was a bit biased because I came from a 28.8k hardware modem when 56k was getting the norm. That is when I switched to ISDN. I know software modems are crap, I don't do in that. However I have many clients that I help that have serious disconnection problems (to the P&T kiosk service) useing hardware modems (US Robotics external). In my opinion Analog communication must die as fast as possible. I'd take ISDN/DSL anyday over Analog/DSL, yes it costs 50Euro more...But then I do not care. 50 Euro? You cannot even go to a good restaurant with friends for that!
Bitching people on IRC
Did you ever consider that these gamers were just bitching on IRC because they get fragged all the time when competing agains DSL users? The just vent their frustration: those that did have DSL were probably just happily gaming.
Above that, consider also that there is a high probability that you were gaming against people from this region (Saar-Mosel/Lorraine/Ardennes), which is technologically as bad as as Luxembourg, if not worse. Low population-densty you know. If you had been asking around about the bigger cities, you would have gotten a different image of the situation.
Finally, I suspect that gamers prefer to push 200Euro on the newest NVidia Geforce7 than on a ADSL interface (don't call it a "modem", it's not).
Finally I'm always on too. Heck I even bought a UPS in order to keep my machine up during power failures (we had our share with the storms). Actually, mine is up 24/24, 7/7 unless something unexpected happens. Relatively speaking I "pay less" now too. (Actually even asolutely speaking, from 4 hours on daily online DSL is cheaper). It's great to have (even low-end) broadband, and I suspect times will change: speeds will go up, pricing will go down. We are just first-adopters (I was a first-adopter for cellphones too, do I have to remind you what a call costed on a cellphone 7 years ago?) Luxemburg just *is* a bit slower. Accept it.