Report: Broadband Too Expensive For Many

An anonymous submitter writes "This AP article, citing a study from the U.S. Commerce Department, reports that "Almost all U.S. families live in areas where a high-speed Internet connection is available, but many see no compelling reason to pay extra for it." The article mentions a survey that found that "more than 70 percent of dial-up users cited cost as the main reason they aren't upgrading to faster access."" It's much like digital cable - the cable networks ratch up the price for...music channels? But broadband is a chicken - egg problem. You won't get people signing up until they see a reason, and you won't get compelling reasons until more people have signed up.

Comments

Leaves more broadband for me

[dante101vr2]

I guess I cant complain less people who have a cable modem by me means less broadband being used up :) I never said I wasn't greedy!

Re:Leaves more broadband for me

[Anonymous Coward]

cable modems are cheap here, $80 for a brand new toshiba pcx2500 modem and $25 a month for 2mbit down and 256kbit up.

Re:Leaves more broadband for me

[Golias]

Unfortunately for you, it's a safe bet that the cable company's business model (drafted before the dot-com bust) depends on them somehow wiring about 60% of the people on your block.

Since that's not happening, they will probably either jack up your price or else take down the network entirely within the next couple years.

Re:Leaves more broadband for me

[Mastadex]

exactly! plus those people that have not switched to high speed internet like DSl or cable are usually older people that have almost no use for the inet OR they are families where the parents dont see much use for for internet in there childrens lives....like me about 4 years ago. but now i i have cable and my monthly bandwith exceeds 100GB of transfer.

Broadband cost

[murcon]

Digital cable made inroads around me when they started offering free installation and 3 months at a reduced rate. (Of course, after three months in our house where the only show that got serious attention was "Farscape", we determined that even that wasn't worth the full price, and we disconnected.) So maybe DSL and cable providers should look at making the first few months the same cost as dial-up, just to get people to try it.

Re:Broadband cost

[scott1853]

I don't know about DSL, but Time Warner and Adelphia both offer cable modem service for the first 3 months at $20/month.

Re:Broadband cost

[Insane One]

I don't see the problem with cost. I would say the typical family has 1 phone line that they pay $20 to $30 a month for. Now add the dialup which is around $15 to $25 a month. When you add the two together you get about $40 a month or more. In some cases families have a second line just for the computer. In this case I don't see where price is an issue....20 for the phone and 20 for isp. You can get a cable modem for $40 to $50 a month and get faster access. They may not need faster but it doesn't tie up your phone line.
It all comes down to not knowing what it is and see the HUGH price of $40 a month...

Re:Broadband cost

[Chanc_Gorkon]

If you have a second line just for the computer, that's an easy one. This what I came up with when looking at my Cable Modem service. That's a no brainer. But if you only have one line and you just check e-mail once or twice a day and do some light web surfing, it's not work the added cost to these folks. Personally, with exception of equipment rental or purchase, I think they could do a month or two free as long as you subscribe to cable TV (if it's a cable modem) at a certain level.....say add HBO or something and you get cable modem for free for a month. Once addicted, it's hard to go back to dialup. I got a laptop and was using dialup on it cuz I didn't have the networking hardware at the time and the excruciatingly SLOW speed of dial up MADE ME go get that stuff.

Re:Broadband cost

[caffeineboy]

I just got a year of Ameritech DSL for $29.99 a month. It was enough to get me to switch from $45.00 cable modem after I moved. There are a couple of hastles, somehow IPMasq chokes when forwarding to a PPPoE connection, after a couple of days of fiddling with it (yes, I tried CLAMP_MSS stuff) I just got a NAT router from Netgear

And this is a great deal, but is nowhere near as cheap as dial-up, which is as low as $9 a month here. I think people just don't feel the need to get a fast connection in a single family living situation. I've lived with 2~5 techie roommates for the last few years and what with drilling holes into other apartments to share their connections, we've never paid more than $5 or so each.

Maybe I'm crazy but one of the most apepaling cheap fat pipe ideas I've seen is apartments where it comes as a standard utility, like water. I know they're still few and far between, but this seems like a good way to do things. If you can get people to play friendly by having a surcharge over a certain bandwidth, this could work...

Re:Broadband cost

[stilwebm]

Maybe I'm crazy but one of the most apepaling cheap fat pipe ideas I've seen is apartments where it comes as a standard utility, like water. I know they're still few and far between, but this seems like a good way to do things. If you can get people to play friendly by having a surcharge over a certain bandwidth, this could work...

My experience with those apartment complexes is that the broadband is far from free. Usually a very similar apartment in a very similar complex in a very close area runs $50-$100 cheaper than the one with the broadband. They make you feel like you're getting more value. Remember, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Now, if there is a great move-in special, go for it.

Re:Broadband cost

[Scratch-O-Matic]

if you only have one line and you just check e-mail once or twice a day and do some light web surfing

One thing that I try to impress upon people about broadband is that when you have it, you will do MORE than just check email once or twice a day, etc. In my opinion, the always-on connection is every bit as valuable as the speed. When you're always on, it suddenly makes sense to use your connection to check movie times, check headlines, check weather, get a phone number, use mapquest, and a ton of other stuff you used to do with a phone/phonebook/map/newspaper/etc.

Re:Broadband cost

[ackthpt]

Broadband Too Expensive For Many

...the only show that got serious attention was "Farscape", we determined that even that wasn't worth the full price...

Effectively why I don't have DSL or cable at home. Based upon how I use my time and how I value it, watching TV or fast internet downloads aren't near the top. This may change when I'm done building my desktop system, but I'm taking my sweet time there, as this is still Summer where I live and I'm taking more advantage of being outside than I will in January/February/March when it rains (there's the prediction that this will be another El Niño year, but that could be weather people just trying to CYA after getting burned in 1998), my ultra slow laptop fits my 56K connection and all I want to watch on TV I can pretty much catch down at the pub.

Re:Broadband cost

[scoove]

We also signed up for digital cable when Cox began offering and promoting it. We have Cox phone and cable Internet, so digital seemed like a nice thing to upgrade to.

That was until we saw the actual bill. Like the extra $8.00 phone line that actually cost $16.73 a month, digital cable came brought our combined bill to $205 per month (little things like unit rentals, taxes, fees, etc. add up). When we realized we never watched the dozen HBO channels (Sopranos looks the same on the basic HBO), only needed to see Groundhog Day once per day, digital PayPerView had the same annoying feature of starting the same movie at the same time across a half-dozen channels, we figured the only thing that was unique to digital cable was the music, and that wasn't worth an additional $100/month.

So we dropped it too.

*scoove*

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if this is a problem in other markets, but one thing that really bothered me about Digital Cable-specific channels was the piss-poor picture quality! Artifacts abound. Most stations had a picture that was worse than an analog station (which the digital converter just passes through).

Re:Broadband cost

[DeadSea]

I tried digital cable and it was far worse.

1. The worst offender was the time that it takes to change channels. Digital takes almost half a second where my analog is almost instantaneous.
2. The picture quality wasn't improved. In fact, I noticed significant mpeg like artifacts especially right after you changed the channel.
3. The programming was almost the same. I never used any of the extra channels I got.
4. I needed a cable box, but the analog plugs directly into my tv and tivo.

With digital, channel surfing was nearly impossible because of the channel change lag, and that was my biggest reason for switching back to analog.

Re:Broadband cost

[programmingart]

Same reason I don't have digital cable. I like to surf the channels, which digital cable doesn't allow me to do. I actually paid more for regular cable at the time. There was free install for digital. The salesperson thought I was nuts. Regular cable is fine thanks. I can change the channel without a 1.5 second delay.

Re:Broadband cost

[whereiswaldo]

I had a cable modem for about three years, and DSL for about a year. Now, unbelievably almost, I'm back to dialup. Why? Because I'm tired of being treated like a piece of dirt by PacBell. I'm tired of companies blaming p2p users for using too much bandwidth. Like hey, do you want me to have high speed access or not? And 50 bucks a month adds up pretty quick, so I've saved a few hundred dollars already and spent it on other, better things.
I also spend less time surfing the net and more time coding which is great. Less distractions. Before I was checking my email every 15 minutes and all the news just because I could. Friggen addiction man.

Re:Broadband cost

[Hoover,L Ron]

If AT&T wern't such greedy pigs they might realize that when you buy a company out (In my case MediaOne) there is this thing called "Goodwill" that you might want to retain. Instead, my Cable modem speeds were capped at 1.5mbs and the upload speed choked off at 128kbs. The "Good news" is that if I want to cough up somewhere around $80.00(US) a month I can get back my old speeds with their "Ultra-Link" service. Sounds like a ultra hose job to me. This is why the market penetration for cable modem service will stall out. It only appeals to the power user, Aunt Mary will never buy into high speed access unless it is competitively priced. Of course if I was willing to move to new development with fiber to the home and spend $300,000-$500,000 on a new home I would be in hog heaven.

Re:Broadband cost

[gfxguy]

I have a question - I had satellite for a while, and I channel surf a lot, too.

I thought the digital cable box was similar in function to the satellite receiver... I mean, it takes a REALLY long time to switch channels on satellite, so they give you a TV guide-like listing, you scan the channels and a text box shows you what's on. It's even better than analog cable because you still see what's on during commercials which, lets face it, are on like 33% of the time.

So what's the deal? I suppose every cable company has their own boxes, but don't they have this feature?

BTW, I agree with everybody else - it's not worth it. Satellite was good, but I won't buy into the digital cable. I still have the "old fashioned" cable, get just the basic channels, and get a discount on the cable modem for having both.

Re:Broadband cost

[gfxguy]

Hey, I hear you - I've been seriously considering dumping the cable modem myself. Then, with no discount as incentive, I can drop cable TV and go satellite, which is cheaper and better.

Re:Broadband cost

[michael_cain]

Ethnographic studies of some high-speed data subscribers in the Boston area support this. While high-speed was the reason that these people initially subscribed, the always-on aspect of the service caused a significant number to rearrange furniture as necessary in order to bring their PC out of the office/den and into the kitchen/family room. The PC then took on a much bigger role as an information source. For example, checking the day's weather forecast on the PC rather than listening to the radio.

Re:Broadband cost

[JaredOfEuropa]

One thing that I try to impress upon people about broadband is that when you have it, you will do MORE than just check email once or twice a day, etc.

That is why a few providers here have started to offer low-budget DSL: a very limited bandwidth (same as ISDN), at very affordable rates. Those users are always-on for a price that doesn't exceed dial-up by much, and the ISP can hope that those users get a taste for the Internet and upgrade to a higher bandwidth package. Smart thinking IMHO.

Re:Broadband cost

[hyacinthus]

One thing that I try to impress upon people about distilled spirits is that when you have a bottle, you will do _more_ than just have a social cocktail once or twice a week. When you've got a stash of booze in the house, it suddenly makes sense to have an aperitif before dinner, a couple of drinks to wash the food down, a nightcap to help you get to sleep, an eye-opener in the morning to get you going, and so on.

Of course, you may argue that it's silly to compare Internet access with liquor, but I do not think the comparison is entirely inapt. Both can addict people who find themselves turning to the Internet (as to alcohol) to deal with the smallest details of daily living: "Gee, a friend of mine told me about a movie coming out on Friday. I'd better spend an hour reading online reviews of it first."

Perhaps television offers a more apt comparison. Spring the big bucks for cable TV and, if you're at all of an indolent or sedentary disposition, you _will_ find yourself watching it all the time. But will your life really be improved thereby?

hyacinthus.

Re:Broadband cost

[Scratch-O-Matic]

An interesting point of view. In fact, when I originally wrote that post I did make the comparison to TV, but I removed it because I wanted to focus on the useful informational aspects of the internet rather than the mindless, time-wasting aspects.

Your comparison to liquor does not fit my philosophy because the uses I cite are common things that people do anyway, using other resources. Examples of things that my wife and I do routinely on the internet, that we probably wouldn't bother with over dialup, include looking up phone numbers and addresses of friends and businesses, checking a word for spelling or definition, getting a quick bio of a historical person or political figure, quickly verifying or disproving rumors that we have heard in the media or from friends, and settling minor disputes by looking up facts on just about any subject. Things we do that we may also have done over dialup, but which are easier and faster over cable, include researching and making hotel, airline, and car reservations, researching any subject for work or personal interest, and buying/shipping gifts of any sort. We have a few computers, including a wireless laptop that makes all these functions quick and easy.

If we used our broadband for lurking in chatrooms or ICQ all day long, your analysis would be right on, but we make honest use of it. We now have a standard joke when we need any sort of information on any subject: "If we only had access to some sort of informational resource." In fact, we have taken to calling the laptop the "information machine." We use it a ton for all kinds of everyday functions, and we wouldn't bother if we were on dialup. And what do you have against liquor, anyway?

Re:Broadband cost

[ergo98]

Internet access and alcohol? Talk about stretching an analogy (sorry about the unintended goatse.cx reference).

The internet is a tool, and indeed ever since getting always on broadband years ago, I do use it many times per day in a very utilitarian manner. I have a cupboard full of booze (for guests), yet I very seldom drink. I have a fridge with some bars of butter, but I'm no scarfing them down.

Your point seems to be "high speed=bad because some people have no self control". That is a ridiculous approach to things.

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

There are as many opinions about the cost of broadband as there are people willing to discuss it. The facts for me are: 1) The local cable goes by the intersection leading to my rural canyon location about 13 mi. away. It'll be years b4 they come up that road. The nearest wireless repeater is two hills away, no line-of-sight to it from my place. Satellite services in this area run about $2,000 for the first year, even though as everyone knows they are skimming unused bandwidth from their commercial applications channels to provide latency-crippled access. Aerostat (balloon) on the horizon? Not likely.

Re:Broadband cost

[RickHunter]

And this is why you've got the high costs. American Cable and DSL companies all assumed what the original poster did - that people using their service would have the same usage patterns as dialup. But an always-on high-speed service changes your usage patterns a lot - it makes hosting much more attractive, for example. Or downloading/uploading large files.

None of these companies seem to have considered that, and so their peering arrangements and business models don't reflect it. Now that users are changing their habits and taking advantage of the connections they've been given, these companies are bumping their rates and crippling their serivces, all the while screaming about costs and bandwidth hogs.

Interestingly enough, many are owned by the telcos and movie companies that broadband could make irrelevant.

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, they almost all are the same motorola/general instruments box.

it's a neat setup.

and yes, it does have the guide feature. some people are just too stupid to use the extra buttons, i guess.

Re:Broadband cost

[jason99si]

I currently have Cox digital cable, local phone service, and cable Internet access. My bill per month, after myriad taxes, is $110. I own my own cable "modem", and the service is $35/month. They give me a $10 discount for subscribing to all three services.

I've often thought about dropping the cable modem, but if I did, I would drop $35 from the bill, and lose my $10 discount.. a net savings of $25... isn't it suspicious that AOL costs about $25? Those guys/ladies over there at Cox are smart, they have me locked into a plan I would be stupid to leave... and I still get Groundhog Day at least five times a week.

Re:Broadband cost

[geekoid]

But is it worth doing so at twice the cost when your all ready paying for those other methods to get your information?

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

But the guide only lists ~10 channels per page, and you get the same 1-second lag when you page through the guide. With >400 channels, it can easily take 10 minutes just to figure out what's on. They also only show a single 30-minute timeslice per page, so finding out what is coming on later in the day is a real bitch.

Fortunately, tvguide.com gives me the same listings on a single page that I can skim in a minute, and includes the next 2 hours' programming while they're at it. Compared to that, the cable guide is worthless.

Re:Broadband cost

[wiit_rabit]

The problem is the same for any service (value/cost)

I can do all of that listed above (check movie times, check headlines, check weather, get a phone number, use mapquest, and a ton of other stuff you used to do with a phone/phonebook/map/newspaper/etc.) with dialup just fine.

My objections to the current state of broadband cable/internet are as follows:

1) No competition. AT&T bought up the local cable company in my area (Southwest PA), and raised the prices for basic and digital cable. They do not offer any better service to justify the higher cost. They also own the phone lines so that if ISP's such as Stargate or Earthlink offer DSL, the price is ALWAYS higher than AT&T and higher than AT&T cable modem service.

2) Content. There is no compelling reason for high speed access. There are niceities (ATOM films, streaming anime, upating/downloading the latest Linux distro, etc...) but no 'Killer App'

3) Fixability. If my dialup service is giving me fits, I can always try another access number (Even long distance if I am desperate). If my cable modem is refusing to connect, I can stare at the blinking lights, or reboot the unit and cross my fingers.

I get along just fine with a 56K dialup service from Earthlink for $21.95/month. If AT&T or others are listening I am willing to pay $30 per month for broadband access and I will no pay more than $60 per month for a combination of broadband access and digital cable.

If they want more for digital cable let me 'roll my own' channel package. For example, sell me the local broadcast channels and 5 'extended channels for $30 / month. Let me subscribe to 'premium' channels on a per monthly basis at some cost ($2-$3 per channel) similar to the way you purchase pay-per view movies. Do not pro-rate the cost for the 'premium' channels. (for example: if I want HBO to watch The Sopranos on the last day of the month, I pay for the whole month).

Oh wait...that puts the consumer in charge of the content... we can't have that.

Sorry for the rant, but the state of broadband internet and digital cable are very disappointing to me and I don't seee it changing soon.

Re:Broadband cost

[Scratch-O-Matic]

Many of your points are well taken, but it sounds like you are exactly the type of user that my comments are aimed at. True, you CAN do all of those things just fine with dialup, but if you have to go through several mouse clicks and 45 seconds of dialing/connecting, then it doesn't make sense to use your connection for a 30 second task. It's a far different matter to flip open the laptop on your coffee table and type a google search immediately. Your comment reminds me, and you sound knowlegeable so please believe that I mean no offense, of a man I overheard several years ago saying "I don't need a computer...I just write everything on paper."

Understand that I am not disagreeing with your comments and complaints regarding price and content...it's just that the more convenient you make a particular technology, the more use you will get out of it. If a person doesn't want to pay the price for broadband access, that's fine, but when the subject is set in terms of "I don't need the speed because I don't use it much," then I really think the dialup user is missing out on the true possibilities.

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast already DOES this, costed me 19.95 for the first 3 months, then I upgraded to comcast pro :)

Re:Broadband cost

[letxa2000]

One thing that I try to impress upon people about broadband is that when you have it, you will do MORE than just check email once or twice a day, etc.

Yeah, but not MUCH more--since the trend now seems to be to cap your bandwidth or charge you even MORE if you are a "power use" that uses more than a GB per month. The power of broadband is its speed, but that power is greatly dimished if you use up your monthly allotment in the first 4 days of the month.

The fact is, broadband will not catch on while providers are trying to reduce the amount you can use it and raise prices. Many see dial-up as truly "unlimited use" whereas broadband is always on, but the more you use it the more you pay. People don't like that because it introduces uncertainty as to how much you're going to pay.

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever. I pay $99 a year and use the net for all kinds of info like news, movie times, weather, driving directions, etc. Oh and then there's work. And let's not forget pictures of naked women and astronmical phenomena and desert landscapes....I guess it helps to have Mozilla and a zippy OS. How much do you think I should be paying for that?

Give me a static IP and don't restrict my use of servers and I'd be sold on broadband at current prices. Otherwise, who needs it?

Re:Broadband cost

[letxa2000]

Then, with no discount as incentive, I can drop cable TV and go satellite, which is cheaper and better.

... Depending on cloud cover, anyway.

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what my parents did. They had two phone lines, one being for the computer. Then Time-Warner rolled out RoadRunner up here. They figured it out that RoadRunner at $40 a month was cheaper than the extra phone line and ISP costs, plus they go a faster connection that was always there...

Re:Broadband cost

[gfxguy]

Well, I had satellite for about 8 months last year, and only lost it once when a powerful storm blew through. When the storm was over, I had satellite back... everyone with cable had to wait for several days, though.

I dropped it because the combination of TV and internet service makes that deal much cheaper. But if I drop one of those, it becomes relatively expensive.

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

(sorry about the unintended goatse.cx reference)

There was no unintended reference until you explicitly brought it up. That just shows what you like to think about. Ew.

Re:Broadband cost

[ImaLamer]

Interesting, we get HBO-On-Demand, Showtime on Demand and even Cinemax on Demand.

What is really cool is on demand movie rentals with "i-Control". Like the other 'on-demand' channels, you can fast forward and all that. Also you get movies for like 6 hours or 12... either way that is only 2 or 4 showings, not long enough IMHO.

But the HBO on demand is cool because they had (in the beginning, not anymore) the first two seasons of Sopranos and other series of theirs and a few good movies (I loved the comedy).

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate those HUGH PRICES!!!

Re:Broadband cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital cable is simply not priced correctly for most individuals and combined with any sort of convenience. Mainly, the equipment costs are outlandish. The box is $299. That's fine, except you've got to rent boxes to watch them on other TVs. You have a TV in the kitchen? Gotta get a box. Or rig something up where the output goes to a splitter and you have IR over coax or RF.

So if you want to watch digital cable channels in the kitchen, living room, computer room/bedroom, you end up with 3 boxes or selecting one location to watch digital HBO. Or spend $1000 on boxes. Or $21/month to rent 3 boxes.

I miss HBO, I miss the Action Channel (esp. since they had anime offerings some afternoons and on the weekends), but it wasn't worth $20-25 more over my extended cable with the lack of convience. I spend the $20 now buying an anime DVD or something once in a while.

Re:Broadband cost

[letxa2000]

Well, I had satellite for about 8 months last year, and only lost it once when a powerful storm blew through. When the storm was over, I had satellite back... everyone with cable had to wait for several days, though.

I guess it depends where you live. I don't have satellite Internet--I have a 56k dial-up. But my DirectTV tends to go out on stormy, rainy nights... just about the time you want to cuddle with your wife with some TV in the background. It's been enough that we've almost decided to go with cable TV just to avoid that problem.

Re:Broadband cost

[fire-eyes]

When you're always on, it suddenly makes sense to use your connection to check movie times, check headlines, check weather, get a phone number, use mapquest, and a ton of other stuff you used to do with a phone/phonebook/map/newspaper/etc.

Hmm, I've never had a broadband connection yet I do these things on line regardless.

where is the content ?

[tamizhan]

where is the content to justify a broadband connection if you rule out the obvious mp3/divx piracy ?

Re:where is the content ?

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD ISOs... Ever try and d/l that on a 56k?

Re:where is the content ?

[OrangeSpyderMan]

TROLL_FOOD=1
I, personally have many legal uses for it. I enjoy listening to radio stations I can't get any other way than on the internet (I live a long way from home), I also enjoy free software, and regularly download source code (Gentoo Linux or *BSD ports/pkgsrc are good examples). I shop on the internet to save me skipping out from the office at work, and the luxury of flat rate connexion (which only exists since the last month or so for dialup here in France) means I can take my time choosing. I dont use the phone book anymore but look up numbers on the internet, I trade shares - constant near realtime info is great, I even check the TV guide and check out cinema trailers to pick what I going to go and see at the weekend. I don't buy a daily paper but spend at least an hour a day getting up to scratch on everything that's going on.

You get the picture? Asides from the lack of flat-rate dialup situation, ADSL is right now then only things that lets me do this comfortably, surf, listen to the radio, keep tabs on newsflashes while one of my PC makes "world"...

Re:where is the content ?

[Gimpin]

Got one better for you...I installed via ftp over modem, made the mistake of selecting x-user distro, and having connection drop in the middle, never to return :) Ended up in a foobar state, started over the following evening this time with a watch. With my 56k modem in hand, I was able to install just the bin dist in just 7 hours.

Warping back to the future from 1997, My how times have changed...this weekend I cvsup entire tree stable and current, d/l the 4.7-PR iso's, and downloaded all of current packages (that's +4 Gigs alone) to burn to a dvd-r...and this was just saturday morning. Just in time for football.

Re:where is the content ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of shopping after work, you shop during work and this helps your productivity how...?

Re:where is the content ?

[ulbador]

Have you ever tried to have more than one ssh session open while constantly reloading a page on a far away server on dialup (ignore the fact at my house the best we got for a connection due to the phone lines was 26400? That is enough to justify the cost of broadband right there for me

Re:where is the content ?

[Anonymous Coward]

who would download a dead OS though?

Re:where is the content ?

[Cpt_Kirks]

where is the content to justify a broadband connection if you rule out the obvious mp3/divx piracy ?

Porn. Duh.

Re:where is the content ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to go huh? -I live a long way from home -save me skipping out from the office at work

Broadband is a personal thing

[Dancin_Santa]

It isn't necessary for everyone to sign up for broadband before seeing a benefit from it. Rather, most users of broadband are just that, USERS. They aren't serving pages, they aren't running spam services, they are simply downloading and browsing pages. Adding more users doesn't do anything but increase demand on an already overloaded U.S. infrastructure, thus raising the cost of entry for the next guy.

The problem with broadband isn't that there aren't enough users, nor that the cost is too high. It's that the speeds are too low and getting it hooked up is too much of a pain in the ass.

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[netphilter]

And then there are those of us who use broadband and would LOVE to host our own web sites, etc...but we get certified letters from Charter telling us to turn of Apache in 5 days or be disconnected..grrrrr.

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[N3WBI3]

ITs not just that, most BB providers will not give a static IP..

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[netphilter]

That's what all the free, dynamic dns providers are for.

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[N3WBI3]

NEver heard of them (like the name says im a n3wbi3) do you have any links??

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[mwjlewis]

They aren't serving pages, they aren't running spam services, they are simply downloading and browsing pages. Adding more users doesn't do anything but increase demand on an already overloaded U.S. infrastructure, thus raising the cost of entry for the next guy.

I hate to break it to you, but the majority of Tier 1 internet connectivity providers are not opperating at more then 50% ultization. The only really overloaded infrastructure would be the cable providers that have only so much bandwidth available PER segment.

Quest for example has fiber running across the US, that is about 10% ultlized on one pipe, and they have two pipes.

Check out AboveNet. AboveNet For their usage. It is all listed online. They are a Major Tier One Proivder. They are also not overloaded as you had indicated.

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[netphilter]

www.dyndns.org is one, there are others...try a Google search.

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[idleprocess]

And then there are those of us who use broadband and would LOVE to host our own web sites, etc...but we get certified letters from Charter telling us to turn of Apache in 5 days or be disconnected.

If you are in an area served by SBC check out DSL. I have Enhanced/Basic DSL that comes with 5 static IP's, a couple email addy's and 128Kbps up / 1.5Mbps down. There is no bandwidth/month limit, no restrictions on services you can run from your line, and as an added bonus, if you want to host your own DNS, you can do both forward AND reverse.

Re:Broadband is a personal thing

[schatt]

Hopefullly, there are at least some restrictions. I don't want to have to add SBC to my spam blocks because of idiots running unsecured servers (no problems with ISPS who allow servers, but verify that they don't relay). Or even more code red attempts from stupid SBC customers.

Chicken and egg my ass

[ramdac]

Lower the damned price. These companies have loads of money. Help the consumers out a little bit, sheez.

I have DSL, and I'd pay whatever they ask for it, but not everyone can do that.

Re:Chicken and egg my ass

[rmadmin]

PFFFT! Not everyone needs all of that speed! Yes their are some bennifits to cable/DSL, but with the providers around me, theirs no way I'd pay more to use them. I'm quite happy with Dialup at home, but then again, I don't "Surf" a whole lot. 90% of my online experience is ssh into my servers, the other 10% is google and howto pages. Dialup does that fine, and dialup does everything fine for pleanty of other people.

Re:Chicken and egg my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed his point. His point was that this isn't a chicken/egg thing. It's something else.

Be it price, necessity, or plain jaded-ness like the original poster,....one thing it's not; a "chicken and egg" problem.

Re:Chicken and egg my ass

[NDPTAL85]

The telcos are actually losing money right now. If they had loads of money they wouldn't be laying off thousands of workers.

Re:Chicken and egg my ass

[jasonditz]

SBC made over $6 billion dollars in profit in the last 12 months. They must be doing something right.

Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[cornicefire]

The New York Times has a story claiming that Netflix ships almost as much information as the Internet does. (1500 terabytes versus 2000-4000 terabytes.) So who needs wired broadband?

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[scott1853]

Reminds me a customer that called our ISP to sign up. He asked if he could get the Internet on floppies instead of a CD because he didn't have a CDROM drive.

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[Dudio]

Yeah, but the latency is horrible. Last time I tried to download something from NetFlix it took two days before the first packet arrived.

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[Jucius Maximus]

"Reminds me a customer that called our ISP to sign up. He asked if he could get the Internet on floppies instead of a CD because he didn't have a CDROM drive."

I have heard of situations where newbies pay their ISPs by making cheques payable to "The Internet."

You've gotta wonder what to say to the person when they do something like that... I would generate an analogy, asking them of they pay their cable bill by making the cheque payable to "Cable TV."

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[Stonehand]

DVD over Avian Carrier, perhaps?

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[0xdeadbeef]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes

The funny thing is how well this analogy holds in the p2p arena. There have been tape trading networks over post for like, forever, trading bootlegs and tv shows.

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[rknop]

You've gotta wonder what to say to the person when they do something like that... I would generate an analogy, asking them of they pay their cable bill by making the cheque payable to "Cable TV."

Not bad.

Also consider asking if, when shipping a package via UPS, they would make the check out to "Roads and Trucks".

-Rob

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[Jason1729]

The latency is too high with the post office. I tried playing Quake that way once, but my ping times were too high. Besides, with having to use all those CD-R's with only a few meg on them, it turned out to be cheaper to just get broadband.

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[sahala]

Reminds me [of] a customer that called our ISP to sign up. He asked if he could get the Internet on floppies instead of a CD because he didn't have a CDROM drive. (Score:4, Funny)

Ha ha ha. Those STUPID newbie users. Ha ha ha. They don't have a CLUE how anything works. Ha ha ha. They don't deserve broadband. Ha ha ha.

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[cornicefire]

Dude, you've got to have a pretty good cable modem connection before you can download a DVD faster than 2 days. 9 gigabytes of data is a lot.

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[indian_robyn]

The first chapters of "Computer Netowrks" by Andrew S. Tanenbaum (ISBN: 0-13-066102-3) which every computer science student has read talked about the speed of snail mail long ago...so what else is new?

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[cosyne]

A friend's grandfather asked her how he was supposed to tell the internet that he'd moved the modem to a separate phone line, so they'd know where to deliver his email...

Re:Post Office Offers Better Broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf

Uh, we're geeks.

[saintlupus]

This really isn't all that surprising - sure, I've got a home network with a cable modem and my own mail and DNS servers and such, but I'm a big geek who likes tinkering with this sort of shit, so broadband is useful to me.

It's like people who have three or four cars in the driveway that they enjoy tinkering with as a hobby - my mom drives a Taurus to get groceries and go to work, and that's all she needs. Just like all she needs for internet access is a couple of five minute dialup connections every week to check her email.

--saint

Re:Uh, we're geeks.

[scott1853]

I assume you're saying the you run your own DNS and mail for your home network and don't run them for the outside world, right?

I wouldn't mind running my own mail server if my ISP would allow me to purchase a static IP and they didn't block incoming port 25/110 packets.

Re:Uh, we're geeks.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes i agree, its an irritation for me too, i can run an IMAP server, but no sendmail.

seeing as how it would be for only my own home. i wish they would allow it, i understand why they dont. but i still want to.

and i cant make that jump of $150 more per month for the business version

Re:Uh, we're geeks.

[saintlupus]

I assume you're saying the you run your own DNS and mail for your home network and don't run them for the outside world, right?

Indeed. So far as I can tell, the entire network infrastructure for my soon-to-be-out-of-business cable provider is run by untrained chimps; I've actually set up a few NetBSD-based DNS-and-mail server combos for friends who are sick of all their name lookups timing out and their mail getting lost.

--saint

Re:Uh, we're geeks.

[scott1853]

I'm using Adelphia too. I've never bothered with DNS as I work for an ISP so I just use their DNS servers since Adelphia's have problems staying up.

Re:Uh, we're geeks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I would use this as an example of why the telecom and cable companies are idiots.

The car tinkerers support a multi-billion dollar customization industry, from your old classic cars, to your 70s favorites, to your present day foreign and domestic street rodders. They cater products to those in the know who want performance or want to know more themselves.

I would say the broadband companies just don't get it. They have no pricing for value added services.

I've got 1.1mbit/128kbps cable modem service. There is no option for a supported static IP. No option to uncap my upload speed. No option to allow me to serve. 1.1mbit download is fine, but I really don't need it that fast. I'd rather have 128kpbs upped quite a bit.

Parents use 56k. Would love to get broadband, but they don't need 1.1/128. They need like 300kbps/90kbps. They'd pay $20-30 for that, as they already pay the typical $20+ for dialup and a separate telephone line. If the companies want to get broadband to the masses, lower price, and, to start, lower the bandwidth. Most people want the convenience of always on, but most don't need the speed.

Meanwhile, make offerings to the hot rodders, the geeks. I pay $45 a month, including cable modem rental. I pay $25 a month for web hosting services (multiple domains). They could be making inroads on those markets. I would gladly pay $100 a month. Why pay the extra $30? Because I want to run the databases on my own server, not worrying about security of my hosting company and minor albeit proprietary information on another machine on another coast. I want to be able to pull a drive now if it dies, or upgrade a cpu. I'd gladly pay more.

Broadband to the home needs to treat themselves like a business, like they want to attract people. Have general plans so people don't get confused (e.g. chart a--if you check email and surf, buy plan a, which is the basic plan) but have options for those that know ($25 for a change in the service agreement so you can serve, $25 for some level of downtime or SLA).

Allow folks in a neighborhood to uncap. I know people with office and houses in the same area, on cable modem service, served by the same headend. They share files at 128kbps. Why??? They'd gladly pay a little more to have this lifted so they could share at like 10baseT (unrealistic probably given the asymmetric bandwidth technology basis of cable modem service).

Intermediate solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Isnt't this thing an intermediate solution anyway?
Aren't we all waiting for T1 or faster?

Re:Intermediate solution

[Gimpin]

Without a doubt. Pricing is for even fractional T1 in my area is crazy. There is a $600 month state fee/tax/bullshit. Every friggin month.

At least cable in my area claims to have "business class" services, but the cost for same up/down speed as home user with a single static ip is $250 a month....while home user cost is $44.95 (not including all f.u. tax/fees)

Broadband?

[LucidityZero]

There are still people out there without broadband?

No, seriously, I personally can't even imagine life without a 1.5mbit SDSL connection. Much slower speeds (atleast around here in Northern Virginia) are the same monthly price as an AOL account. I understand reasons for not investing, but for the same amount of money? Why in God's name not? Is broadband that expensive in other area of the country?

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Japan, we've got 8Mbps ADSL for about the same price as your 1.5Mbps connection. Have I made your penis feel small enough yet?

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but your steak costs $50/lb. If I were going to pick a country to brag about cheap cost of living Japan would be by far the last.

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have I made your penis feel small enough yet?

Somehow I never expected to hear these words coming from someone in Japan.

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are a racist. You obviously haven't the slightest clue how much things cost here as you are obviously regurgitating some stupid rumor. The cost of living in any location in Japan is exactly comparable to its counterpart in America, i.e. Tokyo costs the same as NY, Oketsuecchi Japan costs the same as Buttfuck USA.

Your opportunistic cheap shot at Japan reveals you. Assholes like you sadden me.

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and blacks have huge dicks, right? That's what you want to say, isn't it? Slants have tiny dicks and niggers have huge ones. White brethren have perfectly sized ones that neither turn them into nerdy, meek smartypants, nor into brutish animals. C'mon, you fucking racist. Why don't you share with us what's on your mind?

You fucking piece of shit.

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

My suburban $140,000 house has 2,400 square feet of livable space, an attached two-car garage, and an enormous yard that takes three hours to mow. How much would that run me in Tokyo?

Re:Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

We also Nuke you, when the situation dictates...

Re:Broadband?

[Yunzil]

Much slower speeds (atleast around here in Northern Virginia) are the same monthly price as an AOL account.

Um, I live in NoVA, and the price for "slow" DSL is still *way* more than I pay for my dialup.

distance

[Anonymous Coward]

Prices especially suck when you have to pay the same per month for half the bandwith of your friends down the street who are closer to the switching location!

Re:New topic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right here, buddy.

Re:Res v. Business?

[MichaelDelving]

Since when is ISDN more expensive than DSL? DSL is more expensive, but you get 10x the bandwidth. Cheaper per bit/s, maybe.

um, the music channels ROCK

[sirinek]

The digital music channels are the *ONLY* and I do mean *ONLY* thing I use my cable TV for. So its worth it for me to get quality music choices and not have to listen to the shit on the radio.

I also believe part of the reason that people arent springing the extra bucks on high speed access is the economy. 2nd place would be the fact that most of them havent experienced it first-hand to see really how bad modem dial-up is. Sure, many people might have fast web access in the office, but not everyone does.

siri

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[gjt]

But why pay extra for it? If I'm correct, the music channels are inculded in the base price of sattelite TV. Why pay twice as much for digital cable?

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[jandrese]

Wow, you must have different music channels than we did. The DSS music channels I remember all followed the same pattern: choose some cateogry, like soft rock, or light jazz, or classical; and play only the bottom 10% of the music from that category. I didn't hear even one song I enjoyed over those channels.

Interestingly enough, my cable provider (ComCast) doesn't even offer music channels on their digital cable. In fact the digital cable channels consist entirely of channels we never watched (Discovery Kids, Oxygen, etc...). Once we got a TiVO (which made the digital guide obsolete), we returned the digital cable box. Occasionally ComCast calls us trying to get us to switch to digital cable, but until they start carrying channels I actually give a damn about, I'm not going to switch.

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[sirinek]

We have MusicChoice, and while they do play some of the stuff found on microwave rotation on the radio stations, they do play a lot of smaller/more obscure artists in the mix as well.

For example, I listen to the Alternative Rock channel most of the time, and while they will play endlessly-played bands like Linkin Park, Staind, and Nickelback, they will play stuff I'll never hear on the radio (at least here) like The Incredible Moses Leroy, Farrah, Luce, and Dub Pistols.

siri

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[Zathrus]

Er, so why are you paying so much for them?

Get XM or Sirius radio - they're digital, they're commercial free or low commercial (depending on which one you choose), and they'er a lot less expensive than digital cable (at least on a monthly charge - the upfront equipment is another matter).

It appears that Sirius is totally ignoring everything but the car audio market, but XM does have some home products. Of course, if you're willing to hack then nothing is impossible.

Not sure that it's really a viable replacement, but it may be something you want to look into.

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[legojenn]

I also believe part of the reason that people arent springing the extra bucks on high speed access is the economy.

I realise I don't live in the US, and I work for the federal government, but the economy isn't rough for everyone so my perspective may be different than most readers. It's just bad for high tech now. Government (at least here was in bad shape) from 1992-98. Your second point is probably more dead-on. Many people are happy what you can do with dial-up and have never bothered even considering ADSL or cable, so have never investigated it.

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[dohcvtec]

If all you want is the music channels, you might as well ditch digital cable, at $40+/month for the most basic package, and go with Directv, which is $31.99/month for the basic package. Trust me, you'll like it much better than digital cable, and you may even watch the video channels. The video quality is much better than any digital cable I've seen; it actually makes watching TV more enjoyable.

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn, call me when a station plays Buck Tick, Dir en Grey, or Novasonic. Yeah, I know my stuff is old , but none of its pirated so ya can't sue me.

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[Malachi]

Why not Live365?

I don't own digital cable, hell I don't even own a general box.. I just have basic cable and my road runner and a feed from one of my boxen to our entertainment system. My livein GF knows how to navigate Live365 and Shoutcast, picks genres and music that have to hands down beat out the music stations.

Its quality is radio to right below CD, which on most systems can't be told the difference, and for those I want to listen to on my Digital audio out card to my Mackie 8/24's I can find those stations as well.. It all depends but its out there and I save an extra 30 bucks/mo from an upgrade.

Just another perspective,
-M-

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[pmz]

I am still waiting to hear one good reason to run Netscape 7 instead of Mozilla! :-)

For Solaris, Netscape 7 is delivered in pkgadd format making installation trivial. Once installed, all the Mozilla customizations are just a 'vi prefs.js' away.

I have both Mozilla 1.0 on Linux and Netscape 7 on Solaris and have them configured almost identically. The only difference to a casual observer would be which animated graphic is displayed in the top right corner.

Re:um, the music channels ROCK

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 3Com Audrey hooked up to our DSL connection. Turn the dial and tune into one of a dozen preset internet radio channels. Streaming audio from France, techno, trance, whatever. I'm already paying for DSL so I may as get the music for free too. It is just like using the old FM tuner, only cool.

Of Course....

[SquierStrat]

It is much more expensive to get broadband in some places than others. I would be interested to see these results accoording to geographic location. Here in Atlanta, getting good DSL or cable modem service is not that expensive...in fact it costs about the same as a second phone line and dial-up service. The problem here (IMHO...) is one of availability as most people I know simply can not get it. Overall, these results do not surprise me, especially when I hear how much my friends in other states pay for broadband, it seems pretty obscene next to what I pay.

Re:Of Course....

[RottenDeadite]

The central reason why most people in Atlanta can't get ADSL is because AT&T, the leading Cable Modem provider in Georgia, is blocking DSL expansion in areas where AT&T is the only broadband provider.

Although Atlanta is expanding at a suprising rate, newer neighborhoods are getting Cable Modem access before they get DSL, some having been around for years and have yet to see a glimmer of DSL.

Seen a similar study

[Anonymous Coward]

A report with similar conclusions has been
isssued from MIT's department of the bleeding
obvious.

Re:Seen a similar study

[gailwynand]

In other news, Quantum Physics too complicated for many.

Re:Seen a similar study

[Anonymous Coward]

many? like 97% of them isn't many. thats basically all.

too expensive

[tid242]

more than 70 percent of dial-up users cited cost as the main reason they aren't upgrading to faster access.

many of these are the same people who are paying $25/month for AOL dial-up. Otherwise there is a large number of 'normal' people (from what i've see anyway) who use "the internet" solely for work purposes and their place of employment functions as their ISP and they therefore pay nothing monthly for the service, in which case the difference between $0.00 and $35 montly is a pretty big difference...

just what i've seen :)

-tid242

Re:too expensive

[scott1853]

If you work for a place that functions as your ISP since your job requires internet access, then you should probably be able to afford $35/month.

Re:too expensive

[Jucius Maximus]

"many of these are the same people who are paying $25/month for AOL dial-up. Otherwise there is a large number of 'normal' people (from what i've see anyway) who use "the internet" solely for work purposes..."

AOL != Normal ?!? Perhaps you have not been paying attention to the latest AOL television ad campaign.

Let me quote you a line (I am not making this up): "With AOL, you don't have to worry about anybody you meet online, they're just like you and me!"

Yes, on AOL, they assure that everyone using the service is 100% normal. (Follow the link to see some images of people you WON'T find on AOL. Don't worry, it's an at-the-office-safe link.)

That's kindof bogus.

[HaloZero]

I would safely say that 75% of the people I know and work with who have dialup also have a second phone line for said dialup. It's been analysed hundreds of times, and the conclusion is that the 44.95$ I pay for my cable service is actually LESS than the 24.95$ they pay for an ISP, as well as the 14.95$ monthly fee, and 9.95$ yearly upkeep on the second line.

College is where the fun stuff is, though. Bundled T3 lines with a routed connection right to your dorm. :)

Anywho, if broadband providers allowed for (NO BS) trial-periods, or actually began a comparative analysis advertising campaign, they might get more users. Though some people still might not be able to afford it. :-\

Re:That's kindof bogus.

[Anonymous Coward]

> College is where the fun stuff is, though. Bundled T3 lines with a routed connection right to your dorm. :)

Did it ever occur to you than a lot of us around here are grown-ups and not still in college?

Re:That's kindof bogus.

[HaloZero]

Plenty. I never inferred, or meant to, that any of you were. Not that it was even at all the point of my post. Just a random comment. Geeze.

Re:That's kindof bogus.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Did it ever occur to you than a lot of us around here are grown-ups and not still in college?"

No, I've read far too many slashdot comments to believe that.

Re:That's kindof bogus.

[silentbozo]

$14.95 for a second line? Where is that possible? I'm in California, and the mandatory state charge (interstate non-primary access) for having a second line is $7 in addition to the $10.00 I pay GTE for a metered line, and with the state, federal, and local taxes, my phone bill for my second line comes to about $20 a month. I used to pay another $7 on top of that before I figured out that I didn't need flat-rate access for a fax machine (duh!)

For pretty much everyone (at least in California), broadband makes sense (if it's less than $50) if they're running a dedicated phone line for dialup right now.

Re:That's kindof bogus.

[Anonymous Coward]

I only pay $14 (and not $14.95, either) here in Maryland for my second line. I have the "economy per-call" plan, where I get no calls for free, but pay the same rate for each call regardless of length. I keep the cost down by using it only to call an 800 number, which isn't charged at all. :-)

The real problem

[jvmatthe]

Not enough quality digital entertainment, like movies and TV shows, are being offered over broadband connections to make them worth it to normal users.

For example, when I've tried to find good movies to watch on my computer, most of the time the very newest movies that movie companies are making available are not worth the download. They usually look like someone sat in a theater with a video camera and taped it by hand, which I admit is capturing the experience of going to a real movie, but just isn't what I'm expecting when I can go down to the Blockbuster and get older movies on DVD that have sharper picture and much better sound. Some of the older movies I've found online are very clear, but then they look identical to what I can rent (or buy) at local stores, so the download seems kind of a waste of time. Not to mention that some parts of the movie files aren't always there, and I end up requesting "fills".

And the advertisements that I see in the download area where I get the movies are usually not the kinds of things I'm interested in. I'm not really sure that they should be putting those kinds of adverts right beside, say, the latest Harry Potter film download. Barnyard stuff just isn't my cup of tea, if you get my drift.

I don't know what kind of company this USENET outfit is, but the movie companies should ditch them ASAP and get a real online movie distribution system.

Re:The real problem

[blakestah]

Not enough quality digital entertainment, like movies and TV shows, are being offered over broadband connections to make them worth it to normal users.

No, it is price, plain and simple. In Japan, where broadband is typically under $20/month, it quickly became ubiquitious. And there is demand. High speed internet access is in high demand, but not at $40-50/month.

I think the out will be wireless. Consider this plan. A large web provider provides 802.11b points of access all across San Francisco, and offers to sign up people for $20/month. Like someone who really needs to expand their broadband offerings (AOL or MSN, maybe). Shower the consumer with those stupid install CDs and free 802.11b cards. That quickly becomes an easy game for whoever will play.

Because the real problem is that the phone company and cable company view themselves as monopolies, and want to make huge profits (per customer) from broadband. That will work until competition exists. And whereas landlines for high speed internet do not scale well, wireless does.

Re:The real problem

[mustangdavis]

They usually look like someone sat in a theater with a video camera and taped it by hand

The real problem ... this is illegal!

Broadband is meant for downloading porn and playing games now ... eveything else will get you thrown in jail or sued! (well, some porn will get yo thrown in jail too, but that kinda stuff is only for "sickos"!)

Re:The real problem

[gl4ss]

it's just with free local calling dialup is cheap.. here where i live using dialup gets quite fast (1h/day or even less) more expensive than getting dsl or cable.. the biggest selling point for dsl/cable here is that it's cheaper and faster even with moderate use.

Re:The real problem

[Anonymous Coward]

wake up, the poster was making a joke

Re:The real problem

[amlutias]

I think the out will be wireless. Consider this plan. A large web provider provides 802.11b points of access all across San Francisco, and offers to sign up people for $20/month. Like someone who really needs to expand their broadband offerings (AOL or MSN, maybe). Shower the consumer with those stupid install CDs and free 802.11b cards. That quickly becomes an easy game for whoever will play.

you clearly know absolutely nothing about 802.11. first, only 3 channels out of 11 (in the US) do not overlap, which means the others are essentially useless. Each user of the shared medium degrades the connections of the others. Any APs operating within range of each other on the same channel similarly degrade performance. Couple that with 2.4ghz's basically shitty penetration characteristics (for something like this, anyway), and it quickly becomes obvious that 802.11 would simply not do what you describe.

Not only that, 802.11b cards are still around $60 retail, at the cheapest, and wouldn't work for reliable access anyway. You'd need some sort of reliable, outdoors friendly non-mobile CPE. Also note that apartment building owners are required in many states to allow you to install satellite tv antennae, but those protections do not usually include simple data transit devices.

Wireless connections for high speed internet don't scale at all.

public responds: DUH!

[Lumpy]

wow, what's next a report that "water is wet!"

broadband in the home IS and expensive luxury. I live in cheap cable modem land and get it for $40.00 with modem rental.. DSL here is $35.00+5.00 modem rental and is 1/2 the speed of cable. T1? $1500.00 +$1000.00 for the T1 line per month... as it has been for the past 10 years.

Sattelite? HAHAHA! 3000ms latency destroys all advantages of broadband... It may have became better now, but it is still more expensive than DSL or cable.

most people can only afford $9.95 a month internet.. Yes, these same poor that make up 75% of the population happily spend $3.00 to $6.00 a day on other luxurues like smoking but it still comes down to the same basic fact....

Internet access is a Luxury. you can live without it. you can easily learn without it. and your life is OK without it.

and until it passes from the realm of Luxury to somthing that is absolutely needed... it will retain the luxury level pricing... and broadband will always be much more expensive than regular access.

Re:public responds: DUH!

[sql*kitten]

most people can only afford $9.95 a month internet.. Yes, these same poor that make up 75% of the population happily spend $3.00 to $6.00 a day on other luxurues like smoking but it still comes down to the same basic fact....

What you mean is "internet access is only worth $9.95/mo to most people" which isn't the same thing at all. Because they evidently do have money to spend on other things, the only question is, what will cause the internet to be more valuable to these people? Work that out, and you've solved the problem.

and until it passes from the realm of Luxury to somthing that is absolutely needed... it will retain the luxury level pricing...

It doesn't work like that. Is good quality toilet paper a luxury or a necessity? Maybe it's a luxury, but people are happy to pay for it. Toast is a luxury if you've got bread, but people still happily buy toasters (one friend of mine even calls bread "raw toast"). What I'd saying is, things that aren't technically necessary for the maintenance of life still count as necessities to many people.

At such time as broadband actually becomes useful, it will become widespread. At the moment it isn't because there isn't much practical use for it, i.e., insuffient compelling content.

Re:public responds: DUH!

[Christianfreak]

At the moment it isn't because there isn't much practical use for it, i.e., insuffient compelling content.

You mean /. isn't compelling content!???

Re:public responds: DUH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy then, the broadband ISP can giveaway EverCrack, mail it out as promotional material ...
I smell lawsuit 20 years down the road. Hugh, hugh class action!

Re:public responds: DUH!

[Philippe]

Toast is a luxury if you've got bread, but people still happily buy toasters (one friend of mine even calls bread "raw toast").

If stores would stop selling partially-cooked bread (aka sliced bread, "wonder bread"...), the market for toasters would be dramatically reduced. Ever since I learned how to make bread, I have had utter distaste for that white, mush stuff. It's so full of air that you can actually compress it to 1/4th the length!

Re:public responds: DUH!

[alarosa]

"Sattelite? HAHAHA! 3000ms latency destroys all advantages of broadband... It may have became better now, but it is still more expensive than DSL or cable." Actually the average latency for most two-way satellite connections is about 800ms these days - still really horrible for gaming, but your average 2-way satellite user isn't exactly a CounterStrike addict - primarily people living in rural (sometimes VERY rural) areas, average age seems to be about 50 in my experience.

Re:public responds: DUH!

[pmz]

You mean /. isn't compelling content!???

If the user preferences are set up properly (simplified HTML), SlashDot is very responsive over a modem. So, even though SlashDot may be compelling right now, it will need to be ruined with Flash UIs, Applets, hundred-function JavaScript hacks, streaming background music, and large animated images before it becomes compelling enough for broadband. Considering all this, I think I'll stick to my modem.

Re:public responds: DUH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Im 22 and have satellite, only because Cable/DSL/Wireless are not an option, and no I dont live in the sticks. I live in the Chicagoland area in a city of 125,000 people. Satellite is all I have sadly.

I have the one way so I am on the modem to, ping times are about 800 so no games for me, I have been dying for a low ping connection for some time now to play. Otherwise i just surf the net and download stuff. At least my download speed can get up to 250KB at times.

Re:public responds: DUH!

[sql*kitten]

Ever since I learned how to make bread, I have had utter distaste for that white, mush stuff. It's so full of air that you can actually compress it to 1/4th the length!

I know what you mean. Just got me a Panasonic SD253 breadmaker, an update of the SD251. That's one excellent piece of hardware.

Slightly OT: Upgraded Service

[Salden]

Where I live, Comcast offers a premium service where it costs about $80 for twice the speed I currently have. The problem is they aren't look at it from my perspective. When I swwitched from dial-up to cable, I got roughly 5x better upload speed and 10x better download speed for twice what I was paying. Now that I am used to what I have, merely doubling it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Many people switched to cable/dsl because it was a no brainer. They were already paying $20 for an ISP plus $15-25 for an additional phone line. Many people actually saved money moving to cable. Why would I want premium service?

Re:Slightly OT: Upgraded Service

[Anonymous Coward]

simple:-) you will be AUTOMATICALLY upgraded to the higher tier when your account shows you as a high useage user.

it's a great scam that will bilk lots of people out of lots of money...

and then you will try to dispute your bill, they will point you at the ant-scratch on the back of your bill that states that they can do this, and then they will happily report you to the black mail... I mean credit reporting angencies as soon as you dont pay it.

it's a great scam, be ready for it! you dont think they will do this... But I'll bet 20 bucks that within a year or two it will happen!

Re:Slightly OT: Upgraded Service

[rmadmin]

Theirs lots of places where I've heard of $9.95/month dialup plans, and even with the Monopolistic Qwest in our state, an 'Internet Line' is only $12/month. So thats roughly $20/month real cost. How about the people that don't have a second line? Yes, it happens. I work for an ISP, and my techs have said quite a few times that they are amazed how few people have a second line.

Re:Slightly OT: Upgraded Service

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so put yourself in a position to benefit from this - sell consumer grade boxes that rate-limit so you don't go over your cap.

Target it like the "firewall" crap you see in the stores now, with the promise that it'll keep you from being charged extra, and you'll make money.

Easy.

Re:Slightly OT: Upgraded Service

[Pii]

You make a legitimate point...

One flaw however... Does it surprise anyone that the kind of people that are calling an ISP for tech support aren't saavy enough to have a dedicated 2nd phone line for their Internet connectivity?

It just seems like that statistical sample comes from an already poisoned pool.

Of course, maybe it's just me, and I'm a techno-bigot.

Re:Slightly OT: Upgraded Service

[Anonymous Coward]

One phone line. Dialup isp. Don't need to call for tech support.

You're not a techno-bigot, your just an idiot. Wasting money is not an indicator of technical proficiency. It just means you're a sucker.

The guys with deep pockets...

[Anonymous Coward]

But broadband is a chicken - egg problem. You won't get people signing up until they see a reason, and you won't get compelling reasons until more people have signed up.

The guys with deep pockets are supposed to cut their early losses for long term gains when these problems present themselves. Lower the prices now, more people will sign up which will drive costs lower, which will enable even more people to sign up, which will drive costs even lower, etc...

Good

[PhysicsGenius]

When only %10 of people have DSL, those people are kings among men. They can download the small pages faster, they have their pick of self-hosted domain names and they win all the good online games.

Once Joe Sixpack is able to get DSL, stupid web "designers" will bloat their pages even more, little MacKenzie will register great domain names to show us pictures of her Barbies and little Billy will set up his UT bot, preventing us from having any fun.

I say keep the price high. It keeps out the losers.

Re:Good

[RobotRunAmok]

Clue check, Mr. Jefferson:

For those of us who market the bandwidth, create the games, and raise children to be technically savvy and responsible adults, You're Joe Sixpack.

Keep warping those priorities, son; baby needs a new pair of shoes...

Re:Good

[Pii]

Damn... That's funny.

(Moderators? Anyone paying attention?)

Broadband To Me

[LordYUK]

I've had a broadband connection (first DSL, then switched to cable) for about 2 years now. I would never go back. The ability to sit down at my computer and not have to worry about if someone is on the phone or if I'm going to get disconnected because it rings (or miss an important call or whatnot because I've got *70 on) coupled with the fact that checking email/light surfing (like finding movie times, bank balances, checking slashdot) takes relatively no time, as opposed to 5-10 minutes of dial in, get rejected, dial in again, load load load, log off, oops I forgot something, log back on. Also, its nice not to get disconnected out of games because your modem decided that you were online too long. =)

Statistics are valid for whom?

[Rocketboy]

I know lots of people, living in large cities, who have multiple choices of broadband carriers. I also know lots of people who don't live in cities. Guess what our broadband choices are? ISDN and a T1, or satellite. That's it. We currently pay $150 per month for 128K ISDN for my boss's house (he, obviously, can afford that,) while we're paying $650 per month for a fractional T1 (768k) for work. Guess what: I've got dial-up beause it's the only choice I have that I can afford. Screw the fancy two-dollar analysis: I don't have broadband because it isn't available unless you happen to live in a large city! Stop making up stupid fantasies and address the real problem: people can't buy what isn't for sale!

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[Milican]

This is why I wouldn't want to live in the country ;)

City Slicker JOhn

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[jtshaw]

Actually the statistics aren't all that wrong. Yes, there are definitly places where you can't get any kind of reasonable broadband, but if you look at population density charts vs. broadband availibility maps a large percent of the population can get broadband.

You do bring up a valid point though, lots of the people who would and could pay for a service like broadband live outside major metro areas where broadband is harder to find.

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

High speed satellite is available anywhere in the continental US.

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[poot_rootbeer]

If people aren't buying broadband where it IS currently available, what makes you think anyone but you would buy it in places where it's NOT currently available?

It's not hard to see that the communications companies would be foolish to install $millions in infrastructure just for your $49.95 a month.

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[Jucius Maximus]

"I also know lots of people who don't live in cities. Guess what our broadband choices are? ISDN and a T1, or satellite. That's it."

I don't live in a city and my choices are: 28.8 modem (too far for 56k) or satellite. And you still need a modem for upstream on the satellite and have to run the f~ng windows packet wrapping software.

If decent broadband was actually available where I live in rural Canada, I would buy it. For this reason, I am actually looking into buying a house in the city. This is a university city so if I bought something near the campus, the rent would be nicely paid by student tenants.

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[Bri3D]

Even the 'burbs aren't wired in some cities. Denver is supposed to be a telecomm hotspot, and there are many places in the Denver metro area where broadband is not available. And the service that is 'provided' is really bad in a lot of cases. I think it is funny that DSL is available in Mainland China, but not most of 'Mainland' US. There have been many articles written on the 'last mile' problem. The bottom line is that with Qwest about to crater here in the West, many people won't be seeing broadband for a long, long time. Since I live in the boonies, I don't expect to EVER see it. I'll just have to live with 40kbs dial up or maybe satellite if they ever get their poop in a group. I expect to see a bunch of political hay being made about this soon. Like as soon as some dipshit senator moves out to somewhere that is not served by broadband. I can hear the 'we need to bridge the chasm' speeches already, spurred on by the domestic whinefest when his teenage daughters are forced to AOL chat at 28.8.

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[LaptopZZ]

You're right on with this. I live in a smaller town and go to a school district of mostly upper middle class people who beg the cable or phone companies for better internet. Many of us fork over the 100$ for ISP + Dual ISDN so we don't have to battle 14.4-21.6 connection speeds. It's rediculous! They're taking their time getting out here too! We were told we'd have cable modems nearly 2 years ago, and we just recently got "Digital Cable". While that pleases some, what we really want is cable modems or DSL lines. When calling the local Insight off the rep said 'we have all the equipment in, we just aren't ready to turn it on.' That was 3 months ago. To make it more exciting, they sent all of us fliers saying hey you can get InsightBB cable modem for 45$/month. You call, it's not available! At least wait to send out fliers till it's ready?

Re:Statistics are valid for whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

I'm in the same boat. Moved out to the outskirts of town so I could afford a house. When I did, I had to say goodbye to DSL and cable. These companies have no incentive to develop broadband to areas that don't peak the population grid.

Meanwhile satellite is $99 a month with a year contract. It's just not worth it.

where i live, there is no broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

And, because I don't listen to music much or want to watch the latest films, the only high bandwidth "application" for me is when I do off-site backups (yeah, I work from home). Which I can do overnight.

Who generates enough crud to require transmission of huge amounts of data anyway? Seriously, is there anyone here who has a non-entertainment reason for broadband? (not "here's one, but it doesn't apply to me".. I want to know how many people REALLY need it) "It's faster to download web pages" doesn't count, unless you can read at more than 56kbps.

Re:where i live, there is no broadband

[LucidityZero]

And, because I don't listen to music much or want to watch the latest films, the only high bandwidth "application" for me is when I do off-site backups (yeah, I work from home). Which I can do overnight. Who generates enough crud to require transmission of huge amounts of data anyway? Seriously, is there anyone here who has a non-entertainment reason for broadband? (not "here's one, but it doesn't apply to me".. I want to know how many people REALLY need it) "It's faster to download web pages" doesn't count, unless you can read at more than 56kbps.


I do network security work, and occasionally need to VPN in to help with a situation when I'm not in the office. There is no way I could be streaming real-time Intrusion Detection System logs from dozens of sensors as well as monitoring firewall status or changes router ACL's on a 56k connection. Just not going to happen.
One of my room mates does web design and graphic design. A lot of flash, fancy, dynamic HTML stuff. There is no way he could upload and download the large graphical files he is working on at an efficient speed over 56k.

Re:where i live, there is no broadband

[Gimpin]

Gee, I don't know, when was the last time you downloaded a service pack for ms$...suppose you could argue that you don't need them because security is not a problem when you use your 28.8, right?

Re:where i live, there is no broadband

[letxa2000]

One of my room mates does web design and graphic design. A lot of flash, fancy, dynamic HTML stuff. There is no way he could upload and download the large graphical files he is working on at an efficient speed over 56k.

You might want to tell your web design mate that if he cannot upload or download his large graphical files efficiently at 56k then the majority of the users that will be visiting his site can't either.

You haven't thoroughly tested a website until you've validated it at 56k since that's what most of the world has.

And the RIAA still blames broadband and p2p!

[zerofoo]

I love these reports. Broadband is too expensive.... No market penetration.... Dial-up is just fine....yada, yada, yada.

If the lackluster demand of broadband is a reality, then how the hell are people pirating music en masse? Does the RIAA expect people to believe that internet users are cheap people with hours of time to waste downloading music through a 56k modem connection?

Clearly the RIAA is using the non-existent broadband threat to scare legislators into writing even more copyright laws.

-ted

Re:And the RIAA still blames broadband and p2p!

[JWW]

Funny thing is that the RIAA killed broadband's "killer app", Napster. It would be interesting if one of these reports would graph broadband adoption vs. Napsters lifespan. I'm sure it would show a spike during Napsters heyday. They give it an offhand reference in the article. But IMHO it was the basis for most users' switch to broadband at the time.

Note to Telecommunications industry: Your companies stocks are in the dumpster because the RIAA was more greedy about their profits and didn't give a shit whether telecommunications companies lived or died.

Not really that expensive...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you spend any decent amount of time online, you really cannot tie up your phone line. This gives you two options: a second phone line or an internet connection that doesn't require a (second) phone line.

Say you get a second phone line. Add the $~15-$20 for the second line to what you're paying for your ISP and you're approaching the $41.95/month that I'm paying for Earthlink (piggybacking on top of Time Warner's cable).

Not a hard choice here in Houston.

Huh...

[Enry]

The amount I pay for "broadband" (cable modem) access is less than the amount I'd pay for 24x7 dialup account plus the cost of the extra phone line I'd need to use said line.

plenty of reasons...

[__aawsxp7741]

I don't see a chicken-and-egg problem at all, here. How do the benefits of broadband rely on others having broadband access? It's not like filesharing is the only use for a broadband connection.

There's

• faster-loading web sites
• reliable video/audio streaming from diverse web-sites (news, radio, porn)
• online gaming (broadband usually also gives you better ping times

And, of course, filesharing networks already have loads of users with broadband connections (read students on university LANs), so it's not like the content is lacking there either.

Asking the wrong people

[Fross]

How long has broadband been available for in the US? 2 years? 3 years? i think this figure of 70% is misleading. the remaining dialup users (in areas of broadband availability, of course) are those who dont need or want broadband. their use of the net is low enough that they can get away with a low-cost dialup just to check their email and surf the web once a day. they probably wouldnt want broadband if it was even just $5 more a month than dialup.

in these 2-3 years, all the dialup users who had the need for broadband have moved over. there will always be a niche market for those who have minimal internet use, and dialup provides that service. i think what would be more interesting is to observe the rate of subscribers to dialup vs broadband over these last three years.

Fross

Re:Asking the wrong people

[NineNine]

No, I don't think it's "minimal use". I used to be a developer, and still today, I'm on the Net all day long. The real reason is WHY broadband? Am I willing to pay another $50/month to have web pages load a few seconds faster? No. Have my email come in a few seconds faster? No. Have my MP3's download faster? Maybe. But then, all you gotta do is fire up Kazaalite, start the downloads, and 20 minutes later, you've got your music. The only thing I'd even consider getting broadband for is to listen to launch.com. But again... $50/month? eh. Probably not.

Re:Asking the wrong people

[Vraylle]

I am one of those remaining dialup users, and would LOVE to have broadband. I'd pay an extra $20 or $30 (and maybe more) a month for it, gladly.

But the only broadband option out here is satellite, and it's not quite a $30 jump...more like $90 extra a month. So I stick to my dialup over aluminum telephone wires. And I can assure you that this is the case for most of the other people that live near me.

Re:Asking the wrong people

[Fross]

I guess the one thing i forgot to mention is that over here (in the UK), almost all net access calls are on metered lines, ie you pay per minute of connection. it's like this with all calls. some ISPs offer freephone number services, but you usually get disconnected every 2 hours to stop people hogging them too much. so broadband actually cost *less* for me than dialup as i wasnt spending $100 a month in phone costs.

over here, you can get cheap cable or DSL from something like $40 a month. how cheap is your dialup that it can be significantly less than that?

i agree cf the email transfer, however, webpages see a huge boost. hitting a 100K page takes 20 seconds on a 5k dialup link, 2 seconds on a 50K/s broadband one. and try hitting some of the bad pages, and do more than one thing at once!

i'm a developer too, often working with remote machines. running a couple of SSHs and having to move code around would be tremendously slow on dialup, i figure. thats the problem with broadband, you can't go back. you get your kazaa going in the background, stuff just appears, and doesn't impact your perceived bandwidth in the meantime. plus, having to download 39M of JDK last night would have been unpleasant, had i not got it at 176k/s (2M dsl)

you'd also find more uses if you had the bandwidth... i download a lot of game demos to try out, avis of old amiga demos, host some stuff on my box (mostly development betas), all things i couldnt do on a dialup.

but yeah, if you're happy, you're happy, which is my original point. you just dont need the extra features... yet. ;)

fross

If costs are the issue, address the costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything thus far has been geared towards getting users off of 56k by increasing the usefulness, or by giving specials, but to get people on the wagon, broadband companies will have to break the cost barrier. Coming from a computer professional, I can't even justify doubling my internet bill. How could the common person justify getting their email at double speed for twice as much money? It is a simple matter, people won't get broadband until it hits 56k prices.

That's why Europe is ahead

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

It's funny how it's the little things that can mean a big difference. In this case not having unmetered local phone access (in general). Now, it's not that I enjoy having to pay for local phone calls, far from it, but it has driven the cost argument the other way. In my case it's significantly cheaper to pay $30/month for unmetered cable internet access, than staying with metered modem calls.

If I were in the US I honestly couldn't say whether I'd have moved from dial up, with less of an economic incentive. It's not so much the bandwidth, as not feeling you're on the clock when you're on-line.

It's really the same as with mobile phones. Since the US chose to keep the mobile phones within the existing number structure, i.e you cannot tell whether you're calling a mobile or a fixed line, and since customers expect unmetered local calls, then the subscriber had to pay for incoming calls, which lead to less willingness to give out your phone number, which lead to the uncommon situation of Europe getting a lead over the US in a matter of driving technology adaption.

IMHO this is the one difference that has made GSM a success where US mobile solutions have lagged. It's still an open question whether that will stay true, or if by an ironic twist of fate, 3G will do us in, while late adoption in the US will position you guys better in the next 10-20 years.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[kalifa]

I second this comment, having made the experience myself. When I left Paris, where I had a cable connection, to New York in 1999, I decided not to take a broadband connection since the unpleasant sensation of having the clock ticking was not there. I went back to Paris in 2001, and resubscribed to cable immediately.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[zdzichu]

In my case it's significantly cheaper to pay $30/month for unmetered cable internet access,

For me it's 35$/month for unlimited 115,2 kbit connection :-/. But it's real 115,2 kbit - my MRTGs.

Other option is (where I use Internet now, during academic year) 15$/month for 128kbit link, with in reality is 2mbit link shared with 80 other persons :-((.

Both of them have hardly outside-poland connectivity. Yep, I live in Poland, in Internet third world.

Good quality 512kbit link starts at 250$/month. Not whole Europe is ahead US in broadband access.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Good quality 512kbit link starts at 250$/month. Not whole Europe is ahead US in broadband access.

Too true. I must confess to using Europe more from the EU perspective than from the geographical Europe perspective. And northern/middle EU at that. Then again, it's not the first time that Sweden's done Poland a great injustice, and you sort of managed to forgive us last time, so, I'm hoping you'll find it in your hearts this time around as well. ;-)

BTW, how it GSM in Poland? That's pretty accessible though, isn't it?

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[modipodio]

Not everywhere in Europe. In Ireland broadband is really expensive it is 100 euro a month WITH a 15 gig limit and 250 per month for no limits.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[5KVGhost]

That's a good point. The different rate structures certainly do make cable more appealing over there. However, the cable infrastructure had to be there before switching from dialup could even be an option. Europe's relatively small size and higher population density made wiring the whole country with a modern cable infrastructure a lot easier, relative to the United States.

It's really the same as with mobile phones. Since the US chose to keep the mobile phones within the existing number structure, i.e you cannot tell whether you're calling a mobile or a fixed line, and since customers expect unmetered local calls, then the subscriber had to pay for incoming calls, which lead to less willingness to give out your phone number, which lead to the uncommon situation of Europe getting a lead over the US in a matter of driving technology adaption.

Could be. I personally don't give my mobile number out because I really don't want people to call me, regardless of how much I'm paying. :)

And there is a silver lining to this cloud. Because incoming calls are not free it's given us the legal leverage to prevent evil telemarketers from bombarding cell phones with the same sort of voice-spam that my landline phone is plagued with. (I dunno if that sort of thing's a problem in Europe or not.)

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[letxa2000]

then the subscriber had to pay for incoming calls, which lead to less willingness to give out your phone number, which lead to the uncommon situation of Europe getting a lead over the US in a matter of driving technology adaption.

Hmm, is that really it? Perhaps, but the reason I tend not to give out my cell phone # is because I don't want people bothering me. Cell phone plans in the U.S. have more minutes per month than I can use so price really isn't a factor. In fact, it's better for the consumer that way: I have "bulk" number of minutes and no-one has to pay to talk to me since I have more minutes than I need.

I personally prefer a single numbering system. I currently live in Mexico which used to have a U.S.-style cellular system where the subscriber paid. A couple years ago they changed to a European "caller pays" scheme. I hate it. Now, even though my plan only has 50 minutes per month included, I *never* use them all. And every person that calls me has to pay 40 cents per minute. So the minutes "included" in my plan are never used and *everyone* has to pay to talk to me. The winners are the local cell companies.

What I liked about the U.S. system is it used to be that wherever you were, you knew a local number required dialing 7 digits and a long distance call required dialing a 1 + area code + 7 digits. That's all you had to know. Unfortunately, even that's been bastardized in the U.S. now. Some areas still use 7-digit local calling, some have grown to two area codes so you need to dial a 3 digit area code plus the 7-digit local call even though it's still free.

All in all, the U.S. telephone numbering system used to be elegant in its simplicity and the same scheme applied nationwide. That has been lost... but I still like knowing all area codes are 3 digits and all numbers are 7 digits.

Not like the rest of the world where a "city" code may be 1-4 digits and the local number may be 5-8 digits. There's so little consistency you can't even tell if you have a valid phone number.

U.S. Numbering System: Let's make all area codes 3 digits long and all "local" numbers 7 digits long. A full phone number will always be 10 digits long.

Worldwide Numbering System: Let's make country codes that vary from 1-3 digits in length, let's make city codes that vary from 1-4 digits in length, and local numbers that vary from 4-8 digits in length. A full phone number will always have between 1 and 30 digits.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[thogard]

Why do all numbers need to be the same length? The 7 digit numbers in most areas are more than enough for all the numbers people need to remember. The reason phone numbers are running out is something like 1/2 of them are assigned to devices that don't care about dialing a 20 digit number. What would happen if every new phone was assigned a 20 digit checksumed number (plus the area code) and then each person was allocated a free 7 digit number and then had to pay extra if they wanted a second one. Most businesses would be happy with the 20 digit indial ranges to the desk phones, most fax machines would be happy with the numbers and no one could hope to war dial and catch people at home at dinner time.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

However, the cable infrastructure had to be there before switching from dialup could even be an option. Europe's relatively small size and higher population density made wiring the whole country with a modern cable infrastructure a lot easier, relative to the United States.

Well, that's always a factor. Then on the other hand, you cannot run a cable for long trhough Europe without hitting a border, which always means problems EU or not. So, I'm still not convinced that's the problem here. Just look at xDSL and ISDN, you guys were way ahead, not having to fight stoodgy old telecoms branches of government. (And we shouldn't forget that the pop density of Europe varies wildley; parts of Sweden has the same pop. density as Wyoming for instance.)

I'd still say that unmetered access is the key here. Esp. in light of the original article, i.e. there not being an economic incentive.

Any yes, nowadays people may not give our their phone no. to avoid callers ;-) but that wasn't the driving force behind the revolution. We never got into pagers for instance, because why would you need one when you had a phone (with SMS). (Differences in coverage between EU and the States aside.)

In Sweden at the moment 71% of the population have a GSM subscription/prepaid! If you subtract the very young, the elderly and the infirm, that menas that "everyone" has a GSM phone. You still have some catching up to do in the states before you reach those figures.

And no, telemarketing is not the plague here that it's in Europe, I'd say to a large extent for the exact reason that you'd have to pay for making all those expensive calls to mobiles, for a small return. (And there'd be an outrage and you'd be legislated into oblivion, and kicked out by the phone co. ;-)

channel surfing

[Alien54]

One thing I noticed is that with analog cable TV you can channel surf much faster. Typically you can skim over 2 or three channels in a second.

But with digital it takes 2 or three second to skim over each channel, because the redraw of the funky channel ID overlay. If I am looking for a soccer game, or a cooking show, the funky menu systems are actually much slower.

This is not an advantadge.

Point being, that digital cable has not really sold itself to me. But my high speed line has.

Re:channel surfing

[jhunsake]

This is exactly why I cancelled my digital cable! Not to mention the stupid TV guide advertisements on-screen. What the fuck is up with that?!

Re:channel surfing

[captaincucumber]

digital cable blows. when I had it, the channels that were digital would get blocky whenever there was too much action on the screen. Add to that the crappy user interface - can't "erase" channels - i.e. make them not appear when I'm channel surfing with the channel+ and channel- buttons - and the menu system just sucks, adverts that show up in the menu, the cable company spamming me with stupid messages (a little message icon appears in the upper corner that won't go away until I look at their stupid message, usually about exciting new features which turn out to be downgrades), and, worst of all, the fact that you can only change channels through the box (i.e. the only way to tape That 70's show is to tune the box to FOX and leave it on - want to tape Enterprise and Friends while you're out of town? Yeah, right.), not to mention the price premium. digital cable blows, vote with your $$$ and don't buy it.

Re:channel surfing

[ergo98]

Very true observation, but there is a side effect of this: Shortly after getting the digital box, I was annoyed to find that surfing was so brutally slow, so I took a look at the online guide. Ever since that day, I literally never flick through channels: Instead I scan through the online show listing finding shows with descriptions that sound interesting, and if there is nothing then I go do something else. It really is a superior way to watch television, and allows you to make more informed decisions (though I despise the channels that use stock show descriptions, rather than an actual episode description. For instance some describe the Simpsons episode, whereas other's simply describe the show in general).

Re:channel surfing

[ergo98]

can't "erase" channels - i.e. make them not appear when I'm channel surfing with the channel+ and channel- buttons

While I never actually surf through channels, I will agree that many of these boxes seem to be created more for the cable company than for the consumer (which is why it'd be great if there were a digital cable standard, and companies could compete to get you to buy their best-of-breed box. Of course that is doubtful in the Paladium world of today). Regarding channel deletion, I have the Motorola digital box, and I find shows by scanning through the online guide: One of my biggest pet peeves is the fact that I have to scan through dozens or hundreds of channels which I haven't subscribed to and don't get: Probably 50 ppv sports channels, and dozens of specialty channels. These are a waste of redraw power (which the Motorola unit has in short supply), and waste my time, and it's a real piss off that they don't offer basic functionality to exclude them from the listing.

Re:channel surfing

[Zathrus]

because the redraw of the funky channel ID overlay

That has absolutely nothing to do with it. The channel ID overlay can be drawn in a single frame (1/30th second).

The delay is because the digital signal requires additional decoding - and in order to see the picture at all you have to receive an I-frame which can take up to a full second if you just missed the last one (most systems do start displaying partial data, but that's why you see MPEG blocking artifacts until an I-frame is received).

They also grab info like the show name, channel name, etc. from sideband data -- none of which is available on analog cable.

If I am looking for a soccer game, or a cooking show, the funky menu systems are actually much slower

Or you could learn how to actually use new technology -- like menus. Instead of channel surfing by pressing chan up/down, you bring up the menu and see what's on now, what's on soon, and even descriptions of the shows if available.

This is an advantage.

Yes, there are times I find myself going back to channel surfing in the traditional sense, but I quickly remember just how stupid and painful it is to do so. Pull up a channel guide, find the channel or show I want, and go to it.

Of course, even more often I just hit the TiVo button and play something I've recorded in the past few months.

Re:channel surfing

[leviramsey]

This is why you get DirecTV. Their UI is very usable, and the greater bandwidth that you get from a broadcast satellite allows them to actually make every channel MPEG-II, with very sane encoding settings.

All I can say is, DirecTV is the best way to watch TV... (the NFL Sunday Ticket has *nothing* to do with this... :oP)

It's cost, not content

[SheepHead]

"...more than 70 percent of dial-up users cited cost as the main reason they aren't upgrading to faster access."

And yet in the 2nd paragraph they claim:

"a need for more music, movies and games on the Internet in order to make broadband connections more popular."

No - that's spin. I really think it's cost. I pay about $12 a month for dial-up access, and Comcast wants me to buy a cable broadband for $50+ a month, plus taxes, modem rental, etc. A telemarketer called offering a free month, and I asked her what the full, regular price was. $50, as always. I told her it was too expensive, and she agreed and said that most people she talks to say that. In fact, she didn't have broadband from her own company because it was too expensive.

Don't be fooled, I think there is a huge demand for broadband (although for mostly underground reasons) - but every article I read about it tries to spin it towards supporting the RIAA/MPAA demands for DRM. They say "no one has broadband because they're waiting for OUR stuff," but in reality most people just aren't going to pay $50 a month for broadband. I don't think they're waiting for MPAA-blessed DRM (so they can pay EVEN MORE for pay-per-download schemes) - they're waiting for affordable broadband.

I'd pay $20 a month for something above 56k but below Cable/DSL, but such a thing doesn't exist, so I'll just wait until broadband is affordable.

sheephead

Re:It's cost, not content

[Servo]

"I'd pay $20 a month for something above 56k but below Cable/DSL, but such a thing doesn't exist, so I'll just wait until broadband is affordable. "

My mother subscribes to ADSL in Colorado for $19.95 a month, but it is capped at 128k. It sure beats dialup, and costs less than her AOL account she had prior to switching. In fact, the lower cost was the main reason for switching, although the increased speed (and reliability) was a definate plus.

Re:It's cost, not content

[explosionhead]

I'm with NTL in the UK, pay £15 a month (around $23 - $24 US) for 128k access. Rental of equip is included in the price.

Re:It's cost, not content

[scoove]

I'd pay $20 a month for something above 56k but below Cable/DSL, but such a thing doesn't exist, so I'll just wait until broadband is affordable.

A view from the other side of the table...

My company provides broadband to a bunch of small towns in a part of "fly-over country." Our service is $29.95 a month, and an installation of $250 (includes equipment).

Unfortunately, there is significant pressure to hike rates. Why? Customer support costs, mostly from crummy operating system software.

One out of two installs needs substantial work due to Win95/Win98/WinME configurations with years of clutter, garbage and registry hell. Dialup optimization tools messing with MTUs, mess all over (I reinstall my Win2K annually - apparently not many other people do). Customers don't understand that system maintenance is not our problem but theirs. They're like a 5'6" tall, 500 pound human who expects to run a marathon on broadband.

Then there's the monthly "I blew away my system config - help me fix it." Many calls require a great amount of support. Yet nobody wants to pay for support - "I'm paying you for service - I expect service, even if I mess up my computer." As if GM or Ford provided warrenties for stupidity, crashes, etc...

Our Linux customers are a dream. They know how to take care of their system, and understand that config screwups, system maintenance, etc. are their issue.

High prices for broadband unfortunately appear to be a Microsoft tax. Maybe we need to approach broadband the same way:

Linux, *BSD, & Mac: $29.95/month unlimited (Mac users are slow to upgrade their OS though... half of them we run into have ancient versions.. 6.?)

Windows95/ME: Upgrade (we already tell them that today)

Win98/NT/2K/XP: add $20/month for StupidOS tax unless you sign the "Surf at your own risk" disclaimer.

*scoove*

Re:It's cost, not content

[fiftyfly]

pretty close, if you were in Canada http://www.shaw.ca/litespeed/ A cable connection rated at "5x faster then dialup" at $30/month CAD. I would think that, assuming you are in the states, there should be someone in your vastly larger market offering cheaper (capped) services.

Re:It's cost, not content

[NTSwerver]

I too am with NTL Broadband in the UK. I pay £25/month (just under $39/month) for 512Kb down/250Kb up. As above, rental of modem, etc is included in that price.

To me this is slightly ironic as it took *years* for broadband in the UK to become affordable, I have been waiting since 1997. I used to send emails to BT (who used to have a monoploy on the 'local loop') citing how much our American cousins pay for their broadband connections as an argument for BT to reduce their extortionate prices. Now, since BT have lost their monopoly on the local loop, it seems that the UK is cheaper than the US as their are more operators plying for business which has knocked the prices down.

Re:It's cost, not content

[#undefined]

is it a local isp? if not and regional/national, then they might service me here. (oh please!)

i would even be willing to pay $30/month for 128k-down, 64k-up, (semi-)unmetered access.

i currently pay $15/month for unmetered dial-up, but only get 28k due to lousy phone lines in my apt complex. (i've ran into this problem in every apt complex i've lived in, but then again if i paid $1k/month for a brand new upscale apt i would probably have better [newer] phone lines.)

i do my "apt-get dist-upgrade" downloads every night, so i'm not exasperated by how slow my "narrowband" connection is (except when libc gets updated and 50MB of packages flood testing all at once and cause that night's download to last into the daylight hours). i download isos from work, burn them, and bring them home, so no problem there. about the only thing i use my connection at home for is email and a limited amount of surfing. i do most of my surfing at work. though it's a bit of a pain to have to do everything at work, staying late at the office to purchase something online or research purchases.

purchasing stuff from online shops is a pain over narrowband. browsing different online stores to comparison shop is horribly slow with all the images (buttons, banners, imagemaps) they use. and on the weekends i hate having to get offline to use the telephone, or not be able to get online because i'm expecting a phone call (that may not come on time or even at all).

i don't want blazing speed. i just want to have an always-on connection, something significantly faster than my 28k dial-up, and around $30.

Re:It's cost, not content

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I said it in my comments to the Senate, and PC World quoted me. Search the link for "cost a fortune", right above "Hollywood's Loss".

Re:It's cost, not content

[Servo]

I am pretty sure it was through USWest.

Check this page out. 256k for $21.95 a month... that sounds like your price range.

http://www.uswest.com/pcat/for_home/product/1,13 54 ,537_1_11,00.html

Re:It's cost, not content

[Servo]

Crap.. just read it again.. looks like you have to subscribe with another ISP too, to ulitize it. (aka, whats the point?) Well, maybe they can point you in the right direction. Maybe there is one out ther for less than $10, which would put you under the $30 range.

Also, just to piss you off, I currently subscribe to cable modem service thru CableVision. Although in the end, my company reimburses me the expense, I currently only pay $29.95 for what comes out to be about 3Mb/down 1Mb/up.

Re:It's cost, not content

[Buck2]

I have seen this attitude first-hand. My grandfather, who I love and adore, surprised the hell out of me when, after screwing up his computer in some fashion or another, called Cox@Home to help him fix it.

I said, "Why the hell did you call them to help you get Quicken to work?" He just said, "It was worth a shot, and they fixed it anyway."

WTF?

Re:It's cost, not content

[tealover]

There is no competition in America, thanks to the FCC which is led by Michael Powell who in a bit of political nepotism was given the role of Chairman without having any prior experience in telecommunications.

His sole direction has been to deride regulations. He is supposedly a free marketeer. As a result, we the consumers pay.

I presume that when America is a good 10 - 15 years behind the rest of the world (if we're not already), regulations will come back.

Re:It's cost, not content

[hanmer]

Could your company please provide broadband to my small town? I live about 20 miles outside of a large city (Boston) and there is nothing but very basic cable. I'd like to see the figures that show that most of US families live in an area with available access. I'd be willing to pay $50 for it, but I can't!

And yes, I'm a little bitter about living within the Bermuda triangle of cable modems ...

Re:It's cost, not content

[pmz]

One out of two installs needs substantial work due to Win95/Win98/WinME configurations with years of clutter, garbage and registry hell.

High prices for broadband unfortunately appear to be a Microsoft tax.

Thanks be to Windows! All hail Gates!

Seriously, Windows has cost the world billions upon billions of dollars of wasted effort (two weeks per user per year said Bill Gates himself). Your analogy to cars is a good one. I wish I knew why the software user culture became so backwards relative to everything else in our lives. Nothing else operates like the Microsoft "economy."

Re:It's cost, not content

[ngm]

Where outside Boston, if I may ask?

Re:It's cost, not content

[rossz]

Our Linux customers are a dream. They know how to take care of their system, and understand that config screwups, system maintenance, etc. are their issue.

And yet some broadband companies go out of their way to prevent Linux users from signing up. From IE only webpages to proprietary pppoe programs. From a business standpoint, this is about as dumb as you can get. Completely cut off the most profitable customer base.

I once made the mistake of whispering the word "Linux" when on the phone with my provider when there was a problem. I wasn't asking them to fix anything, I just wanted to know if there was an outage and how long it would last, but because I said the "L" word, I had to argue with the excessively blonde support person (blonde is not a hair colour, it's an attitude). "We don't support Linux", she said. "I know that, do you have an outage report in my area?" It went back and forth several times. I finally yelled at her, "I DIDN'T ASK YOU TO SUPPORT LINUX! PRETEND I NEVER SAID THAT! I'M RUNNING WINDOWS 98, OK! IS THERE AN OUTAGE!" "Oh, why yes, there is an outage. It should be fixed within the hour."

GAHHH!!

Re:It's cost, not content

[fire-eyes]

and an installation of $250 (includes equipment).

Are they nuts? If it was $15.00 a month, I wouldn't bite, because the installation charge is so rediculous.

Is this huge of an installation fee, if any fee, typical?

Re:It's cost, not content

[scoove]

And yet some broadband companies go out of their way to prevent Linux users from signing up.

Isn't that amusing? We're fortunate to have a young enough company culture (and use Linux - Redhat and Debian - inside for most of our systems except desktops, which run Win2K).

UNIX customers in general (Linux/BSD/etc) can be a real blessing, even though they occasionally consume resources like an entire school district. They represent another intelligent pair of eyes on your network looking out for potential problems - give them a good way to talk to you and you've got volunteer help!

On the other end of the spectrum...

My home broadband connection goes through a cox.net connection. As I run a Mikrotik-based VPN between home and the office (mostly so I don't have to drive in when I need to see the private network at 3AM), I have a few suggestions for other non-Windows broadband customers of larger providers:

- keep a Windows box handy next to the cable modem drop, and ready to run as the sole broadband device. This makes the installer people feel better when they come by - I had one drop by and see the 48-port patch panel, 5' rack, switches, routers, hubs, etc. and he got worried. (I told him it was an amateur radio project and he felt better)

- run your Windows box when you call in a trouble report; their people are trained to walk you through the basics (e.g. determining if your computer is turned on, if your network card is active, etc.) and even though you may know what the problem really is, you won't get to that point in their script unless you're able to work along with them in their "have to make sure the customer isn't doing something idiotic" checklist.

I once made the mistake of whispering the word "Linux" when on the phone with my provider when there was a problem.

Yea, platform bigotry is a problem - even for smarter folks like network engineers. I've had similar issues with Sprint dealing with our upstream circuits. We had a Sprint circuit bouncing every 70 seconds (even with a loopback plug in the smart jack... clue!) but when I accidentally mentioned our router was Mikrotik (with a slew of Cyclades T1 cards, a DS3 card, and misc other stuff), that immediately became the problem. It wasn't Cisco.

"That's the problem. You're set for HDLC and only Cisco does that. Your router won't work." He wouldn't listen to me tell him that Cyclades supports HDLC, nor would the loopback but still bouncing status help (and trust me, Mikrotik on a redundant P4 with this architecture kicks a Cisco 7500 - without the $100K price tag). We had to drag a Cisco back in and terminate the circuit there before Sprint would buy off that they had a problem. Oh well, it only cost them another two weeks of credit on the SLA... their money, not mine.

*scoove*

Re:It's cost, not content

[hanmer]

Westford, if you're still reading this. ARGH!

Re:It's cost, not content

[NTSwerver]

Oh dear! This is similar to the situation we (in the UK) were in a couple of years ago.

Just to rub salt in the wounds, an ISP in the UK announced recently a 512Kb ADSL service for £12.99/month (roughly $20).IMHO this seems a bit too cheap for them to make any kind of profit, but it's all good competition though :-).

Re:It's cost, not content

[scoove]

Are they nuts? If it was $15.00 a month, I wouldn't bite, because the installation charge is so rediculous.

What do you do for a living? Do you work for free? Do you get $0.25 haircuts, and think a dollar is a lot for lunch? Do they let you out of the home often?

Seriously...

Gone (or soon gone) are the days where monopolies played games with pricing. Your AT&T/Ma Bell phone line was unrealistically priced. Businesses got screwed to pay for residential lines. Capacity was always limited - look at the ILECs today. Want a T1 in a small town? Hahaha... sure, it's $800/month on the books, but you can't get it. No capacity. Like rent control in NYC... cheap apartments, but none to rent.

So, you want me to put in $400 (or more) of equipment, pay someone $100 to do the work (plus have the liability insurance, truck, equipment, etc.), and you'll pay $15? Let me guess... you'll pay $100 for that new Cadillac. I'll bet you're a $0.25 tipper too at dinner. /rant off/

We're in an age where cash rules. Don't got it? Be prepared to pay. I'm in a market where I have so many people willing to pay cash for it, that I have no need to provide financing for those who are hard up for the money. When you learn about financing companies, you'll learn that debt limit is a real issue in growth. For every customer I don't provide financing for, that leaves me room to expand further.

Anyways, with the low prime, don't be a parasite. Go out and finance it yourself (and save yourself the money). Ever notice thrifty people pay cash and don't make long term obligations? Or do you pay 21% for groceries and keep paying the minimum? Nothing like being a slave to a credit card company...

Pay cash, or wait in line... and keep waiting.

*scoove*

More like a supply-demand problem

[mblase]

But broadband is a chicken - egg problem. You won't get people signing up until they see a reason, and you won't get compelling reasons until more people have signed up.

This is just false. I'm about as close to a hard-core Web addict as you can get, and I see no compelling reason to get broadband at home. I'd like to, no question -- the speed is a big deal when you like downloading files and music like I do. But I don't need it (I can get those at work if I really crave them) because Web surfing still isn't that high-speed.

Most all Web pages except for the high-density Flash presentations and high-res photo galleries work fine over dial-up. E-mail, which is still far and away the #1 reason most people go online, might as well have been designed for dial-up users. I download files and software upgrades at home, but rarely enough that I can wait the half-hour to an hour needed for them.

Why would I really need high-speed access at home? Online game playing, which no one in my family does. Photo or video sharing, but we don't own the cameras yet. Massive music downloading, which isn't that important to me anyways (and I'd rather not get my kids addicted to it, or I'd never get the keyboard back myself). Sure, those might be nice, but we either rarely need those goodies or not at all.

The WWW and e-mail work fine over dial-up. That's all most people want or need. Half the time, it's all their two- or three-year-old computers can handle anyhow.

There's no chicken-and-egg problem here. Broadband is like money: you always find a way to use up whatever you've got, but if you don't have it, you find you don't really need the things you'd spend it on anyway. Supply and demand is the issue -- there's just not enough demand in most households to justify tripling their monthly bill from $15-25 to $50-60 a month.

Die on the vine

[DerFeuervogel]

Only 10 percent of U.S. households subscribe to high-speed access, lower
than the rate in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong or Canada.
You would think this line alone would get some action on this. But the
entrenched powers would rather see broad band die on the vine RIAA/MPAA.

Price plus availability and choices...

[ACK!!]

The problem is a bit more complex than the article suggests. Cost is a big problem for me since I just moved into a new house and do not want to double my monthly costs for ISP service.

However, there is also the fact of limited choices. I have a choice between one DSL and one Cable service available in my area. Some people only have one Cable or one DSL or even no choices in their areas. The availibility and lack of choices between providers and therefore a lack of competition also comes into play and impacts prices directly.

What if I hate my Cable provider but find they are the only ones with broadband in my area? Maybe there is no one company doing DSL in my area or that one company has a bad rep for customer service, etc...

Even in the burbs of large metro areas the choices are not dizzyingly large but dismally small.

________________________________________________ _

people who won't pay for broadband

[ZillaVilla]

likely never had it before.
Once you get broadband, it's REAL HARD to go back.

Cost is not an issue for me...

[Flabby Boohoo]

Where I live (Chicago suburbs) there is no broadband options, save satellite or fixed-point wireless (which run about $70/month). I wish DSL and cable were an option.

Everyone I talk to, from coworkers, friends and family, do NOT have access to broadband.

Perhaps if AT&T were a little more aggressive in their efforts to deploy cable broadband, they would see there is a demand. Same with the baby bells, quit fighting with the providers and roll out DSL already.

Re:Cost is not an issue for me...

[slaker]

Slightly OT but...

I live in Northwest Indiana, just across the state line from Chicago and... same deal.
What I've heard from the cable techs who service my company's @work service is that nearly all of the Chicago region has the infrastructure in place to allow at least cable-based broadband to go live, but that AT&T has some kind of policies with profit margins for existing service areas before they start new ones.
I don't know if that's true. I'd be supremely pissed if the thing that's keeping me from getting cable (presently I need two lines to achieve a 28.8-equivalent connection) is the fact that they haven't oversubscribed their service enough in, say, Oak Brook.

Re:Cost is not an issue for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aint that the truth. I swear the Chicagoland area is the broadband pit of America. I love how AT&T said we would have cable in 2000 and it was "coming soon." Yeah that really happened.

Only reason we are starting to see that now is WOW started their cable modem service up so they actually have some competition in some cities like Naperville.

Re:WE MUST HAVE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, you actually think the internet was a socialist creation? Oh, that Gore guy's left of centre, you're right.

Definately the case ...

[mustangdavis]

I used to work for a small dial-up ISP. A couple customers were thinking about upgrading to a cable modem .. and asked me if I had one. I told them that I did, and they proceeded to ask me how much I was paying per month. When I told one customer, who was paying $12/mo for dial-up, that I was paying $55/mo for cable, he told me I was wasting money and hung up!

I asked a couple other customers what they thought would be a reasonable price ... most of them said betwen $20-$25/mo. The bottom line is simple ... it is psychological! Most people don't want to pay more than $25/mo for any service! These are the people that have basic cable and AOL right now ... and AOL charges $20/mo ... so they see no reason to pay more.

Like it is stated above, most of these people might consider paying more if they new just how much faster broadband is versus a dial-up (especially AOL), but I doubt they'd be willing to pay more than $35/mo.

I think this problem is pretty simple .... the broadband companies are making a fortune right now and see no reason to increase their user base by lowering their prices. Most of them know that the majority of people that don't have broadband are only using the Internet for email and basic web surfing ... so lowering their prices will just make their service slower with the increased number of users and will not generate enough additional revenue to offset the lowered prices for the existing customers.

Time Warner usually offers a 3 - 6 month trial offer for RoadRuner broadband in the Ohio area for 1/2 the normal price (about $25-$30/mo) in an effort to get people addicted to RoadRunner. THis is a great idea, except what most people do is disconnect after 6 months ... go back to AOL, or sign up for another 6 months of Road Runner at the "trial" price in a few months.

Bottom line: Most people don't need boradband for what they do on the Internet .. and thus, can not justify the high costs! Not only does it hit the pocket book hard, but it is also a psycological thing as well.

Maybe if the broadband compaines lowered their rates to $30/mo (only 2x dial-up instead of 3x to 4x) ... that might make a difference .... but then again, I'm not in the business of price gouging for bandwidth.

I know my old boss was reselling 1/2 of a T-1 to over 400 dial up customers for $12/mo .... hmmmm ....

$12 * 400 = $4,800 - $500 for 1/2 T-1 = $4,300 profit!

(*hits self in head for not starting up own ISP 3 years ago when the opportunity was there*)

Gotta wonder what Time Warner is making????

Re:Definately the case ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know my old boss was reselling 1/2 of a T-1 to over 400 dial up customers for $12/mo .... hmmmm ....

$12 * 400 = $4,800 - $500 for 1/2 T-1 = $4,300 profit!

I work at an ISP and I can tell you little profit is to be made on dialup. The major cost is tech support, but also other costs like marketing, customer service, software development, system admins, engineers, etc.

Re:Definately the case ...

[Anonymous Coward]

$12 * 400 = $4,800 - $500 for 1/2 T-1 = $4,300 profit!

I guess the business lines for dialup (which cost 3 times as much as residential lines do where I live) are free, the hardware for the modem pools is free, the electricity for the equipment is free (a 3Com Total Control chassis is such a miser in it's electricity consumption), the employees providing phone support are free, the bookkeepper's time for keeping track of customer's billing over the year is free, advertising is free, etc....

expensive?

[fredan]

pffft. for $35/month for 10M/bits and a real ip-address I don't think that's expensive. But then again I do live in Sweden, so it might be some different for you in the us :-)

More to Digital Cable than Music

[LordKronos]

There is a lot more to digital cable than just the music. For me, the 2 main ones are the program guide and extra channels. The program guide is nice because it's quick and easy to see what's you are watching when you are flipping through channels, and you can browse through all the stations for the next week (kinda like a TV guide, except you can't misplace it). Also, the fact that you can look up a program by name and see what days/time it will be on is great also.

The other reason I really like digital cable is for the extra channels. First, there are channels that are part of the digital package that you can't get with regular basic. Some of these are actually pretty good. In addition, if you order HBO/Cinemax/etc, with basic you get 1 or 2 channels but with digital you get 8-12 for the same price.

High-speed companies are too greedy

[Phantasmo]

I've been with Bell's Sympatico DSL service for over a year now, and it's great: fast, pretty reliable. It's worth the $40 CDN/month just to have the phone line free. But they just changed the service. They raised the price by $5/month, and put a 5GB cap on (so if you upload 2 GB and download 3 GB, you have to pay an extra $10/GB). I'm sure that Bell had more than enough money to lower the price by $5, kill any caps, and send every customer a thank-you letter.

Re:High-speed companies are too greedy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but then how would they find the money to buy back all that stock they sold just 3 years ago. All of Bell is run but idiots. So much miss use in spending I have ever seen! 80,000 for a private taxi for a year on two do nothing middle management types.

Unneeded

[hatchet]

The article should say "Broadband connections unneeded by many.."

It's all about how community works... in USA people like to give money to people they think deserve it. Buying games, programs, windows? I think 90% of USA users don't pirate software... but in europe this number is significantly lower.. i would say 30-40% people are not pirating software. Yeh.. you buy game that you really like, and programs that you really need... but other things you pirate. I will not buy a game which I will play for few days. I will simply download it.. it's there, it's accessible...

I live in slovenia and we will get our DSL upgraded to 2Mbit/s unlimited traffic for $40/month. And there is similar situation in other EU contries. (except UK.. their broadband suckz). I don't see why would i need 2Mbit connection for other that warez and gaming... most people who don't pirate, don't need broadband.

Re:Unneeded

[Anonymous Coward]

Love to know where you get your stats from!

I am in the UK and have broadband and pay £23.44 pm(www.solo.pipex.net). I just got my first post ADSL phone bill and reckon Im breaking even on saved phionecall cost, though in fact I am online much more.

I don't download pirate software but lots of legit software is either only available via download or easier / cheaper to get that way. Add in streaming media, legally availabel mp3s (yes I also use Kazaa but not very often) and the WWW just became interesting again. I'd almost stopped surfing at home because my dialup conection was so sloooow. I couldn't go back to that now.

Re:Unneeded

[AlgUSF]

The inverse is true for me! I pirated, basically up until I got DSL. Basically I was stuck on Winblows, and when I started using Linux, I got DSL. It is nice to to FTP installs, or download .ISO images, etc. Why waste your bandwidth pirating Windows, and related software?

Re:Unneeded

[Anonymous Coward]

Slovenia is not an EU country.

Re:Unneeded

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, 90% or more of USA users DO pirate software. The trouble is, piracy is so broadly defined that it would be hard to avoid it if you wanted to. Install Windows on two computers from the same retail CD? That's "piracy". You wouldn't believe the number of people shocked by this idea when they ran into Windows XP's activation scheme.

But most people don't want to anyway. Software is and has always been shared pretty freely here, in my experience.

Profit maximizing

[HMV]

Broadband services are currently quite profitable for cable companies. Getting new customers at a lower price point would not necessarily be more profitable.

Set the price too high and of course no one signs up. Lower it like we'd all prefer, and not only is the impact on revenue marginal, but you incur costs in support and infrastructure to deal with the additional traffic on the network. Set the price at a point where it's reasonable to many users who just have to have that pipe, a little too high for many more, and which makes decent use of the network without bogging you down in support costs, and you've found your profit maximizing point.

That is a natural consequence of monopoly/oligopoly. So long as the last-mile connection is in relatively few hands and not subject to much competition, profit maximization will be the goal and not signing up new customers.

Or maybe it's not that...

[flamingdog]

Too expensive if you got the service you paid for? no.

Not worth it most of the time? yes.

I had AT&T @home for awhile, and I went back to my old dial-up after about a year of hassle. First came the bandwidth caps that were insanely low (16k upstream? that's almost as slow as my modem...). Then there was the gigantic amount of downtime. I probably only got 5 days of service a week. When it was up and working, I'd always lose service to huge chunks of the net at a time. After all that shoddy service, they still decide it was time for a price hike. I would have been fine with that if they'd have been doing a good job already.

I'd rather stick with my reliable and slow dial-up then get screwed in the cornhole for the price and not be able to use the service 2 days a week.

Hear that AT&T? I'll gladly pay 50 bucks a month for your service if you provide me with 7 day a week access, and institute reasonable bandwidth caps.

Re:Or maybe it's not that...

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for @Home. I believe you that there was daily connection problems. With ATTBI most of those problems have ceased but they are still there.

There was NEVER a 16k upstream cap. Currently it is 1.5/256k, with @Home there was no capped connections either way.

Complain about the price hike but bandwith costs money. Sure they are charging the same about for less than you get with RoadRunner, but what can you do?

Re:Or maybe it's not that...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Currently it is 1.5/256k, with @Home there was no capped connections either way."

1.5/256k sounds like a cap to me...

Why I don't have broadband

[fizbin]

I live in a nice little city here in the Philadelphia suburbs. Looking up and down my block, it's not that different from any other middle- (or possibly lower-middle-) class neighborhood in America.

However, DSL is apparently uneconomical for anyone to offer to this area. I'd pay for it; it sure beats having my computer dialed in from midnight to 5 am each night trying to keep current with Debian testing and unstable. Unfortunately, everywhere with a decent user agreement says that offering me DSL isn't possible at this time.
And that's the real point - the user agreement. I will not surrender control of my computer to my upstream provider by installing their specialized, over-branded spyware. (Not that I could anyway, given that I don't run windows on the main machine) I will run whatever servers I feel like running for whatever legal purpose I choose. I will use encryption and VPN-foo to connect to systems at work.

This is simply not an option with the only broadband game in town (Comcast). It's not the money that broadband providers want from me that holds me back - it's the control they want.

Business usage

[briancnorton]

The difference is that a lot of people have broadband access from work, and dont want to go home to cruise the internet they spent all day searching. They may get access, but only to the point where they can get on and do what they want, be it find movie showtimes or check email. There is no compelling reason to have broadband at home if you have it at work. I was on 28.8 service until cable became the cheaper option. (last year)

dino and the egg

[howman]

Here in Toronto I have had a high speed connection since the day it was avaliable in my area, and I still see no content worthy of justifying it save a few small sites. What does the avearge AOHell user need with broadband when the only things thy are going to be pointed to are movie trailers they can see on television, or music they can see and hear on Much Music (MTV)? Granted having PtoP gives somewhat of a reason to get a high speed connection, but for the most part what does the average user care if fully cross patform sites, like /. , load in a nano second or a millisecond? Until I can go to a news site and instantly have, or in a reasonable amout of time have, my text news along with a short video clip or annimated gif instead of the static picture presently given, I don't see too much need for the general public to switch.
Not to mention the two major players here in Canada have now put limits on your 'free' DL. Anything above and beyond you pay for. So we are back to the dino and the egg. Content providers won't put up large file size pages because not enough people have Cable or DSL, and people won't shell out for anything above and beyond what is included with their base rate. Can you imagine having to pay extra to view /. more than 10 times a week because viewing it would put you over your monthly limit... I don't think so.
It will be so much fun in a year or two to watch the big providers hop around now that they have shot themselves in the foot.

Re:dino and the egg

[biohazard99]

or music they can see and hear on Much Music (MTV)? Don't sell MM short, MM is nearly on par with MTV2 for signal/noise ratio for music viewing. I can not stand MTV/VH1/CMT 90% of the time, but MM, MTV2, and GAC (Great American Country or Good Ass Country) actually play music instead of Undressed (If I wanted softcore porn, I'd watch Skinemax). That being said, there are redeeming moments for them (Behind the Music is hit or miss, Osbournes, Beavis and Butt-Head, Grand Ol' Opry), but TRL, Pop-up video, and MWL, pretty much ruin them for me.

Too expensive? Sure.

[Corvaith]

I'd be willing to bet these same people pay for at least extended basic cable--I'm the only person I know who pays for cable and only gets pure basic, and that's because our reception is horrible at my house. Those same people may very well drive newish cars, buy new clothes with a fair frequency, and shell out $40 a month for a 4000 evening minutes that they don't actually use.

Broadband isn't a priority for them. If it were a priority, people would find the money, just as I always have.

Things will always be too expensive for those who don't have a need for them, until they're dirt-cheap. Until cable hits the price of AOL, most people will find it too expensive. And there will, after that, still be people who don't want to give up their handy-dandy AOL features.

Public Access Channels

[Yohahn]

One of the problems with having a high bandwith connection is the lack of sites with good enough connectivity to take advantage of it.

I have wondered for a while now, if localized networks where the ISP provides hi-bandwidth content and advertising and easy automation with the local community, might be worthwhile.

This would allow for 2 things. Hi-bandwidth providers with less cost (it costs alot to stream hi-bandwidth to the whole internet). Localized Intranets for regionalized content (how many times have you used google to find the site for a local business?).

Perhaps this could provide part of the egg for the chicken and egg problem. A sort of "public access network".

Re:Public Access Channels

[Christianfreak]

At least where I live, lots of local companies provide high-speed service, the problem is that they have to buy access on someone else's network and pay the phone company for the equipment at the local office. So in the end you're really dealing with 3 companies and it costs more.

However the service is better normally the ISP deals with the other companies when there are problems. And you just have to talk to them.

It's the price

[Artful Codger]

The main reason is price.

Let's see, the modern connected household needs to cough up:

$30 a month for phone
$30+ a month for cable or dish
$30+ a month for a cellphone
and $30 a month for DSL or cable internet ... expensive hobby, this "connected" stuff.

I have hi-speed access at work, so I can do any big downloads there, and the 56k at home is just fine for email, browsing or modest downloads of under 5 MB.

The price needs to drop before high-bandwidth is a no-brainer for the average person.

Re:It's the price

[ramdac]

You got it buddy!

Re:It's the price

[par38lamp]

I could not agree more. Being a former TWICE magazine reader (This Week in Consumer Electronics), all I read about was "revenue streams" and "subcription services" in the same sentance.

More and more companies (inlcudng the RI/MPAA, it seems) are looking for subcription based revenue streams. Unfortunately, I can only afford so many of those streams. In my case, I forgo a cell phone so I can have a high speed cable internet connection. When COX internet sent me a survey about my cable modem service, I flat out told them the I expect the price to decrease, not increase.

Re:It's the price

[Anonymous Coward]

I have hi-speed access at work, so I can do any big downloads there, and the 56k at home is just fine for email, browsing or modest downloads of under 5 MB.

And as soon your Employer finds out, then only will you not have this option, but no job either.

What is wrong if they are to offer 256Kb/128Kb DSL or Cable for like $15/month for those who doesn't need huge broadband for Pr0n downloads and online gaming? :)

And availability still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in a fairly populous suburb of chicago and neither cable nor DSL are available.

Three Side to the Story....

[haplo21112]

I see all the sides of this....

1. I agree for what you get in many cases the cost is too high. My parents are on that side, why have a 49.99 feed when all you do is light browsing. Far too expensive when you can do dial up to as low as 9.99.

2. Depending on the access type in many cases costs are not comparitive. I got a call from verizon trying to sell me DSL on day(which actually isn't available in my nieghborhood thats that a different stroy). I let the guy do his speech, becuase I was in a non-stress mood, and I wanted to have some fun wiuth him. Anyway when he was done her had never mentioned speed. So I asked. His rrply was in the 192k range I seem to remember for 49.99/Month. I said I don't thinks so, he went back in speech mode...I stopped and asked him, which he though was better...1.5m or 192k for 49.99...first off he actually had to stop and think about it...which was funny...he said 1.5 eventually...I replyed well I get 1.5 for 49.99 from Charter cable why would I want 192k...

3. From my side I think 49.99 isn't a bad price for the 1.5 Cable line I have....certianly cheaper than some other solutions...I have heve seen and I never have a bit of trouble with it.

The book that will SELL broadband....

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

"Downloading Pr0n from USENET for Dummies."

They are doing there best to dissuade new users

[beefguts]

I've been using DSL for a couple of years but am seriously considering dropping it. They've up'ed the rate and cut services. They're currently capping uploads and downloads which not only bones me for p2p but more importantly I can't listen to online radio or other steaming media. I'm being charged $8.00 per GB over my cap limit which means streaming media adds up pretty quick.
Never mind getting new users, they're operating like a collusionary oligopoly which pisses off current users as well.

But it is a better value

[foo fighter]

It's too bad the people who claim broadband is too expensive can't do math.

It's easy to show it as a better value than dial up, especially if you factor in the time saved not having to wait for pages to transmit and display.

The enabling of multimedia online is really just gravy.

Re:But it is a better value

[Zathrus]

Uh... I don't think you get it.

My sister, for example, lives in an area where she can get high speed Internet access (which, honestly, surprises me given where she lives). She chooses not to though because it's just not worth it.

She spends 10-14 hours per MONTH online. They don't have a separate phone line, and I suspect their ISP charges about $20/mo for access. Given that, I can't even argue that she should spend another $30/mo for high speed access - what's it going to save her? 5 to 10 minutes a month? Maybe as much as a half hour? It's too marginal.

If they had high speed internet would her family use the net more? Maybe, but I doubt it. Two young kids, 3 and 5 years old, pretty much preclude a ton of free time. And she's decided that she doesn't want them surfing yet.

When her kids get older and start needing the 'net for school use then I'm sure she'll get high speed access, but until then it is too expensive. Sure they could afford it, but why spend money you don't have to?

Re:But it is a better value

[chefren]

Factor in the times spent reading the pages as well... If your'e on a pay-per-second line, reading slashdot actively every day is not exactly cheap, especially considering the "quality" of the content. (in general, not any specific post)

Re:But it is a better value

[Rick_T]

> It's too bad the people who claim broadband is
> too expensive can't do math.

It depends on your numbers and situation. Here, broadband is $50 a month, no matter whether it's cable or DSL. (Some comeptition, eh?)

Dialup ranges from $13 or so to $20-ish and (I'm in the USA) local phone service is *not* metered.

Like most folks, we don't do enough major downloading at home to require a second phone line - we mainly check e-mail, do some light browsing / etc.

On the basis of sheer monetary cost, $13-$20 vs $50 is a no-brainer. Dialup wins by at minimum $25-$30 a month.

What about "always-on"? We have laptops here as our primary computers. Approximately 30 seconds to get out of hibernation and another 30 seconds to connect and we're online with the dialup at home. Always-on isn't THAT big a deal for us. Nice? Sure, but we'd rather take an extra rafting trip this year. :)

> It's easy to show it as a better value than
> dial up, especially if you factor in the time
> saved not having to wait for pages to transmit
> and display.

You save a few seconds here and there on web sites - provided you're not into streaming video/audio (and we aren't). Web browsers cache most static images on web sites, so you generally don't have to wait on every single image on a web site to load if it's one you frequent.

I have broadband at work and on the same pages I look at there and at home the differences are on the order of seconds.

The point is this: Just because someone doesn't have much of a need for broadband at home doesn't mean that they can't do math. They may simply use the internet for different things.

Re:But it is a better value

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy solution:

Get Mozilla.

Change your prefs from "threaded" to "nested" so you get all the comments.

Middle click on each story that interests you. Even better if you have them set to load in the background.

Wait for them all to finish loading, then disconnect.

Re:But it is a better value

[Herkum01]

I am sure that the multi-media from this site would be enough to turn anybody off of broadband.

Re:But it is a better value

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that insightful? Oh yeah, it shows that some twit with a broadband connection can't use bloody search engine to find a cheap isp . You can get dialup starting at around $5 per month, maybe a dollar more for usenet and email without spam attached.

Verizon will sort of promise (not a garuantee, but a hope) almost 7 times my current connection speed--actually they claim it's potentially 10 times my current speed, but they underestimate my current speed--that's what happening when the marketing department gets ahold of spreadsheet--but, hey, I digress. So is the cost of Broadband from Verizon less than 7 times as much as a cheap dialup, i.e. starting at less than $35 per month? No, not in my neighborhood anyway.

It's time to face the facts. Broadband is overpriced.

Re:But it is a better value

[chefren]

Quite useful. I'm on "free" (part of the rent) broadband most of the year, but have to resort to dial-up in the summer. Since I'm not paying the dial-up myself I wouldn't actually want to be that visible on the phone bill, so I'll remember this.

This is a two part problem...

[onlyabill]

This is a two fold problem. The first half is either you 'get' brould-band and want it or you don't. You either understand what it does and can do and appreciate how it can open up the Internet and make it such a more enjoyable experience or you don't.

The second half of the problem is, either you can get it or you can't. I spent 3 years waiting for DLS or cable to come to my area and I was not that 'far' out of the city. I had cable but since DSL was not available, the cable company was in no rush to get me digital cable. Once DSL became available, digital cable followed within a couple of months. In many areas you either have no choice or your only choice is expensive, too expensive.

I believe the report is going in the wrong direction, now and in the near future, the average Internet user does not want movies on demand, 50 music channels, V-IP and the rest, they just want cheap, fast access. Until the DSL and cable industries get that through their heads and start offering cable and DSL for the same price as a dial up line, many, many users will not see the cost justification to upgrade to the better access. It is the same sort of problem with online bill pay. Many folks feel that one, it is too complicated to use (same as with setting up your cable/DLS) and two, why pay $10.00 a month for 20 payments when a stamp is still less then that. Right now, for most users, dial-up is 'good enough'. Right now, for must users, dial-up is good enough. Not great but good enough.

AOL + Broadband = $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think most of the cost analysis above are valid. Many tech savvy people can find cheap dialup for 10 to 15 dollars a month. However, most people don't have cheap access. Most have expensive AOL, MSN or similar services. Even if those people were enticed to switch to broadband a good portion of them would like to stay with those services. Broadband and AOL gets expensive (broadband connection + 15 - 20 dollar a month charge from AOL).

It's not the cost that pisses me off...

[SonicBurst]

...it was the damn increase in cost!

When I first got Verizon DSL a couple of years ago, I got it at an rate of $35 a month, for the life of my connection, and indeed, my rate never changed for as long as I had DSL. However, after the big broadband fallout when people like Covad were dropping like flies, the price immediately shot up to $50 a month. Granted, Verizon did increase the minimum line speed from 640k to 768k, but still, how does that justify $15/month more?

So it comes right down to competition. At the time Verizon did this, we didn't have cable modems available around here, and I figured that when Charter got off their asses and got them in here that we would see some kind of price competition. Boy, was I wrong. Charter is $5 a month more! Granted, much more bandwidth, but you get the point.

It just pisses me off that they can raise the price that much and get away with it!

Re:It's not the cost that pisses me off...

[Blackknight]

Sorry, we don't live in a Communist country where the government controls prices. The cable company could charge $500 a month if it wanted, and they wouldn't lose too many customers over it.

Re:It's not the cost that pisses me off...

[SonicBurst]

No, you're wrong.

If we were talking about companies where there was no government influence, then market economics would influence price. However, since most of these damn telecom/cable companies are nothing more than government sanctioned (and funded!) monopolies, they do help control pricing. Unfortunately, they control it the wrong way.

Killing Napster killed broadband.

[uncoveror]

Just getting your e-mail and surfing web pages a little bit faster is not enough reason to pay the price of broadband, but Napster was. ISPs have the RIAA to blame for DSL not taking off. They should join the consumer boycott of the recording industry.

Too expensive my ass

[SQLz]

Extra phone line + AOL =~ $40/month Comcast = $45/month with modem What a lame article that is. Speaking of lame, I heard star power advertising their cable modem service with this line "Now you can be on the phone and the Internet, AT THE SAME TIME!". Oh wow.

Or use MCI's' method

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of actually offering better service or great deals, MCI's Neighborhood Plan is now charging a flat $50 monthly fee for ANY data transfer across phone lines.

So instead of paying $50 for modem access, many users will upgrade since it's just as much to pay for DSL or cable. Problem solved on MCI's end!

Dirt cheap here.

[supabeast!]

I live in Reston Virginia, and my cable is managed by Comcast. Cablemodem users here pay ~60 USD (After taxes!) for service that also includes basic cable. Service is excellent, and transfer speeds really do live up to promises. For those of you in areas where the local cable company is screwing you, I suggest you have your community leaders look at dumping your current local monopoly provider in favor of the pricing model we have here.

Re:Dirt cheap here.

[Phosphor3k]

Most of my friends in Montgomery County, Maryland (a Comcast County) have all kinds of downtime and speed problems with Comcast's Cable modem service.

I currently pay 40 a month for 640/128 DSL service from Verizion. I've only had downtime once in the past two years. That was for about 3 hours. Even better. My actual speed maxes out at about 960/196. The reliability of the service is worth most of the cost alone.

Re:Dirt cheap here.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand this at all. Cable access here (Canada) is fairly prolific, as well as DSL, and compared to the U.S. it's -extremely- cheap. A cable connection here from Rogers (~200K/S download/~50-60K/S upload) costs around $50CDN a month..now I'm not exactly sure what that'd be in U.S. currency, but I have a feeling it's probably cheaper than what's being offered there. Added to that, many people were early adopters..some immediate, in fact (the first person I knew to get a cable connection did so about 3-4 weeks after the lines were actually in place to be used). I had always assumed that broadband would be at -least- as prolific as it is here, if not more.

Re:Dirt cheap here.

[Krusher55]

"A cable connection here from Rogers (~200K/S download/~50-60K/S upload) costs around $50CDN a month."

Rogers offers cable internet + digital cable TV bundle for $100, or about $64 US. Many places in the US cable internet alone costs $64. I believe Canada is second (to only South Korea I believe) in broadband internet use as a percentage of homes.

God, I hope everyone doesn't have broadband

[tekrat]

My Cable modem is SLOW as it is, imagine how slow it would be if everyone was using broadband! Your cable modem service would be slower than a 56k connection!

Cable modem wasn't DESIGNED to handle "everyone" on Broadband. That's why the prices are high, because if the prices were lower, everyone would sign up, and then everyone would learn what a sham it all was.

This way the Market bears what it can, those on the upside of the digital divide sign up, pay more, and get better service.

Duh.

Re:God, I hope everyone doesn't have broadband

[NDPTAL85]

They CAN install additional partitioning relays you know.

Re:God, I hope everyone doesn't have broadband

[r00tdenied]

Dude get a clue. . .Cable Modems are not the extent of 'broadband' service.

Where did they get this info...

[Dead_Smiley]

... from a Slashdot poll?

I don't have broadband because:

1) It's too expensive.
2) It's not available in my area. I would have to pull my own cable and is therefore too expensive.
3) I would have to move to the high rent district to get broadband, this makes it too expensive.

Poll taker, "Hey the poll results are in, it's too expensive for most folks."

Ummm...

Why? People are ignorant.

[fmaxwell]

Most people are devastatingly ignorant about what the net has to offer. Many believe that it is only for e-mail, instant messaging, spreading viruses, and viewing the occasional web page -- usually accessed from a "portal" site (like AOL, MSN, etc.). Most don't know how to download and install software. They don't recognize how much more useful the net is when web page loads take three seconds rather than a minute or more. The concept of voice over IP is something that has never even entered their heads. Getting ISO images of operating systems is about as likely for them as constructing a nuclear reactor is for the average family's dog or cat.

Unfortunately, the best and brightest chance of popularizing broadband was Napster and that's now gone.

I AGREE WITH THIS POST

[Anonymous Coward]

I

AGREE

WITH

THIS

POST

Well maybe...

[mephistus]

Well maybe the reason people aren't seeing a reason to upgrade to a faster connection is because there's simply nothing they do that justifies faster access. How fast does your mom need to download her email and send you instant messages? Not to mention that with the various and sundry financial problems going around with collapsed 401(k)'s, layoffs, and other nastiness, luxuries like this hang below the simple stuff like rent, food, and electricity.
Not to mention, there's not all that much to do on the web that doesn't appeal to a very specific Slashdot type crowd. Between gaming, peer to peer file stealing, and super fast pr0n, I can't think of much else I use my cable modem for. Perhaps when someone can offer some type of compelling reason to go online more often and use the bandwidth, then more people will sign up. But until then, all that fiber everyone was so crazy to start running a few years ago is going to remain dark, and DSL, cable, and fiber connections are still going to more expensive than we all know they should be.

ISDN might be it

[mgkimsal2]

ISDN might be worthwhile, depending on setup costs. 3 years ago I got a free modem, installation was about $100, and monthly it's about $30 ($14 for line, $17 for service).

Re:ISDN might be it

[e4liberty]

I resorted to ISDN because my local cable company (Adelphia) is too brain dead to keep the network running consistently. We have outages for days at a time.

In NH (USA) my ISDN bill is $46 a month to the phone company plus $20 to my ISP. I use a pair of 56k "voice" channels, which my ISP is kind enough to join into a 112k channel, rather than pay for 64k or 128k data service which is metered by the phone company.

Too Expensive?

[elhondo]

Let's see: Option 1. Buy Verizon. Rip up fiber from local CO, replace with copper, and then buy DSL service from Covad. Option 2. Buy Adelphia. Replace Cable front end with upgraded, docsis compliant equipment. Buy service from Adelphia. Yeah, I think it's dial-up for now. Unless this money from Nigeria comes through.

Verizon Take NOTICE!!!!!!

[haplo21112]

PPOE SUCKS...drop it.

When working as a consultant from time to time I am asked by people what to get for internet access. My Reply is always the local Cable Modem service. For my customers...your service migh be bette in the price to vlaue ration equation. However as the guy they are gonna call to help them support it...ugh! Its not worth the time, cause your failures look like my failures.

Re:Verizon Take NOTICE!!!!!!

[r00tdenied]

Umm no shit. . .then don't get DSL directly from Verizon. Go with an independent ISP that resells the Verizon service. In most cases you will get a static IP.

Re:Verizon Take NOTICE!!!!!!

[haplo21112]

You obviously don't live in central Mass....

broadband in germany

[Anonymous Coward]

here in germany broadband is even cheaper than dialup,
because there's no flatrate available for dialup users ;)

But the dsl flat of the big telco "Deutsche Telekom" is often slow and the pings are bad, cause of interleaving enabled....

A Long Way From Universal BroadBand Availability

[reallocate]

I used to live in Loudoun County, Virginia, part of the northern Virginia sprawl around D.C. Loudoun is home to Dulles airport, thousands of "happy" WorldCom staffers, the second-fastest growing county in the U.S, and 15 miles from the little Internet nub that is Reston and Herndon. Cable and DSL were not available throughout the county.

Ratch up the price?

[mttlg]

It's much like digital cable - the cable networks ratch up the price for...music channels?

Ratch? Did I miss another slang term while I was asleep? Kids today with their silly words, loud music, baggy pants... Why, in my day, we had to settle for real words when we wanted to say something, and we had to use a big heavy book to get them. Now it's all about "kewl" and "leet" and y r u ne 2 oic ratch... In all my 24 years I've never seen such abuse of the written word. Damn kids are trying to ruin it for everyone.

Anyway, just what is the typical price difference between digital cable and basic cable? Where I am, digital comes out to $3 or so more than basic plus a small package of basic channels they feel like charging a couple of dollars a month more for (like The History Channel is premium...).

So what's really keeping people from getting digital cable? In my case, the problem was scheduling. I could schedule an appointment for any weekday between 8am and 5pm. Wow, those are the exact hours I spend at work. Now that's convenience. I only upgraded to digital cable because I was going to be around during an available time slot anyway. Otherwise, I would still have analog, even if digital were cheaper.

Now, broadband is a bit expensive, with cable in my area inching closer and closer to DSL. I'm able to afford it without difficulty (having no life helps keep costs down), but the $100 cable bill each month still stings. I can't imagine that people with less income and more expenses (like kids) would be too thrilled about spending another $30-40 a month just to be able to watch bandwidth-hogging animations or to download their porn a little bit faster. Of course, this is no surprise to the majority of people here.

Oh well, at least the solution to all these problems is in sight. When all decent TV shows are canceled, all digital content is "managed," and every software manufacturer, media company, record exec, etc. has the right to hack into your computer, it will save me $100 a month. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to stockpiling TV shows and "digital content" in preparation for the information apocalypse...

Re:Ratch up the price?

[Quixotic Raindrop]

Ratch? Did I miss another slang term while I was asleep?

No, Hemos missed using the correct word, "ratchet" (as in, to proceed up or down by steps or degrees), possibly due to failing high school English (note: I didn't say "due to him failing" ... I think high school English in this country is a joke, anymore. For the record: I worked for a public school district, in a high school, just a couple of years ago, and have seen it with my own eyes).
[/offtopic]
[ontopic]
Price. When broadband is affordable, people will buy it. It isn't any more, or less, simple than that. As long as the providers charge too much money, the only people who will have it are those who believe they need it (rightly, or wrongly), and those who can spare the money whether they believe they need the service or not.

What is that magic barrier? I think it's $15.00/month. When carriers can get to that price point, and can actually offer it to 95% or better of customers in their service area, then broadband use by consumers will skyrocket. Until then, it will hover in this never-land.[/ontopic]

Faster Link - Different Behavior

[ckotchey]

This is definitely true. Once we got broadband at home, it wasn't just the fact that we could download the things we wanted much faster....it totally altered our on-line behavior.
No longer did we have to connect, do our business, and disconnect. We could then boot our computers, and leave them on. We now keep our IM's running all the time, and are, for the most part, reachable all day long.

Tired argument

[Rogerborg]

What more "compelling reasons" can you add for having broadband that aren't there already?

Games? Already there, as is the incentive to switch to get ping times down. I don't see anything new and compelling coming out that absolutely requires broadband.

Audio? Streaming non-demand audio is already there (I'm listening to BBC Radio 4 as I type), and there are demand (request/playlist) streamed services. Sure, the current commercial offerings of download-and-store music suck donkey dong, but the P2P services are mature. I don't see anything new and compelling arriving, unless the big music labels open up their entire catalogues as $1 per track uncrippled mp3's (not in my lifetime, I think).

Download or stream-on-demand movies? Well, last time I checked the alt.binaries groups, pretty much everything that I demanded was already there. As for streaming, if you're getting your broadband over cable, then it makes no sense to stream a jerky little image to your 17" monitor when you could stream a smooth one to your 32" TV. In the middle ground, we seemed to be underwhelmed by the crippled 24-hour offerings that were touted here a couple of weeks back, so again we're holding our breath for uncrippled high quality download-and-store movies. But based on recent history, and with Palladium looming, I don't see the studios caving on that one.

If we're holding our breath and waiting for large distributors offering things that Joe Consumer will find genuinely tempting then we're going to go pretty blue in the face. And this content is already available, if you know where to look.

I suppose that it comes down to whether ISP's have the nerve to advertise broadband for the purposes of P2P or usenet leeching. I reckon not, but you never know.

Disclaimer: I actually don't use broadband for leeching, unless you count the occasional porn clip. I like it because it gives me immediate and constant access from my LAN, fast downloading of sources and applications, and I can (e.g.) use my linux gateway to ssh-proxy web traffic from work and bypass my employer's insane web filtering. I'm sure many readers here will be doing similar, but remember that we're not representative. Why - really - does Joe need broadband to read his AOL-mail?

Re:Tired argument

[MyHair]

Why - really - does Joe need broadband to read his AOL-mail?

To get through all the spam faster. Also to view the sign-in ads to get to the mail faster.

Re:Tired argument

[spage]

unless the big music labels open up their entire catalogues as $1 per track uncrippled mp3's (not in my lifetime, I think).

Better yet, $1 per track in any format I want. If I'm paying I want the original 44.1 16-bit 17MB .WAV file, or even higher 192kHz 32-bit quality off the studio hard drive. That's even more incentive for broadband. I've been waiting for such a service from the record labels since 1993. There's tons of money in their back catalogs if they just had the guts to offer it.

Re:Res v. Business?

[Pii]

Spoken like a person that has never owned or used an ISDN connection...

The loop charge for having ISDN runs $40 or $50 bucks a month, depending on your location (In Bell Atlantic/Verizon land, I used to pay $40.). That cost is incurred before you even attempt your first call.

The killer is the usages fees... $.02/minute/B-Channel during the day. $.01/minute/B-Channel during the evening.

Those charges add up quickly. If you initiate the call during the day, your 128Kbps ISDN connection costs:

• $2.40/hr...
• That's $57.60/day...
• $403.20/week...
• $1728.00/month (30 days)
• 0ver $20,000 annually.

Sometimes you can get what is locally called "Centrex" service, where you have no usage fees, but that is not always the case. If, for example, you got 128Kbps ISDN Internet service from your local carrier (Again, Verizon as my local example), the charge you over $400/month.

DSL may exceed the $40 line charge of ISDN, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Tell me again... How is ISDN cheaper than DSL?

None of those people deserve broad band any way

[P0lyh34)]

If they can't see the difference, they don't need broad band. Most people are too fucking stupid to deserve it anyway. I think its stupid to encourage these lusers to get broad band... why should they, so they can spread nimbd and klez faster? So they can have their credit card numbers snagged faster? Its a Disadvantage to Most of US to have most of them on broadband. I still say there should be a license required to use the internet, just like what is required for ham radio.

Re:FP

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot user writes syntactically correct C code fragment, News at 11!

Just wait for all the replies telling you that they prefer pre-incremement, or you should be using a do/while() loop...

Since @Home went belly up...

[Akardam]

I have quite a few clients who were on the @Home system, and who elected to stay with AT&T Broadband after @Home went belly up. Since the switch was made, I certianly haven't had any of them complain about the service being WORSE than @Home, and quite a few are saying it seems markedly improved.

Now, I don't know if this pertains to your area, and I will say that I use DSL so I don't have any first-hand experience with the new AT&T for long periods of time, but I'd say you might look to give them another try.

Re:Since @Home went belly up...

[garcia]

In my experience DSL is MORE of a hassle than HSD. DSL usually has two providers, one is your ISP and the other is the bandwith (Verizon, yuck). Anytime you have a problem, one is blaming the other. That really blows. Nothing ever gets fixed.

DSL usually costs more for half the bandwith (768k/128k for nearly $75/mo, compared to about 3mbs/384k for $49.95/mo).

Sure, you can pick a more "server tolerant" ISP but at that point who really cares? I want cheap bandwith right?

It's really not expensive if you...

[RobertAG]

Take into account that a dial-up service PLUS the cost of an additional line just about equals the cost of broadband.

I spend a LOT of time online and was tying up the phone line for roommates, family, etc. The only solution to it was to go online when:

1. No one else was home.
2. Everyone else went to bed.
3. No one else wanted to use the phone.

I happened to relocate to an area that offered broadband just as I was seriously considering getting a second line. I tried it out, and never looked back.

For families with teenagers (my in-laws, for example), it's a great thing to get, since it keeps the phone line from being tied up. For households with people that NEED an internet connection, a single broadband connection connected to a firewall/switch can provide decent access for everyone.

This phenomenon could happen to a lot of things

[Windcatcher]

Other industries should take heed. Broadband is really convenient, and if people aren't willing to pay for it, what does that say for other things?

- HDTV

- Palladium ("All the bloatware you've come to expect AND DRM!")

- Office XPdoubleplus

- Digital media devices ("It's NEW! It's DIGITAL! Twice the clarity, half the storage, and half the freedom!")

Just because some pointy-headed bean counter comes up with a bright idea doesn't mean people will plunk down the cash for it. Dare I have hope? Naaaaah...

It is just wrong

[rppp01]

I mean, I had broadband for years, but now, I am stuck on dial up (unless I want to use MSN, and I really don't want to do that to myself) while my girlfriend's parents have Cox Cable Internet.

We get calls from the all the time about 'how do I email someone an attachment.' and 'how do I go to that site again?' to an inumerable amount of questions on anything related to computers, phones, tvs, vcrs, dvds, faxes and what not. That they get a technology they have no need for blows my mind, and I sit in my office, with a few systems and a few OS's on puny dial up. It just sucks.

And yes, I could get another ISP for DSL, but I can't afford it right now.

Damn.

A very short-sighted statistic...

[Cutriss]

I haven't read the article, but something I'm sure that's being overlooked here:

Let's say that 90% of the people in the country are eligible to get broadband. What does that mean? Does that mean they live in a city where it's provided? Does it mean that they live in a "bubble" radius from a DSLAM-equipped CO? Or does it mean that n telephone circuits have been checked to be eligible and capable of DSL?

Quite a lot of people that I predict are "eligible" are actually living in homes where they aren't allowed to conduct maintenance. In other words, if I live in a condo with telephone wiring from the 60's or 70's, it could very well be incapable of handling DSL. Do you think my landlord is going to fork over the money to have all the wiring redone with new cable so that one or a few whiny tenants can get broadband? Same goes with cable. I've got a friend in an apartment who loses his sync at least once an hour or so because the coax run through the building is in pretty sorry shape, and many of his friends are in the same boat. Nobody wants to replace the wiring because it's too troublesome and expensive for the few squeaky wheels that want it...let alone the masses that don't realize the benefits of it. Forget the last-mile problem...now we're dealing with the last-six-inches problem.

Wow, economics again

[nuggz]

I find that a high speed connection is worth the money.
I can transfer large files (digital camera) to friends and family.
My wife does work from home, we do online banking. I use the online TV guides.
I get all my software online (www.debian.org)

Some people don't do this stuff, it isn't worth the money for them.

I have basic cable for TV, the cost premium of the upper packages, digital cable, or satellite just isn't worth it. That is the way the free market works.

Re:New topic?

[quinto2000]

I would suggest "Ask Slashdot" for that honor.

Re:Broadband? X0X

[Anonymous Coward]

But since we don't give a shit about japanese people, we don't give a shit about your sadness.

Rogers Cable

[Anonymous Coward]

Cable here is two-tiered. Regular broadband cable, and something the local cable company calls 'Cable Lite'. Lite is twice to four times as fast as dialup, and costs the same price.

Perhaps the US companies should try something similar?

AC

Learn from the mobile phone mistake

[SgtChaireBourne]

Broadband will take off only if there is an investment in making it affordably available.

The U.S. needs to seriously invest in communications networks. Take mobile phones. Finland, Denmark, Tawain and many, many other countries have invested in a communications infrastructure for GSM and GPRS so that you can communicate from anywhere with in the national boundaries. The U.S. hasn't and you can see the disadvantage. In many other countries the number of mobile phones is starting to out number the fixed lines. I see no reason for broad band to be any different.

Providers have to get over the fact that the price has to come down and availablity has to increase. They're not going to make 40% profit margin from each and every customer, but the overall profit will be higher if they can reach every household.

Re:Learn from the mobile phone mistake

[DAldredge]

It is a hell of a lot easier for (Finland, Denmark, and Tawain) to setup GSM/GPRS because they are small countries! It is rather more expensive to do the same thing in the much larger US.

Re:Learn from the mobile phone mistake

[DNAGuy]

Many of the telecommunications giants are in hot water because of overinvestment in data communications infrastructure. When the internet grew commonplace, around '97, a huge investment was made because they were assuming a huge demand. That demand has been largely unrealized, and many carriers have seen difficulties as a result (WorldCom anyone?).

Re:Learn from the mobile phone mistake

[SgtChaireBourne]

Finland and others may be small countries, so it is probably far cheaper per capita to build a proper infrastructure in the U.S.

Yes, worldcom and others are in hot water, but that has more to do with accounting practices. Over expenditure on executive compensation, among other things, takes a bite out of profitability. European companies seem to be doing much better, but then they compensate their executives in a manner much closer to their engineers. Less wasted money means more marketing, services and R&D.

It's a bottom-line issue. Do you want to spend your company's money getting people to hire your services, expanding your profitability or is it enough just to pad the board's wallets?

Re:Why? People are ignorant.

[Anonymous Coward]

HA what you said was exactly right. The internet is indeed only for e-mail, instant messaging and viewing the ocacsional web page. Sure I'm a power user and connect to work, play games, download lots of software/mp3's/movies/etc, but for the most part what you said was 100% correct, the internet is a blob of crap of which about .000001% interests the average person, and they're not going to dish out $40 a month for it when they can get interesting information in a more easily usable format (ie. newspaper)for $40 a year.

It's all about the TOS, man

[intermodal]

Until they let me do whatever I want with that bandwith, including running a domain server out of my house then there's no point. I'm frankly sick of the business model being used to justify it...if you're on the internet, the fact is that all boxes should be peers. Any company providing access to web sites but not allowing you to host the same isn't providing true internet service...they're just fetching pages from the internet for you.

let me get this straight...

[dirtmerchant]

...demand goes up, price goes down? how does that work?

Secondary phone line costs

[DeadBugs]

Many people pay for a second phone line for their dial-up access. When you explain to them that they can get broadband for the same price as the cost of Dial-up and the cost of their second phone line they don't see the cost as an obstacle.

Plus you get the added benefit of a fast connection and the ability to share that connection among multiple computers.

Doesn't this strike anyone?

[maroon_dog]

"Almost all U.S. families live in areas where a high-speed Internet connection is available" Come on. I find that highly unbelievable based on my awareness of the tech market and on personal experiences with lots of different families.

Re:Doesn't this strike anyone?

[r00tdenied]

The catch to this is that yes most US families in URBAN areas can get access. . .roughly 70% of rural America is still without these kinds of services.

Re:Doesn't this strike anyone?

[agriope]

Rural America is without these services, but not because the copper is bad. Small xDSL pops can be placed outdoors, in proximity to ILEC remote equipment, gaining access to the local loop. In rural areas, they are prohibited from doing so, by the ILEC - or, perhaps more correctly, by a narrow interpretation of the regulations by the ILEC. Nevertheless, I successfully fielded xDSL in a town of 900 people, located 80 miles from the nearest metropolitan market. However, serving customers on the edge of the small town, about 5 miles away, I was never able to do. I wasn't allowed to do so by the ILEC.

The ILEC told the schools and local gov't that the copper wasn't high enough quality, and had analysis to show it, but got real quiet when I leased an alarm circuit to the school (2.5 miles away) and had them running at 1.2mbps.

Honestly, I have a degree in Physics, and know all about the signal losses, blah, blah, blah...if companies would hook things up and try it, we'd have cheap broadband in most places now.

A few questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Who created the Net?

• It was the American public sector in the form of taxpayer-funded military agencies. It's ironic that at the same time the US was "fighting communism", it used socialist principles to create and develop the Net.

What mostly runs the Net?

• The socialist Apache web server system.

What is the most significant, widely used and imitated TCP/IP stack used on the Net today?

• The communitarian, freely shared BSD TCP/IP stack.

more computers in home = broadband

[ejaw5]

It used to be the typical home has one computer. A growing trend now is to have 2+ computers in the house, either by buying multiple new computers, or continuing to use old ones when a new computer is introduced. Broadband now becomes a necessity to keep all the computers in the home connected to the internet AND to keep the phone line free. There's nothing like Lil brother Timmy wanting to play games on Yahooligans while Sister Tammy is researching a school project while Dad needs to look up stock quotes while Mom needs the phone to call to deliver Pizza.

I like modems

[Swamp]

Broadband isn't much faster than dialup for many websites, and being 'always on' does not help much as my home computer is usually switched off. For big files I download to my laptop at work where we have a big leased line.

Re:I like modems

[Radical Rad]

I hate modems. When there is something I have to do on the network and I have to dialup to do it, it is debateable whether I should just drive in to work. Ever had to install some windows based network management utility on your machine at home through a dialup connection? I think windows will read a 4 meg file just so it can look inside it to get the 63 byte icon to display cause it seems to read it once when you click on it or display it in a folder. Then it seems to read it again when you choose to copy it saying 'preparing to copy'. Then it reads it yet again to actually copy it. Needless to say this inefficient crap is a lot less frustrating over a VPN connection over DSL/Cable. Not to mention getting 24k speeds on a 56k dialup. If broadband came to my area I would sign up in a heartbeat.

If you have a cellphone, dump your land line.

[Pop n' Fresh]

This is a lot easier for smaller families, of course, but most people I know have a cellphone these days. If you get rid of your dial-up internet account ($20 per month) and your land-line ($30 a month where I live, that's just for the service, no long distance), you can switch to broadband for little or no added cost. It's $5 more a month for me this way.

Re:If you have a cellphone, dump your land line.

[Wansu]

That's an excellent point. I know lots of people with cellphones, land line(s) and dialup service who balk at the cost of broadband.

Re:If you have a cellphone, dump your land line.

[cold_sake]

I have just signed up for DSL after moving. After looking around for the best deal on upload/download versus $$, I found that DSL was the best - you don't get any of your ports blocked, and you have the OPTION of getting a static IP. ALL ISPs in my area absolutly require a landline for DSL access. I had originally planned to not get a landline phone after the move, but ended up having to get a business grade line for the DSL I'm getting.

Re:Always On

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, it's only "always on" for as long as your PC is on. It "suddenly making sense to use the connection to check movie times" requires you to boot up your PC first.

Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[NDPTAL85]

1. Perhaps they aren't ignorant. Perhaps they simply have better things to do with their time then sit on the computer all day.

2. VoIP is nice, unless you have a cellphone plan which already gives you free long distance.

3. Being able to download ISO images is wholly irrelevant to most people's lives as the OS's they use are not available in that form. Most folks buy a computer to get work done or play video games, not to work on it as a hobby.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[fmaxwell]

1. Perhaps they aren't ignorant. Perhaps they simply have better things to do with their time then sit on the computer all day.

One need not "sit on[sic] the computer all day" in order to benefit from the Internet. Even your hypothetical game player could benefit greatly from broadband. When the demo of Unreal Tournament 2003 is over 90 megabytes, it is not even remotely possible for most dial-up users to download it. Online play is rapidly becoming impossible for many players of action games that only have dial-up connections. Service pack updates for Windows can be tens of megabytes. More and more mass-market web sites are incorporating broadband-only features like streaming video.

2. VoIP is nice, unless you have a cellphone plan which already gives you free long distance.

So, what cell phone plan do I get that gives me free long distance from the U.S. to Australia (so that I can call my family member that's living there)? Think before you start typing next time.

3. Being able to download ISO images is wholly irrelevant to most people's lives as the OS's they use are not available in that form. Most folks buy a computer to get work done or play video games, not to work on it as a hobby.

So you believe that people using Linux or *BSD can't "get work done or play video games"? You think that it's just "a hobby" for them? Interesting notion. I was under the impression that Linux and *BSD were widely used in business.

Also, I said "ISO images", not "ISO images of operating systems."

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[Anonymous Coward]

> So, what cell phone plan do I get that gives me
> free long distance from the U.S. to Australia (so
> that I can call my family member that's living
> there)? Think before you start typing next time.

I'd venture to guess that most people in the USA primarily talk to relatives that ALSO LIVE IN THE USA. Just because they don't need to talk to Australia doesn't make them dumb. Sounds like the previous poster thought, and YOU didn't.

NOT EVERYONE needs VoIP.

Besides, Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the broadband in front of me.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[NDPTAL85]

Widely used in business? What business would not ALREADY have a broadband connection? You expect businesses to rely on the home connections of their employees now?

As for international long distance calls, very few people have to make them. It would not justify the expense in time, effort and money to setup and educate people about VoIP simply for the few who have to call another country.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[fmaxwell]

Sounds like the previous poster thought, and YOU didn't.

NOT EVERYONE needs VoIP.

The other poster assumed that no one needed it because cell phones would provide for everyone's long distance needs. I never said that "everyone" needs VOIP. I gave it as an example of a useful application that the general population is unaware of.

Besides, Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the broadband in front of me.

That wasn't even a good troll. At least try to make it believable. I live in the U.S. and the person that I know in Australia is an exchange student. She attends Princeton University in the states and is studying abroad in Australia. Boy, that sure fits the criminal profile, doesn't it? You're playing out of your league.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The other poster assumed that no one needed it
> because cell phones would provide for everyone's
> long distance needs.

Would you have been happier if he'd said "*Effectively*, no one needs VoIP because their cell phone includes free long distance with the plans they already buy"?

> I never said that "everyone" needs VOIP. I gave
> it as an example of a useful application that the
> general population is unaware of.

So the general population is unaware of an option that costs more (if they don't have broadband already) and is more inconvenient to use than the cell phone they DO have.

Uhh, big deal. The general population is NOT MISSING ANYTHING - which was the previous poster's whole point. This is not going to be a big selling point of broadband. If you try to push it as a selling point, most people will say "Well, my cell phone does that, and I can't cart my desktop computer to the grocery store."

[Snip quote]

> At least try to make it believable. I live
> in the U.S. and the person that I know in
> Australia is an exchange student. She attends
> Princeton University in the states and is
> studying abroad in Australia. Boy, that sure
> fits the criminal profile, doesn't it?

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093779

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[fmaxwell]

Widely used in business?

Yes. Many businesses use Linux and *BSD, which refutes your contention that such OSs are only used by hobbyists and not by anyone trying to "get work done."

What business would not ALREADY have a broadband connection? You expect businesses to rely on the home connections of their employees now?

Did you miss your meds this morning? You said: "Most folks buy a computer to get work done or play video games, not to work on it as a hobby." I countered that "work" is done using Linux and *BSD and that such OSs are not just run by hobbyists. Somehow (don't ask me how) you interpreted that as a claim that businesses should use the home broadband connections of employees. Concluding that from what I said is completely irrational.

As for international long distance calls, very few people have to make them. It would not justify the expense in time, effort and money to setup and educate people about VoIP simply for the few who have to call another country.

What are you talking about? I did not propose a massive program to educate every man, woman, and child in the U.S. about the use of VOIP and install VOIP software on their computer. I just said that the average person was ignorant about the concept of VOIP. That said, long distance calls to overseas relatives constitute a multi-billion dollar business. Who are those "few" people that generate all of those calls?

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[fmaxwell]

Would you have been happier if he'd said "*Effectively*, no one needs VoIP because their cell phone includes free long distance with the plans they already buy"?

No, because millions of people in the U.S. spend billions of dollars calling long distance to numbers outside the U.S.

Uhh, big deal. The general population is NOT MISSING ANYTHING - which was the previous poster's whole point. This is not going to be a big selling point of broadband.

It will be to those millions of people that spend large sums of money on overseas phone calls. The "killer app" of broadband for some people might be VOIP. For others, it might be streaming video. For others, it might be downloading video games or playing them online. Other people will find the ability to search web pages at high speed to be invaluable. Every example does not need to apply to every person.

Me: Freezers are great. You can put pizzas in them. You can have frozen dinners, vegetables, ice cubes, and ice cream in them.

You: Few people like pizza, so freezers are worthless.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093779

So what's your point of providing a link to a movie review of The Princess Bride? If you are insinuating that one gets into Princeton by being spoiled and rich, I can assure you that you are wrong. You get accepted there by having an outstanding scholastic record and scoring in the top percentile on college admissions tests. Or, in your case, you might be accepted at Princeton in a janitorial or food services role.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[NDPTAL85]

The proportion of those who make overseas calls to those who make domestic calls is the "few".

Yes SOME businesses use Linux/BSD, but for the most part its run by hobbyists. Otherwise its either corporate *nix or Windows.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, his point is to say that:

"Never go up against a scilian when DEATH is on the line!"

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[Anonymous Coward]

> No, because millions of people in the U.S. spend
> billions of dollars calling long distance to
> numbers outside the U.S.

But what percentage of the general population is that? Are they concentrated in particular areas, or are they spread out over the entire country fairly evenly. If they are localized, then VoIP is good to advertise to those people specifically.

Others will probably be turned off by including it in the "features". After all, do you want to buy something that the advertiser is pumping up as at best a less convenient way to do what you're already doing?

> It will be to those millions of people that
> spend large sums of money on overseas phone
> calls.

But what percent of the population are those? Is it worth turning off people to advertise that "benefit"?

> Every example does not need to apply to every
> person.

No, but you don't want to pump up "advantages" that most consumers simply will not see as advantages and may see in the sense of "If *that's* all they've got, then I'm not buying." That could HURT your sales.

> You: Few people like pizza, so freezers are
> worthless.

Me: No freezer manufacturer is going to list "You can put pizzas in them" on a bulleted list of advantages for their freezer. They'll list things that they've determined that a large percentage of people might find important.

> So what's your point of providing a link to a
> movie review of The Princess Bride?

You hear that? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. It's the sound your brain made when you realized that you *completely missed the joke*.

> You get accepted there by having an outstanding
> scholastic record and scoring in the top
> percentile on college admissions tests. Or, in
> your case, you might be accepted at Princeton
> in a janitorial or food services role.

You know, the finny thing about these online discussion forums is that you never really know who you're talking to. You might be talking to a college student. You might be talking to a high school student. You might be talking to a high school dropout, or a college dropout. And on some occasions, you might even be talking to a college professor.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[fmaxwell]

But what percentage of the general population is that? Are they concentrated in particular areas, or are they spread out over the entire country fairly evenly. If they are localized, then VoIP is good to advertise to those people specifically.

I never suggested advertising it to anyone. I listed that on Slashdot as an example of a useful capability (for some) that consumers, in general, were ingnorant of. What part of that do you disagree with? You are aware of the capability. Does that make you apprehensive to have broadband?

You hear that? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. It's the sound your brain made when you realized that you *completely missed the joke*.

When I "miss" jokes, it's normally because they aren't funny. "Ultimate suffering" to me would be to cursed with the kind of crass a sense of humor that found that kind of thing funny.

You know, the finny thing about these online discussion forums is that you never really know who you're talking to. You might be talking to a college student. You might be talking to a high school student. You might be talking to a high school dropout, or a college dropout. And on some occasions, you might even be talking to a college professor.

I believe it to be very unlikely that a college student or professor would make insulting remarks (i.e., "princess") about about a person solely because she is an Ivy League student studying abroad. Normally, the kind of people who find higher education grounds for ridicule are those who have not had much of it themselves.

Re:Or maybe you're the one who's ignorant?

[fmaxwell]

Few is a number, not a proportion.

Many, if not most, businesses use Linux/BSD in some manner. Linux and BSD are very frequently powering the company's firewall, mail server, or web server. Proprietary Unix solutions (like Solaris) are losing market share to Linux and BSD. Now that Walmart is shipping $199 PCs with Lindows (a Linux-based OS) as an alternative to Windows machines, I'd say that blows the whole computer-hobbyists-only theory out of the water. These low-cost PCs are being sold to the mass-market.

Again, though, I said "ISO images." You are the one that decided that all ISO images must be operating systems.

The best way to broadband from cable..

[ChronoZ]

Is to be hooked up to a small company. The large ones a profit-hungry and won't ever drop their prices, while some of the smaller ones are giving out decent service at decent prices.
Heck, I'm paying about US$25/month for my broadband connection and they just came out with a "lite" service for US$17/month (light = ~96-128Kb connection). I mean come on, this is cheaper than some dial-up services out there!

Really the real problem

[dpilot]

is that broadband Internet is a disruptive technology.

Unfortunately we have current business trying to deploy broadband, and figure out how to make money from it in the context of their current business models. Hence Adelphia has this black cable coming into my house, and feeds me both TV and Internet over it. Now if I've already got TV/movies coming over that cable, and the TV/movie is seldom worth watching, why-oh-why do I want to turn my Internet into an alternative TV/movie distribution medium?

The real value of broadband is going to be in things that don't happen over other means, or at least where broadband makes them happen markedly cheaper/better. Two things pop up immediately, network gaming and filesharing. For both of these, the Internet is a unique piece of plumbing, and broadband Internet gives true enablement.

Of course, filesharing currently seems to be criminalized, but that's not necessarily true. That's largely because ??AA business models haven't adapted. In that respect, the IMHO ??AA business model (artificial scarcity) is the greatest impediment to widespread broadband. Coming up with another business model that works in this environment and allows artists/publishers to make a reasonable ROI is another issue, but it needs exploration. Unfortunately the current route being taken by the ??AA may well attempt to deny that exploration.

There's another ramification, in that the ??AA business model and current (especially cable, which is highly tied into the MPAA) broadband service is not friendly toward peer-to-peer, which is really desirable for gaming. Sure, there are the big game servers, but it would also be highly desirable for a few kids to get together on their own. From a parental point of view direct connect between my kids and their friends is preferableover a big gameserver, too.

Back in the early days of telecomputing, there were outfits like The Source, CompuServe, Genie, and the like. Those that survived realized that their users really wanted to get in touch with each other. Maybe they started out serving informaton, but either they wound up serving connectivity, or they died. Just about the entire industry seems to have forgotten that lesson, and is trying its hardest to turn the Internet from connectivity into information. *Their* information, for a price, preferably paid *every* time. Precisely the model that failed decades before.

So until someone gets a clue, and figures out that broadband will enable new markets rather than old, and begins to explore those new markets, I don't see much change. Alternatively, by dropping the cost significantly, it's just better than dialup, which others have mentioned.

Re:Really the real problem

[jvmatthe]

Back in the early days of telecomputing, there were outfits like The Source, CompuServe, Genie, and the like. Those that survived realized that their users really wanted to get in touch with each other. Maybe they started out serving informaton, but either they wound up serving connectivity, or they died. Just about the entire industry seems to have forgotten that lesson, and is trying its hardest to turn the Internet from connectivity into information. *Their* information, for a price, preferably paid *every* time. Precisely the model that failed decades before.

I really like this point. I'm not sure how accurate it is, to be honest, since I wasn't familiar with those older services, but it is true that user-oriented BBSes did seem to play a big role in the advent of what you're calling connectivity (to other users). I think I'd say it as "The true value of the network lies in connecting users to each other, not connecting users to centralized media distributorrs." Of course, value for the user apparently isn't value for the big conglomerates, eh?

In a larger view, one could say that this is why USENET persists to this day, despite the heavy binary groups load. There really are lots of thriving newsgroups that continue to pull in new readers and writers.

Re:Really the real problem

[jbolden]

Back in the early days of telecomputing, there were outfits like The Source, CompuServe, Genie, and the like. Those that survived realized that their users really wanted to get in touch with each other. Maybe they started out serving informaton, but either they wound up serving connectivity, or they died.

Except for CompuServe the rest came fairly late in the "telecomputing" market; after home BBSes and small business BBSes were quite popular. Compuserve was succcsful in selling content; since they had high quality content that no one else had (often at rates as high as $75 / hr). They also managed to get quite a lot of commercial traffic both B2C and B2B (though they weren't call that then). MCI focused heavily on genuine communication between users and they failed early.

Genie was essentially a cheap compuserve; they charged a flat fee per month rather than an hourly rate and had lower quality content but because of the high user base who wasn't worried about connect time they had good quality discussion boards. Its also important to point out Genie was not covering its real costs. Genie was using GE's mainframe -- dialup system during off hours (they charged something like $17 an hour if you used it during business hours); it would have been impossible to pay for that infastructure from genie revenue.

The closest to a service that sold low quality content, by which I mean stuff that wasn't expensive to buy the rights too, with unlimited connect was Prodigy which was fairly succesful.

And lets not forget that AOL didn't start off as an ISP. They built their market up during the last days of the BBSes.

When the internet started offering lots of content cheaply all the services started becoming ISPs. Since they were all large corporations and the internet was very uncensored they all sort of wanted to get out of the business and didn't fight very hard

Genie became pointless; though their online gaming division managed to do quite well for a few more years until sites dedicated to specific high end graphics games became popular

Prodegy was able to survive for a while but IBM and Sears lost interest

Compuserve is still around offering dialup -> corporate system connection more like MCI's market back in the 1980's.

The small business BBSes have moved onto the internet (in terms of functionality not necc. ownership).

So I don't think its quite accurate the model failed. What it showed was:

a) A small group of customers will pay a lot of money for very high quality content they can't get anywhere else

b) A large group of customers will pay a little bit of money for having lots of content even if not of particularly high quality in one place

c) Most customers won't pay anything extra regardless though they will take advantage of free throw ins and might be convertable to either class (a) or (b) if you can get them hooked (the AOL model).

I don't see how that's much different from the current internet.

Sites like the wall street journal which have unique content at a lowish price are doing terrifically. Free discussion sites like Slashdot get tons of traffic but have trouble charging for it. Sites with high end content are able to charge a lot for it to a small group but don't have wide penetration (high quality porn sites, article archives).

Re:Really the real problem

[dpilot]

I thought that The Source was just about the original, it was the first online service I'd ever heard of. I still remember the $99 sign-up fee, though I never did. My first connection was CompuServe, with a 5,3 digit number.

Nor do I argue about your points a, b, and c. But I think you've neglected connecting people to each other by focusing on the MCI failure. My mom (late 70's) is lost without the Internet, because it's how she keeps in touch with here scattered family and friends, not to mention the ones in town. (She routinely does instant messaging with a friend who is a local phone call - go figure.) She can't consistently figure out how to use the web, in spite of multiple lessons. My sister keeps in touch with a bunch of friends on an author's mailing list - an online community. I suspect MCI failed either because the market wasn't ready, they had business problems, or some part of their offering wasn' right.

As for "different from the current internet." No Problem. I like the net as it is, except for the absurd TOS of my broadband provider. I'm more fearing the Internet as the media giants would reshape it.

Re:Really the real problem

[jbolden]

Pretty much the only fault of MCI was that it was more expensive then people were willing to pay. Different BBSes offered their own mailing systems: mail between genie customers, mail between compuserve customers... Compuserve came closest to having a universal email system but with the internet making it free nobody ended up making money on email. If MCI had any failing it was price, and the fact that they didn't want to cooperate with smaller BBS access points as much as they should have. Imagine how huge a company MCI would have been if they owned email today.

As for the asymmetry I think the real danger is that broadband is naturally assymetric; cable companies have more downstream bandwidth then upstream. If another way of connecting "the last mile" exists IMHO the dangers of creating a brain dead entertainment oriented Internet should disappear.

Re:Really the real problem

[jwilcox154]

And lets not forget that AOL didn't start off as an ISP.

Also, AOL started out as Quantum Link, A service for Commodore Computers.

Re:Really the real problem

[leviramsey]

Sites with high end content are able to charge a lot for it to a small group but don't have wide penetration (high quality porn sites, article archives).

It seems to me that many porn sites claim to have wide penetrations.

Re:Really the real problem

[Snover]

And lets not forget that AOL didn't start off as an ISP.

And they still aren't, and they never will be, so what's your point?

I agree, it isn't the content

[NetWurkGuy]

So is it price? Price for what? I think the basic problem is that what passes for "broadband" today is still too slow. Two hours to download a feature film on "broadband" is no competition to the video rental shop. Real broadband requires fiber, (or coax with negligible contention), to the home. Twisted pair is a stopgap as is sharing bandwidth with cable TV.

The price is a bit high.

[umask077]

Admitedly I pay more then most, I have a routed network over my dsl link and I expect to pay more for that. However in my neighboorhood most people are using dialup because of the costs of other services. Were not a poor neighboorhood, average house cost about 500K but people dont seem to want to shoulder the cost of broadband on top of an inflated mortage. Cable modems were available in the area and were only about 30 a month. Course they are asyncronous meaning out via phone and in via cable and you could order them without the cable service. They so oversold thier pipe however that they no longer issue them. One or two houses have directway dishes on them but for the most part my nieghboors are happy with thier modems and cant justify the costs of DSL to the area.

I pay for my broadband because I use it alot and I know what its like to go back to modems. Most of these folks havent been exposed or just dont need it. The problem is people dont really know if they need broadband or not and throwing out a few hundred for a dsl router and getting stuck with a year service contract with an inflated rate is not a great motivator for people to try it to find out.

Re:Too expensive your ass

[NineNine]

First off, most people don't have an extra phone line, because they're simply not on the Net that much. Secondly, does that $40/month include the basic cable service you have to buy?

NOT a chicken-and-egg problem

[dwheeler]

This isn't a chicken-and-egg problem. If EVERYONE had broadband at current prices, and all music and movies were available under the current RIAA (RICO) policies and prices, I suspect most people would immediately switch BACK to phone lines and modems.

People buy CDs, DVDs, tapes, and videocassettes because they want the freedom to do a lot of things with that material. They want watch/listen to the material as many times as they want to, whenever they want to. They want to use whatever media they have to watch/listen to it themselves (e.g., be able to copy CDs to their personal tapes so they can hear the CD on a tape deck, create their own CD mix, create an MP3 so they can hear music on their laptop while leaving the CD-ROM drive free for something else). They want to avoid the risk of extra fees and possible loss (assuming their houses aren't physically damaged). They want to do many other things with it, too, and as long as it's only for their personal use, they need to have the freedom to do so.

Instead, many of the current electronic distribution techniques for music and videos have extremely consumer-hostile policies. For example, many of the current RICO approaches want you to pay monthly subscriptions, with no additional services and no guarantee of a stable price (I think we can safely assume that if these approaches caught on, the cost would ramp up steeply). Since the legal online distribution system is WORSE for the consumer than the alternatives, few consumers want it.

Of course, if the music/video overlords will not provide their content reasonably over the Internet, what's left for the Internet to legitimately do? There are lots of other useful services on the Internet: email, web surfing, and so on. It would be NICE to have higher bandwidth for that, but clearly most people believe it's not worth the extra money and trouble. Obviously, things vary, but it IS more money in many places - not everyone pays AOL price$ for an ISP, and broadband is outrageously expensive in many places.

Now I'm sure others here will disagree with me, but Napster-like systems of mass sharing are wrong. RIAA vs. Napster was simply the case of two evils pitted against each other. RIAA is very hostile to artists, really (the represent music publishers, not artists), but Napster was even worse. However, the growth of Napster and P2P systems is really an evidence that the current publishers "don't get it," and that is the real problem.

The fundamental problem is that the music and video industry, instead of embracing a technology that could make them a ton of money, are sticking their heads in the sand and trying to uninvent technology instead. Trying to invent totally "non-copying" systems results in incredibly invasive and privacy-destroying systems which don't really work. Trying to make digital media uncopying is, as Bruce S. notes, like trying to make water not wet, and someone with a videocamera aimed at a screen can undo lots of fancy mechanisms. But even worse, such systems fundamentally subvert "fair use": copyright law is a grant to authors, under the condition that they permit fair use; if fair use is taken away, then clearly those organizations should forfeit copyright protection as well.

A simple watermarking scheme that deals with the casual pirate would be better; it would permit fair use, and deal with piracy as under current law. The non-casual pirates are already creating copies, and will continue to do so regardless of the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) techniques used. It would be better to use the technology available to make it impossible for the pirates to compete, by providing a legitimate service that customers actually want to use. That means charging less for the material (you'll still make more money, since many overheads disappear and people can impulse buy more quickly), and making it trivial to obtain the material.

Of course, since the publishers essentially own the souls of most artists, if publishers will not release their material under consumer-friendly terms, they obviously can do so. But that will just mean what's already happening: consumers will not use their elecronic distribution mechanisms. Unsigned artists are already making their material available in other ways; it's conceivable that eventually most material will be released by artists instead of the current publishers, at which points the publishers suddenly discover they're irrelevant. It's unclear that this will happen, but it's a possibility. I rather hope it does; it would serve these companies right for ignoring their customers.

My two cents.

Tried Satellite?

[ackthpt]

Yeah, but for those of us who just listen to music and can do without TV, options like XM and Sirius work very well. I've had Sirius for 3 months now, despite all the vitriol I've read on here, and I love it. Only wish I could carry it around with me, but it'll be wonderful when I head into the desert in a couple months :)

And you must be on AOL.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

It "suddenly making sense to use the connection to check movie times" requires you to boot up your PC first.

The PC stays on. Try to keep up.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[swillden]

The PC stays on. Try to keep up.

All *five* PCs stay on, including the laptop with WiFi which is toted around the house to be always within reach whenever one doesn't happen to be within three feet of a regular PC. Try to keep up.

Oh, oops. We were talking about broadband for *normal* people. My bad.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

I tell you, I'm mystified by the sentiments in this and other posts. How is going on a 5k run going to help me with the useful functions that I listed in my two posts above? Should I also do some curls when I'm tempted to call directory assistance to get a phone number? Should I knock out some crunches instead of making that airline reservation?

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[dlb]

I guess the 'fattie' comment sort of hit too close to home, huh?

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

NICE!

5'10, 160lb.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[swillden]

Come try my 5k, the one I do on my lunch hour. It includes 4000 feet of vertical elevation change. And starts at 6000 feet above sea level.

I'll bury you.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[DohDamit]

For cryin' out loud...I was just making a joke by changing the context of his "try to keep up" comment. Lighten up! Erm, have a sense of humor, rather. By the way, I am suitably impressed by someone doing a 5k run on their lunch hour with a 4000 foot incline...if you're actually doing it.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[jred]

I'm not sure about the relevance, but:
5'10", 133lb. !!!!

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

So your at 2000 feet when you finish?

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah assuming you start and stop at the same elevation, you'd be running up (and then down) a 50 degree slope?

In the words of Al Borland "I Don't Think So Tim"

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[swillden]

Well, "running" isn't quite right. Much of it is really climbing rocky and wooded slopes that are much steeper than 50 degrees. It's nearly vertical in a couple of spots.

And the distance is probably further than 5k round trip.

And it does take a rather long lunch hour to finish it. More like a "marketing lunch".

Still, the point is that five PCs, a laptop and a wireless LAN does not necessarily a couch potato make.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[swillden]

No. You finish at the starting point. I find that when I'm driving myself, that makes it much easier to get home.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

I'm not sure if this reply is directed at me or not. My response to your post was directed at the implication that everyday use of the internet must be in the form of hours of mindless chair-sitting. I wasn't the author of the "I'll smoke you" comment. I ain't fat, but I'm not going to smoke anyone, either.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[John Harrison]

My calculations give a much smaller number than 50 degrees. I am wondering where you start at though. The valley is below 5000 ft. Lake is at what, between 4200 and 4300? Also 4000 ft of elevation change isn't the same as 4000 ft of elevation gain. Do you mean gain? If you do then the average incline, assuming 5k round trip, is about 25 degrees. If you meant 2000 ft of gain, then your angle is only 13 degrees.

I miss the mountains.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[swillden]

In the words of Al Borland "I Don't Think So Tim"

In the words of my 10th grade Trig teacher: "Do that again. You got it wrong."

5km = 16000 feet, roughly, 8000 out and 8000 back. 4000 feet of elevation change means 2000 up and 2000 down.

To get the angle, then, calculate arcsin(2000/8000), which is 14.5 degrees.

A 50-degree incline would make the elevation change almost equal to the length of the run.

Thanks to John for pointing that out. It should have been obvious to me.

Re:And you must be on AOL.

[swillden]

I was thinking of Adam's Canyon, above Gentile Street in Layton. I'm told that the waterfall is about two miles and 2000 vertical feet from the trailhead, which is at about 4600 feet, not 6000, so I was, ahem, embellishing a bit on the altitude.

Based on that, I get an average incline of about 11 degrees (assuming the 2 miles is the hypotenuse of the triangle). Feels like it's steeper, though, especially the last half mile when your quads are shrieking for mercy. :-)

I miss the mountains.

I can certainly understand that... Take up sailing?

I guess I'm the minority, then.

[gspeare]

I live in a large city in Pennsylvania. Despite three-plus years of empty promises from the cable company, my broadband options are:

One-way cable modem
ISDN, maybe

I have a forested hill that blocks satellite, and I'm 1800 feet beyond the DSL boundary. Grrr.

Of course, I'll probably get Cable/DSL in a year or two only to become newly frustrated over all the restrictions I hear are placed on them. I would like to run my own mail server and web site, but it seems that cable companies take a dim view of this kind of activity. Double Grrr.

And finally, it seems to me that there's a world of difference between having broadband access available from one company only and having actual competition. I wonder what percentage of U.S. homes have two or more broadband options available to them.

All compelling uses illegal?

[Chris Canfield]

I don't think the report is quite accurate. They say that the internet isn't providing compelling enough uses to warrant $50 per month. They site online music and gaming as uses that spread throughout other companies.

However, we still have tens of thousands of music channels at our fingertips online... legally. Go to www.live365.com if you don't believe me. There are still many, many short film sites up and running. And Broadband gaming is as accessible in this country as it is in the others, with games such as Evercrack, AC, and the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies just waiting to suck up every moment of your life.

What we don't have is a technically savy population that knows these things exist. We don't have a population that bothers to ask what options come with their cell phone plan, let alone what protocol the company is using. We don't have a population that is interested in the latest water-cooled notebooks. We don't have a population that competes with eachother based on the size of their PDA. And, sadly, we don't have a population that was first exposed to the available uses of the internet at communal high-speed net cafes.

If we did, we would realize that speeding up regular web access is bloody satisfying enough to warrant the output, let alone actually having a phone again. And if that wasn't enough, we would realize that such things as multiple 24 hour Tango channels, independent films on demand, etc. etc were available and desirable. For that matter, we would put more stock in independent music and film, rather than just seeking out the rehashed trash hollywood keeps programming us to want then getting upset when we find our own ways of getting it.

High-speed (actually, it's just adequate speed) access IS worth it... the problem isn't a lack of programming but a lack of knowledge on the part of the people. If you really expose people to broadband, and show them all of the wonderful legal uses, they really won't go back.

_Almost_ all U.S. families...

[big-dog]

Get me broadband. For thoes that live out in the sticks, broadband _still_ isn't an option.

Is there any other options besides satellite on a consumer level?

Difference between Europe and US in a Nutshell

[ackthpt]

(no this isn't an O'Reilly book)

Europe is still socialist enough that they tend to favor building infrastructure. The US is so individual oriented that the government believes in tax reduction, rather than build infrastructure. Seems the last time the US ever really did anything was build the Interstate Highway System, which now has us bound to our cars. Too bad rail travel isn't what it was up to the 50's, I'd hardly need to spend $20,000 + gas + insurance + maintenance.

QUAKE is compelling enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't they heard of Quake? Jeez, what more compelling reason do they need? How do you think they got us to spring for a T3?

Two Way Services, Mobility Are the Answer

[g8orade]

I think most people don't subscribe because they don't know what it's like to have fast internet integrated into their lives--and their houses and hardware aren't set up to have it be integrated:

It's got to be a total package that extols the value of sharing data (text, voice, pix, video), not just receiving it, and that also provides mobility with your "device(s)" at least while in your house. Who regularly creates digital files that s/he wants to share through the web? That person needs broadband.

I can't understand why all the web-based digital photo reprinters aren't cross selling broadband, not to mention the digital video hardware vendors. Actually, Circuit City is a big Broadband reseller.

To integate the web into your life, you need mobility, not a fixed PC in one room of your house. For your kids to do their homework while lying on the floor, for you to read the news while at the kitchen table, etc., you don't just need broadband, you need a wireless hub at your house, and one or more devices to go with it. You may need a server and a network.

This bundled solution of two way participative services and mobility is the marketing solution. But, it's got to be so easy you can bring it home and plug it in. It's got to be secure out of the box. It's got be spun in a way that convinces you your life is better now that you have it.

See Quicktopic, Shutterfly, MP3.com, Vonage, and more.

Government Funded Infrastructure

[physicScholar]

I think that the US federal government should break this chicken-egg cycle of service and demand for the same reasons it created the interstate highway system.

The main parallel between the highway system and the internet is that they both promote interstate and international trade. As such, the government has established precedence for economic intervention.

Furthermore, the results of such intervention have been astounding. The entire American landscape would be dramatically different if the highway system did not exist. It is encouraging to think that such impressive results could come from government subsized internet construction. (In fact, I believe many of the campus networks that offer such incredible hardware were originally funded funded by the NSF.)

When will competition arrive at their door?

[Xesdeeni]

As someone in the computer/electronics industry, where we are squeezed for every penny, and where we have to add features each year just to keep the same (barely profitable) price, it is extremely frustrating to see the two industries that seem totally unaffected by competition:

the phone companies and

cable/satellite companies.
Sure, I can switch phone companies. But I lose my phone number (still, even though they make me dial 10 digits to call my nextdoor neighbor, which was supposed to be so I could keep my phone number). But wait, for a bit more, you can block your phone number. And for a bit more, you can block people who block their phone number. But in either case, the phone company will sell your phone number to telemarketers to ensure that you do get calls that you will want to block...thus ensuring that you buy caller ID. Oh, and now they'll raise the price for caller ID, thank you very much. And if your state creates a no-call list, you'll have to pay for that too. Oh, but wait, some companies can get a state license to ignore the list you paid for and call you anyway. But you can pay for caller ID....

The phone and cable companies introduced high-speed internet, and the prices go up while the bandwidth goes down. This year's fastest processors cost the same as last year's that were slower. This year's hard drives are bigger and faster for about the same as last year's. You can have more memory cheaper than last year. But they want to you upgrade to DSL or cable-modems by paying more. But if you actually use the bandwidth, they'll adjust the prices so you have to pay more, or you get less bandwidth...not much more than dialup in the end. Oh yeah, and the basic phone bill will go up too, to cover the cost of the digital services they are now offering. And they don't even offer any package deals with an actual discount (they just put all the same chareges on one bill).

And don't get me started on cable/satellite. They raised my cable rates a few years back to pay for "improving the infrastructure" so they could "upgrade to digital cable." So now they have digital cable, but I still have to pay extra for it? I want my money back then (I guess we aren't demaning it back because we have a short memory)! And then they raise the price of basic cable again, and again, and just for good measure, again...because you know electronics equipment prices just keep skyrocketing and the number of subscribers keeps going down...oh wait.... And then have the nerve to ask why I don't want to pay more for digital cable. Besides, then I can pay even more by ordering pay-per-view!

What I wish is that I could take this offer I got for free satellite equipment and installation and then programming at $21.99/mo and the cable company would meet it (you know, the way BestBuy does with a special at Circuit City?), instead of charging me $36.99/mo for fewer analog channels. I want the convenience of analog so I don't have to have a box (and the requisite fees) for all four TVs and both VCRs, and so I can use the picture-in-picture I paid for (we already went through this box-per-TV/VCR crap with cable tuners). Plus, I don't want to look at the over-filtered, over-compressed digital crap they send to the satellites. It may be digital, but it's garbage. I'd rather look at a bit of analog noise than golf greens with no details because they were completely filtered out and the halos and distortions of too-low bitrates.

And I also wish that one of the phone companies would offer me the following package:

local phone at as significant discount with FREE features (caller ID/call waiting/call blocking)

long distance w/no fee at a low minute rate

cel phone with decent minutes for a cheap monthly rate

television for

high-speed internet for

Xesdeeni

It's the customer-hostility

[rpg25]

I can't speak for cable, but where DSL is concerned, if I didn't need it to work from home, I'd be using dial-up.

I can't say too much about what a nightmare from hell my local telco (Qwest) has made DSL Until they make this significantly easier, change their dreadful customer service policies, make it work reliably and make it predictable (don't just spout vaguenesses about how it might work: figure out how to check the lines and make a commitment to deliver), the masses will not be ready for this.

Right now DSL is like driving one of the first cars: unless you're a mechanic, don't try.

Re:It's the customer-hostility

[Hassman]

AT&T Broadband was quick and painless...granted the guy who installed it was a moron, but that is easily overcome.

It was just annoying because he HAD (part of the deal) to hook me up. So he acted all high and mighty telling me this and that about the internet and what to do and doing it as if setting up windows for broadband was rocket science.

I just wish he woulda stayed around so he could have seen me undo what he did and then set up my BSD server / firewall...

Ahhh well. But really, getting turned on was very easy and customer service was no problem to deal with at all.

Re:It's the customer-hostility

[rpg25]

Is this DSL or cable? As I said, my experience is only with DSL. I've heard of some folks who've had some glitches setting up cable, but not so many other annoyances (relatively frequent downtimes, etc.) as DSL.

It's not the size of the connection....

[Anonymous Coward]

My primary reason for broadband is not the size of the pipe. It's the constant on that is what I like. 1) Sit down. 2) Surf.

There's no 10 minute log on, busy signal, passwords etc. to deal with. I don't have to deal with a second line, forgetting to hang up, finding a CO in my area. Nothing. Sit, Surf.

From a security standpoint I'll always be behind a firewall with a constant on. With dialup? Who's interested in taking the time. Sorry I'm not going to. (And neither is MaryJane User who's pulling down recipies from her email.

----------------
There's more than one way to skin a cat, but what do you do with the skin when you're done?
--Me

Totally agree.

[Viewsonic]

Digital DOES offer some interesting channels like IFC, but it just isn't worth it because the extra cable box is terrible, the lag is terrible, and the picture quality is only slightly better (After the artifacting from changing the channel has gone away.). Not to mention it costs a bit more. If anything, since you need a box to use it, it should be virtually free .. Anything that has a drawback to what you currently have is bad business.

I dunno about the states

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

But in Canada, 4/5 people I know are using broadband. I guess it's a lot cheaper here.

Broadband: $35-50 CAD (I pay 42 for DSL and modem rental)

Compared to 3 years ago when I was stuck in rural BC paying by the hour: $50-100 per month, plus second phone line costs.

"Expensive" depends on how you look at it

[jerkyjunkmail]

Actually it's not really that expensive IF you are currently using a second phone line for dial-up only. you figure just a basic phone line(at least from Ameritech) will run you about about 18 bucks. Standard ISP prices are about 20 bucks. So if you drop the second phone line and dialup account you've got a budget of about 40 bucks. standard broadband is about 40-50 bucks. so for about 10 bucks(or less) a month you get a much more usable net connections. I think it's worth the extra 10 bucks a month for a(albeit crappy by design) PPPoE DSL account or a cable connection.

I'm just amazed.....

[Anonymous Coward]

that I live in, what is characterized in the article, as the small percentage that can't receive any broadband connection. Now to be fair I don't live in a major city but I'm not out in the boonies either. I live in a town of 15,000 people that has digital cable and is served by a major phone company (Verizon). There's also a university. What's the deal here?

I'd be more than happy to ponie up the bucks if I could.

It's called a 'hub'

[Anonymous Coward]

Do what we do in our (student-ghetto) apartment: Split with as many of your neighbours as possible. I must confess that my job gives me cheap access to CAT-5 by the yard and wholesale-priced networking equipment, so this solution may be more practical for me than some, but I predict that wireless equipment will make broadband splitting a simple fact of life.

The cable and DSL companies should not (yet) be cracking down on this sort of thing; they should be encouraging as much uptake as possible. Fingers crossed that the landlord won't squeal.

Alas Its broadband, but more like cashband...

[SkyCracker]

Its not the content - its the speed. I cannot justify a higher speed that i can get from broadband with the cost. I would think USD$10 would be much more reasonable than $40. What do dedicated lines go for? If I can get mundo bigger speeds for $100 more, should I even care about a pricey low speed connection? Why am I feeding someones pocketbook big bucks?

That is perfectly fine.

[Blowit]

Dialup for most people who can get it for approximately $10/month is perfectly fine for most customers needs. The ones who need broadband are power users who need it for web designing, gaming, Voice over IP services and power buying/selling on ebay. I consider that broadband is currently underpriced for the type of speeds that are offered.

If people are currently complaining that Broadband is too costly, so be it. It is costly to provide such services as an average cost per port of transport is priced at $3000+ or $50/month for 5 years. Once providers have paid off their system, it will only then be plausible to make some money back. However, 95% of the providers can not survive at the currently overcharged pricing of current hardware. Hence, why we have had major broadband bankruptcies across North America.

Only a small percentage of users need broadband. And that percentage should be paying premiums for the extra speeds. Now before you go flaming about this, what "GIVES" the public right to pay dialup pricing for a service that is 20 times faster should the price fall? Why not get a T1 to your house and pay the appropriate pricing of the service (ranging from $250 to $2500 depending on area) instead.

The services rendered to most people on broadband are sketchy and in most cases, are problematic. The cause of these problematic cases are due to several factors of poorly constructed networks, lower wages, and low pricing. Broadband technologies can be just as effective as T1+ services, however, the telcos just want to ensure that these services never exceed the performance of their dedicated services. Otherwise, their dedicated services will never retain the value and cost of what they are worth these days. Therefore, why broadband service has been more of a patchup type of service with constant failures.

We offer dedicated SDSL service via our company. Since we have offered this private service (not via our telco), we have never seen the service fail once. We use the simplest provisioning of the service and through simplicity, we can offer a T1 grade service, without the T1 pricing. Yes our pricing is much higher (business services only) however, we can offer a certain level of guarantee over our SDSL services that no other provider will care to offer.

Re:That is perfectly fine.

[Hassman]

So what exactly are you saying? That people should pay more for broadband because compaines do? I fail to see what argument you are making...

We live in a capitalist society. If broadband is too expensive, people won't purchase it...I know that if my bill goes up to the prices you're talking about, forget it. It would be back to dialup for me.

In the public marketplace there is a fine line between need and what we are willing to pay for. Companies will pay those prices because they NEED the speed. And just like you said the public doesen't need it. Just look at me.

Do I NEED broadband? No. Not at all. It is a convience and I use it accordingly. But people don't need a lot of things they pay for. People don't NEED cable tv. I don't, and i don't see the reason that I should pay another 45 dollars a month to AT&T to get it. The networks keep me entertained enough.

So as long as the balence exists between price and service people won't or will (depending on how they value their money / the service) be willing to pay more for broadband.

Not in all cases

[sphealey]

Back in the early days of telecomputing, there were outfits like The Source, CompuServe, Genie, and the like. Those that survived realized that their users really wanted to get in touch with each other. Maybe they started out serving informaton, but either they wound up serving connectivity, or they died. Just about the entire industry seems to have forgotten that lesson, and is trying its hardest to turn the Internet from connectivity into information. *Their* information, for a price, preferably paid *every* time. Precisely the model that failed decades before.

Not entirely I would have to say. Outfits that provide high quality information, such as Lexis/Nexis, The Wall Street Journal, Aviation Week & Space Technology, various medical databases, the former IBM patent database, the ACM Library, etc. do quite well charging for information by the download. I agree that it is no longer possible to charge people for downloading a driver patch (how CompuServe made its fortune), but the idea that "information wants to be free" if far from fully tested yet.

sPh

Re:Not in all cases

[dpilot]

Nor would I want to lock out all for-pay information. But I believe the fundamental difference is still present. The Internet is connectivity, and that for-pay information is just one of the thing we can connect to. Retaining the freedom to connect "directly" to each other (neglecting a few centralized facilities like SMTP and POP servers, which exist in order to give us virtual direct connectivity) is the essence, as well as the option to connect to whichever for-pay facilities I choose.

Some of the media industry proposals have also attempted to case "asymmetry" into the system. Simply crippling peer-to-peer is a form of asymmetry, where some connections are better than others.

Re:Why? People are ignorant.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best and brightest chance of popularizing automatic weapons was bank robbery, and that's now gone.

Re:Broadband cost (I want always-on, not speed)

[art123]

Verizon DSL 768/384 is $30 for first 3 months here and $50 thereafter. Too much for me. I would love the always-on aspect, but don't really need the speed. If they offered 128/64 for $30 I would jump on it! Then I would install an old laptop in the kitchen (for recipes, maps, phone book) and one in the living room (for tv listings and random surfing).

Getting Hooked up - Horrific long story

[NetGyver]

Had I known it was so hard getting hooked up on Adelphia powerlink cable modem service, i'd have second guessed getting it myself, I probably wouldn't have gotten it period.

A grunt came to my house and runs a conditioned cable from my cable splitter to the surfboard modem and checks the lights and says "okay, your hooked up. and leaves.

Well I couldn't use the damn thing. No instructions, nothing. So I called Adalphia and after a 2 hour wait, i finally got a real live person to help me get this modem working on my PC.
She asked me if if the modem came with any RJ45 or USB cable...so i run to check the box the modem was in, I had a usb cable, but no RJ45. Like hell i'm using USB for my cable modem so I hung up and ran out and got a rj45 cable.

Came back, called Adelphia, another hour and 45 min wait, then i got another real live person.

So she walked me though hooking it up, and it worked. Only took me the better part of a day to get the cable laid, rj45 cable, tech support waiting, and actually setting it up.

Thay make this shit sound so easy, HA! yeah right.

I also have a personal pc and a laptop alongside the family pc. I orginially hooked up the cable modem to the family pc. I wanted access from all the computers in my house. So being a newbie to broadband i tried plugging the cable modem into each of my computers, and it wouldn't work on any of them, only on the family pc, which i first set it up on.

So I called Adelphia up again. Waited 2 hours and 10 min. then I got a real live person again. I asked how could i share the cable modem to all the pc's in my house. He told me that Adelphia doesn't support sharing to multiple computers. But he asked me if i had a hub. I said yes. (I had a hub for networking at the time) He said some of them allow you to plug the cable modem directly into it. So he said i should give it a try, and we ended the conversation.

I plugged the cable modem in the hub, but no luck. So i did some research on the net with my 56k Since adelphia was no help.

Found out about routers, so i got myself one. Read the instuctions, and hooked all my PC's into it and the cable modem into the WAN side. Nothing, nothing worked.

Another note: For the LIFE of me i couldn't understand why the cable modem only worked on the family PC and not my personal and laptop.

So I called adelphia yet *again* and after waiting for nearly 2 and a half hours I got a real live person again. I told them about my confusion about the cable modem not working on any of my pc's except for the one i hooked it up to. She said:

"Our service is designed to work with any computer." to which i said "if that's the case, then why doesn't it work on my laptop or my other PC?" She didn't have an answer.

She had me running though oddball config files in the windows system directory but nothing worked and i spent well over an hour on that call alone.

At this point it's been days since i had the modem and couldn't use it. Tech support was a freakin JOKE and i'm paying for something i can't use the way i want.

So I called a tech friend, he didn't have broadband but he suggested a very importiant thing. MAC ADDRESS. This made total sense to me, the cable modem latches itself to the mac address of your network card. THATS WHY the modem didn't work on my other PC's when i hooked them up to it.

I checked the router box and sure enough I found a MAC address for the WAN side of the router.

Called up adelphia agian...and waited for 1 hour and 30 min. Then I got a real live person. Told them i got a new network card. (bullshit i know, but they cold-sholdered me about sharing the cable modem) So the guy took the mac address i fed him like a good boy and my router worked!

I can use the cable modem on ALL of my PC's now. My quest was completed in the span of nearly a week after I got the conditioned cable installed.

--

They adervised their cable modem service like it was the easist thing in the world to hook up, you get a "kit" to which you can do it yourself easily.
You know what i got? I got a modem and a conditioned cable..._that_was_it_.

Adelphia has the shittist tech support I ever encountered and hidious call-wait times. They didn't follow through on suppling me a driver CD which the modem was supposed to come with (not like i need it but hey i'm paying for it), it didn't come with instructions, nor a RJ-45 cable. And it was _not_ easy for a general non-geek like me to setup like they claimed.

What did i get. Faster webpage load times, and faster software update downloads, occasional web radio and movie trailers. Hardly worth the cost of the cable modem OR the fustration of setting it up.

Broadband providers need to step-up their support and mean what they say in their advertising before they can even think about getting more users.

But in the end, i felt like I *EARNED* it =) So i'm keeping it. Hopefully something decent will come along that will really put the speed to good use.

Re:Getting Hooked up - Horrific long story

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I had the exact opposite experience. Probably just better people doing the "install"

We find the main cable "line", they put in their special splitter, we run a cable through a closet (pre-drilled holes), plug it in, and it works. The end. 15 minutes total, and most of that was prolly spent getting a bogged-down windows system to reboot

They offered to help me setup my router, but I declined because we could do it ourselves, and this wasn't really their jobs. BTW, adelphia is one of the few major cable/DSL companies that will not immediately blacklist you if you mention a router...so you should be "happy" I guess :)

Why I don't have Cable modem service...

[Timex]

Basically, it's too bloody expensive.

Where I live, I can't get DSL-the phone lines are dirty; on a 56k dialup, the best connection I can get is 31.2k... If I want high-speed access, I'd have to go with cable.

HOWEVER.

Where I live, AT&T runs the show. They want something like $50/mo for service. It would be $40/mo if I had cable, but I don't- I can't justify spending $50 for a bunch of channels when I only watch FOUR, and most of those I can get with an antenna!

Even with their specials that another poster mentioned, read the fine print: A recent offer from AT&T Broadband in my area said that I would be charged the regular fee, and when I've been with them for three months, I would be reimbursed the difference. What a DEAL! Not.

Re:Too expensive? Sure.

[guacamolefoo]

I'd be willing to bet these same people pay for at least extended basic cable--I'm the only person I know who pays for cable and only gets pure basic, and that's because our reception is horrible at my house. Those same people may very well drive newish cars, buy new clothes with a fair frequency, and shell out $40 a month for a 4000 evening minutes that they don't actually use.

The items you listed above each represent some sort of value that the consumer perceives. The cell phone may include free long-distance. The cable is a marked improvement in selection over what is available over the air. Cars are, well, cars. They are status symbols as well as functional things (my Accord has 183,000 iles -- I'm not after style points, but I understand some are so motivated).

Broadband does not, for most people, represent a valuable thing to many people (though the cost of AOL + a dedicated line is not much cheaper where I live). I have a need to downloan ISO files, remotely administer servers, etc. Most people just check their mail and chat. Until ANSI gets grossly larger, narrowband will work fine. Even most web pages are ok -- it isn't really useful to present more than a certain amount of written information on a screen at one time. Pictures likewise are usable enough that I don't see great leaps forward as being more than marginally beneficial.

Some great holy grail of interactive multimedia has always been made out to be the Holy Grail of various kinds of broadband, whether it be movies on demand or interactive TV or something. I think those are red herrings.

Also, watching moving pictures and reading text simultaneously don't really work well together from a biological visual perspective. Try watching the action (talking heads) on CNBC and reading the ticker symbols scrolling at the bottom. It won't work -- we're just not wired that way.

Unless you need to move big files or want to run servers, broadband to the home isn't really a big deal. There is no need.

Technology proponents have to be careful sometimes. There's an enormous "build it and they will come" idea that is just plain wrong. You build it for the people who want it and who are willing to pay premium prices for it, and then you lower prices and add features until it becomes mass market. If the latter doesn't happen, you have a niche product.

One problem is that broadband is a network, and it requires more users to me more useful. There's no way 25 million people today would pay $25.00 a month to connect to an internet of say, 1995.

The only real use I see as being likely to drive broadband today (things will change in the future, as always) is connecting home offices to corporate networks. Businesses will pay for useful services and broadband is one of these for businesses. Companies can lower travel costs and increase productivity with remote employee offices. Telecommuting as a way of life is something I see more people doing, and the ability to do it with broadband vs. narrowband is exponentially better.

In short, my critique of the article is that broadband is not too expensive, it is just that there is no use for it. Who is to say whether a 40-ton dumptruck is too expensive because it isn't being adopted by consumers? Broadband, while nifty and neat-o, simply is not competing effectively for increasingly precious discretionary spending dollars in consumer households.

I am not the least bit surprised.

guac-foo

Who Cares?....

[Dr_Marvin_Monroe]

This is not a troll against the original post, just an observation that too many people are acting like "broadband" is the cure-all for poor television, lack of web content, and if you believe Congress, our weak economy.....this is hogwash!

I also keep seeing this statement about the "chicken and egg" problem of broadband, but nobody has explained precisely WHY it's a problem. What new content is going to magicly be available? What compelling reason could our Congress or even your city council have for getting you on the net faster. They work for you and should be FOLLOWING your wishes, not trying to ram broadband down the public's throat.

Perhaps people are happy enough with what they've got! The option of moving up to broadband is always out there, there's simply no reason for most.....why is that a problem?

The industry wants to get everyone hooked up and locked into big monthly bills....remember the AT&T comment (here previously on slashdot)about the targeted $300/month bill. This "get everyone on broadband" thing is ASTROTURF by the media players....

If you buy into the current "broadband" push, it will only be a one-way stream. Starting at RIAA/MPAA headquarters and ending at your wallet! This push for "broadband" by Congress is NOT about getting more choice, it's about building Hollywood's pipes at taxpayer expense.

I'm really not too interested in seeing "digital convergance" either if it means that I've got to live with Paladium and turn my computer into a worthless "set-top box"....that I'm going to have to keep replacing every time MS comes out with a new version of "Windows Set-Top-Box edition"...

We should stop worrying about how many people adopt broadband...it's their own business. It certainly doesn't warrent the government or anyone else getting involved. Perhaps we should just let the marketplace figure this one out on it's own....

i disagree

[spectatorion]

But broadband is a chicken - egg problem. You won't get people signing up until they see a reason, and you won't get compelling reasons until more people have signed up.

WHAT?! Not only is this completely contrary to the conclusion of the study, it is contrary to common sense. The biggest problem with broadband right now is cost. There is no chicken and egg problem. When the cost becomes reasonable, there is compelling reason to upgrade.

In other news...

[mofolotopo]

Fire hot!

I mean really, it is a little steep. I still pay for it, because I'm a nerd and consider broadband second only to running water in importance, but if they're wondering why adoption hasn't been more widespread, the answer seems pretty damn clear.

Canadian Model

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Canada, most people have broadband. The reason being is the rates are so compedative, as compared to dial up, that it makes no sense to get dial up. Broadband has all the advantages it needs to compete, but like every other product, the price has to be right.

In Canada, we enjoy the luxury of having government owned and run telecoms that drive the price of access down, so that all the cable and wireless providers have to set even lower prices just to compete. It works really well for the consumers. I have unlimited bandwidth (I usually use between 4-6 gb/m) and 2 static IPs for $40 CND (~$27 US) a month.

Re:Canadian Model

[bobbyt]

Average 1mbit DSL connection here is $29.99cdn/mo That's just under $20us. 3mbit dsl runs for about $50cdn

Some companies even sell 'lite' 128k connections for even less.

Most providers are starting to place caps between 5 and 20gb per month on cable/DSL up here tho. Maybe that's the answer to cheap broadband. Cap it so you don't have your leechers.

Hey, this is bigger than slamming M$!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or pay for their music by writing a check to "the Recording Industry"!

Re:Hey, this is bigger than slamming M$!

[SpinyNorman]

.. or pay their taxes by writing a cheque to "The Man".

Depends :)

[denjin]

I live in the burbs too, and I've moved 3 times in 5 years and had cable almost as long, and even DSL once. (I had cable way way back when MediaOne even first started testing in this area).

But, I know the -far- western suburbs have high speed access problems...

Re:Depends :)

[Flabby Boohoo]

Coverage is spotty at best. For example, EGV has had coverage for a long time. I am not suggesting that broadband is not available anywhere, there are hotspots. But it seems that where ever I live, it is not available.

That is why I do all my downloading from work! :-)

400,000 DSL customers in Belgium

[Anonymous Coward]

on a population of 10 million.
That is excluding the cable customers.

Lack of competition perhaps?

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

Quoth the article:

Almost all U.S. families live in areas where a high-speed Internet connection is available...

On the other hand, relatively few U.S. families live in areas where there is competition for high-speed Internet access. Even fewer have competition beyond their single cable modem provider and their single DSL provider.

Cable companies and phone companies have fought like mad to protect their monopolies and their investments are now paying off. High-speed internet access is unlikely to to see big growth until customer have real choices, encouraging lower prices and higher quality service.

Its not expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

People like my dad bitch about their broadband bill, but he seems to always have money for his cigarettes. He spends 300 or so bucks a month on them. Why is it that every smoker can find a few hundred a month to slowly kill themselves, but think 50 or so a month for broadband is somehow expensive.

...and when you do order

[aaarrrgggh]

Your expectation of "always on" internet is quickly dashed when you realize that you have to install a PPPOE adapter because your ISP decided to save a buck and not build it into the modem!

The ISP's have failed to deliver a value-added service where they needed to the most! I guess it isn't as much of a deal if you have a desktop machine, but with a laptop that goes between several different networks, it is really an extra hassle. They really should have up-sold the value of an instant connection.

I know that all it takes is a router in between, but for the "average" household with one PC that is counter-intuitive! Furthermore, the idea that an ISP a) doesn't support it, and b) practically forbids it in their terms! really just makes it an expensive dial-up line... which is faster, but... who cares for web browsing and e-mail!?

Re:WE MUST HAVE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's have a Capitalistic system, unlike the one we have now!


(And while we're at it, if the government wants us to obey the law, they should set a good example!)

cable too expensive, fixed wireless a hassle

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm stil on dial-up where I'm at, mostly because of cost. The local cable carrier has the nerve to charge $60 (!) per month for basic channels, plus $50 for internet. I honestly can't see how they get any business at all, I mean $60 a month for tv (Also the reason I dont have cable tv)?! The only other option I have where I'm at is fixed wireless, but that would require climbing up on the roof of my house to mount it (or trying to set up a 30-40ft tower), plus trimming trees along the line of sight to the main antenna. Granted, the service is only $40-50 per month, but I just don't feel like setting it up, even though my current ping is so bad I can't play fps's (I can manage WarCraft 3, most of the time) online (My signal gets routed TEN times before it even gets out of the isp's network!).

Want to sell more broadband. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Bundle the service with free memberships to commercial pr0n sites.

here's my take..

[Suppafly]

Report: Broadband Too Expensive For Many

No Duh!.

Obviously there is always going to be things that are too expensive for many. Hell, digital cable and premium cable channels are too expensive for many. Normal dialup internet is too expensive for many.

Everquest

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever tried playing 4 accounts on a shared dial-up? Yucky...

What about those of us with 2 broadband connections? (Cable/DSL)

*I am not an addict*

You Get What You Pay For

[bb_referee]

The broadband companies will let you run anything you want, for a price...

My roomates and I live in Minneapolis and have two broadband choices: Qwest DSL or Time Warner Cable. We chose Time Warner because (1) we are too far from the CO for decent DSL speeds, and (2) we could sign up for RoadRunner Business Class.

Standard broadband is targeted directly at those that want web, e-mail, and file downloading faster. And because of this, the broadband companies do not intend it for web hosting, e-mail servers, and the like. However, by signing up for RoadRunner Business Class, we are able to run our own web servers, e-mail servers, and use VPNs.

The cost for all of this: $110 per month in addition to our standard cable service. This give us a guaranteed 768K Up/768K Down with no multi-page, tiny-print document of what we can and cannot do with our service.

Just my $.02.

But.. Re:Uh, we're geeks.

[Malachi]

Broadband isn't understood until a user does it. Just because we do all these things, even that isn't a reason for broadband.. Like your mail and DNS take up much bandwith.. (beside the point) anyhow take my folks.. They think their computer is too slow for the internet, but they don't realize its their connection.. My father loves Braves games and checks in with their site when a game is on for replays and such, but it dragged ass and he thought the whole thing must just suck.. I got him broadband and viola, he is an online fool now chasing down things like never before. He admits he didn't corrolate the difference into how it actually impacted. My mom states away has the same thing to learn, she thinks she doesn't need it but complains about how slow everything is and wonders if it all is just slow or if its her or her computer.. Going from 5k down to 160k down is a gigantic difference and impacts the way one thinks about computing and surfing the net.. When the wait time is almost nil'd perspectives change.

The problem is no one understands it until their perspective does change.

-M-

Appliances, not Services

[aaarrrgggh]

From the article:

"New applications and services that consumers want and businesses need will provide the tipping point for broadband demand and usage," says the report from the department's Office of Technology Policy. ...

Only 10 percent of U.S. households subscribe to high-speed access, lower than the rate in Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong or Canada.

I'm not sure about the connection speeds in Canada and Taiwan, but South Korea and Hong Kong have 10-100Mbit links, VOD, and more! The lobbyists need to find a better reason than content to explain the failure.

If the US did get a big deployment of 100Mbit links to the home, VOD would be easy (even HTDV), but I don't think there is really that much demand for it! Is pay-per-view movies really successful?

I think it is the net appliance end of the market that really needs work. Ditch cable and get your TIVO content off DSL? Ditch FM and get your music off the DSL? Simple appliances that extend the functionality are what we really need to make "mom and pop" go for it! Just using it on your PC doesn't give much value to most people.

Cheap

[trifster]

My Cable internet is $36 a month (own the cable modem). Compare that with 2nd phone line ($15 a month) plus DUN ($15) a month. For a lousey $6 i get speed and 24/7 online'ness. And at $50 a month, still worth it. My $.02

How to get me to sign up for broadband:

[Junior J. Junior III]

It's really quite simple:

1) Availability. Duh. Make it available in my area.

2) Quality. Another "duh". Make my connection really be always-on, and when it does go down, commit to bringing it back up within as short a time as possible. No days or weeks on end of sub-dialup performance with no explanation.

3) Allow me to actually use my bandwidth. No bullshit ToS that says I can't do jack with my connection. What exactly am I paying for? If I want a server, I should be allowed to set it up. If I want to re-sell my excess bandwidth, I should be able to do that. Don't cap my speed. Don't cap the amount of bits I can download in a day.

4) Affordability. If the above conditions are all met, I'd gladly pay the ~$50 you're asking for each month. If the value's there, it's worth it for me to pay for it. But when you can't even provide decent customer service and tech support, forget it. It's not worth the headache.

NO SHIT!

[unicron]

Lemme get this straight: The cost of something being too high is a main factor stopping someone from buying it? What a crazy world we live in!

remember, this post != trolling.

Real reaons is ...

[johnlcallaway]

... most Internet users are idiots.

Ok, idiots is probably too strong a term, but still not too bright. But my girlfriend and I would not be able to live without broadband anymore. It's not those things that have been mentioned as reasons earlier, such as movies and music downloads, but the little things.

• We now pay most of our bills online, so we spend quite a bit of time going from site to site. Any help in the speed department is worth it, and now all of our bills get paid on time, every month.
• My girlfriend is a serious ebay addict. She buys and sells so much stuff that she easily spends 10 hours a week there.
• Counter-strike. Ever played it over a 56K modem? It's just not right.
• Research for trips, building supplies, electrical supplies, plumbing supplies. Which of course leads to....
• BUYING STUFF ONLINE IS GREAT!!! I'm going to try and do all my major x-mas shopping online this year.
• Phone line cost is way too high for dial-up. Since we are often both on at the same time, it's not just one extra analog line now, it's two. I know, I could install a Linux dial-on-demand router in the basement and share a phone line. But that makes load times even worse
• In the last 6 months, we have become a networked house. I ran CAT-6 cable to every room but the closets and toilets. We have a computer room (was a den) with two desktops in it, and a laptop we can take to all the rooms. (hmmm..it might be handy to have a laptop in the bathroom afterall.) I know, see Linux dialer above, but those load times still suck.

I hate to say it, but most Internet users that make the purchasing decisions in a home just don't have the skills to do these things or to understand them. The good news is that as their kids get older, they start to move out and buy broadband.

For example ... my 15 year old daughter wanted some clothes for school so she went an Internet web site, made up a wish list, and sent me a link. Click-click later, she has a couple of t-shirts and socks sailing my way. But my ex-wife doesn't understand why the Internet is such a big deal, so she won't get her broadband. (It's full of p0rn, you know.....yes I do!)

Re:Real reaons is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you proved your point. Most internet users are idiots.

Just curious, since your paying more than the average bear to shop and pay your bills and research vacations--all of which are quite doable on a 56K--how much are you paying for gasoline? If I pay five times market prices for a tank of gas, will I still rank among the idiots? But gee I bet the experience of driving on a tank of overpriced gasoline is like how do you say it "ineffible."

Re:Real reaons is ...

[johnlcallaway]

If you head really read my post, you would have seen that I would need two additional phone lines because of the way we use the Internet. That would be an additional $52 (Additional phone lines are $26 here, I don't set the rates.) Add to that a ISP account at $10/month. My broadband is $39/month, a savings of $23.

Now, to be fair, we could just buy one additional line and just tie up the existing phone, meaning we would only have to spend an extra $3/month. And for $3/month, I get great d/l speeds for my Counterstrike downloads, drivers, p0rn, etc?? Sounds like a great deal to me.

My point was, which you obviously missed, is that the generation that makes most of the decisions are not computer literate, it's the under 30 crowd who is. Once the youger group gets to the stage in their lives when they get to control the house budget, I think you will see broadband gain a larger audience.

To put it another way, would you rather drive a Ford Escort or spend a little more and drive a nice Pontiac Bonneville and get a smoother and more dependable ride? They both can get you where you are going, and if I were only driving a few miles a day to work, the Escort would be fine. But if I spent a large part of my day driving, the Bonneville would be the better choice. For me, the aggravation I have suffered over the last 10 years of dial up (yes, I used to use 1200baud), is worth the additional $3/month of broadband.

And thanks for proving the point about many dial-up users being idiots....you were an excellent example.

It's how much you use it versus the cost.

[shess]

Long ago, I was a telecommuting independent consultant. Since I was working 40-60 hours a week from home, it made perfect sense to spend >$200/month to get always-on high-speed (well, ISDN) Internet access. After all, it only worked out to $1/hour or something like that, and it only had to save me an hour or two a month to more than pay for itself.

Contrast that with, oh, my mother. She maybe spends 4-6 hours a week on the Internet (and some of that is email, which probably shouldn't count). For $50/month, that's around $2.50/hour. On top of that, having high-speed access is merely convenient for her - it's not like she can get more work done, or bill more for her work, because she doesn't use the Internet for work.

Contrast that with cable television. My parents probably watch 20-30 hours per week, and it probably costs less than $50, and it also gives them access to things they couldn't access with an antenna in the first place. A bargain!

A Hidden Fact

[kenp2002]

FACT: Digital Cable costs LESS to provide than Analog Cable.

FACT: CABLE COMPANIES SAVED MORE THAN 4 TIMES THE AMOUNT THEY SPENT BUILDING DIGITAL CABLE INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE FIRST 2 YEARS.

FACT: You're being fucked by those in power.

FACT: You chose to not listen to a 2000 year old proverb.

"Battle not against flesh, but of powers and principalities, and wickedness (or corruption based on transplation) in high places."

If you don't like getting screwed by big bad corps. go out and start buying their stock and vote the SOBs out of the company. Lets start a /. fund where everone sends a dollar in so /. and buy stock in these companies and start voting. We do live in America and for now we still can VOTE and CHANGE things. All I hear is whiney techno-hippies crying about "the man" (Boy things never change do they...) yet they offer no solutions.

You are only powerless if you choose to be.

Even With Content, the Cost Model Doesn't Add Up

[GroundBounce]

This poster is correct. The problem is that the cost model of the corner video store is very efficient and hard to beat.

Let's say that I can "rent" a movie over the internet for the same price as in the video store, say around $3.00 (remember, Harry Potter over the internet was more than that and it was only for 24 hours). Let's also say I rent a dozen movies a month. At the corner video store, my total monthly cost for this is $36 (plus maybe a buck or two for gas).

Now, I have other reasons for wanting broadband (like downloading Linux ISOs - virtually impossible with 56K) but let's assume that the only reason most home users would want broadband is for multimedia content. On the internet, my total monthly cost for the 12 movies would be $36 plus the monthly extra for broadband, around $40 in many areas. This totals to $76, more than twice the cost. Not only that, but a typical download movie the size of Harry Potter would still take 2-3 hours to download even at 1Mb/s (my local DSL rate) during which time I could have driven to the corner video store and back 7 or 8 times! The final insult is that the DVD from the video store will have higher quality than the downloaded file.

One of two things has to happen for this to catch on - either online content has to become much cheaper than video store or the surcharge for broadband has to become much smaller, or both. Until then, the corner video store model will be hard to beat.

Canadians pay less.

[Inoshiro]

The average broadband cost in Canada is 35$ CDN, or about 20$ US a month. Everyone has it, except for people who can't have broadband due to being out of service ranges.

There are lite (sic) packages which go for 20-25$/month, and provide up to 7k/s down (twice an average 56k for a little more than the 20$ separate line might cost), regular packages hovering around 35-40$, special introduction schemes, etc! The only problem is that there aren't any "pay more for more" high-end packages around. My ISP only offers one, which is about 140$ US a month for 300k/s down, 80k/s up.

A lot of places do meter the access a bit, but mainly in provinces other than the one I'm in.

And the result of all this? Much, much higher adoption rates than in the US. Plus, Canadians have been enjoying broadband since late 1996, so we've had a bit of a head-start in terms of mindshare.

Re:Canadians pay less.

[dadragon]

Which province are you in? Here it starts at $35, and goes up from there (save "lite speed" which is $22).

My province was also the first to have ADSL broadband, we had it in one of our small towns before Calgary had it at all.

Re:That's kindof bogus.-bad assumptions.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with most people's calculations is that they *assume* that dialup people have a second line. Yes outside people will get a busy signal, but by limiting one's time (just getting E-mail), or scheduling it at more apropriete times. The impact is minimized. If there's an emergency, the operator can break into the line.
So no an outside line isn't a real requirement for a dialup user.

Build It, and I'll Subscribe...

[Necron69]

I'm so f*cking sick of articles like this.

I live in metro Denver in a suburb of 100k people. I actually had an SDSL line for about a year before Rhythms crashed and got bought out, leaving me without service. I've been on the DSL and cable modem waiting lists for Qwest and AT&T for FIVE YEARS, and I still have no broadband access.

Don't tell me this bullshit about how most people have broadband available (and NO, satellite with it's 500ms latency does NOT count). They don't. It's all a lie.

Still waiting...

- Necron69

Re:Build It, and I'll Subscribe...

[crawdad62]

How true. I live in a smaller town but we have digital cable and Verizon is the carrier for phone service. Verizon's response is "Never" even though they brought in fiber lines for the university here. As far a cable goes they said "By September." Great except that was back in March of 2000 they told me that. All I can say is bring it on. I'll pay.

Many don't need high-speed

[reds0nja]

Sure, but that same 70% of dial up users are basically checking email twice a week, and maybe check their bank account once a month. Dial-up is enough for that They really *don't* need broadband, and they'd be silly to waste the money for the cool factor of high-speed. (Imagine paying an extra $30/month just to check your bank balance!) Some of us are willing topay for the luxury of the faster service, because it's part of our lifestyle to do research on the web, and to occasionally look at movie trailers or play networked games. But many things on the net (including slashdot, including using FTP accounts to connect to one's webhosting service) work just fine over 28.8!

The price can be lowered

[agriope]

The telcos (ILECs) don't want broadband and they control the local loop (it competes with more lucrative digital services). The other players (ISPs/CLECs) want to put broadband all over the place, and it only costs a few hundred dollars per subscriber and a small chunk per POP.

I've successfully founded a CLEC and an ISP, and I can tell you the problem lies squarely with the firms that control the local loop.

Think about it a second...shouldn't you, as a consumer, take control of your loop? There should be an effort in our government to move control of the loop to the consumer.

Before anyone hollers "the price! the price would be too high!", realize that I've paid to bury cable, and run fiber. It's not that expensive, and there already are government programs to build the infrastructure (they were used to run the copper cables to put telecos in rural areas long ago), and amortize these costs over a long period of time.

However, a network running parallel to the one already established at the local level would be a logistic nightmare, a regulatory nightmare, and open easily-duped consumers to a lot of potential abuse by the CLECs/ILECs. That's a big reason the government won't fund a parallel network being built. It's a duplication of service that the government already funded (a long time ago), and it creates a huge potential for abuse.

Still, I sure would like to control my own loop, and have it show up at some neutral switching center so that any carrier/any service could connect to it.

Cost of broadband and dialup are same

[bayankaran]

I converted to broadband the beginning of this year. In addition to the convienience of a good ADSL connection, broadband and dialup are costing the same.

How?

Previously for one telephone line without long distance I was paying around $75 per month (the local call for dialup internet they started charging extra bucks after a few hours of usage) Plus the dialup costs of atleast $25 per month...Total = around $100.

Now I pay total of $90...broadband is 50 bucks and telephone with callwaiting and other crap is around 40 bucks.

My dialup usage was very high as I work from home. It was atleast 3-4 hours daily. This cannot be applied for an average user who may use internet for one hour or less everyday.

Publishing

[wandernotlost]

The larger problem is that the broadband companies are stifling the most compelling aspect of the Internet, that of two-way communication and the ability of the subscriber to become the publisher. With port-blocking and upstream bandwidth choking, put into place arguably to preserve their own media monopolies (especially since the brain-damaged FCC has removed restrictions on ownership of media within a given locality), the cable companies are ensuring that the web will become a bland wasteland of coporate advertising.

The corporate discovery of the Internet, combined with the systematic stifling of the ability of the individual to publish, leaves us with a lower content-to-fluff ratio. That's what will keep people from paying more for high-speed Internet.

On a related note, given a content-heavy, well-designed Internet, what matters most, most of the time, is latency -- not bandwidth. Many broadband providers are selling connections with latency much worse than an analog modem, and prevaricating left and right about the wonders of bandwidth. Granted, this assumes that the web, and textual content is more valuable than downloaded pr0n, but the Internet is still a pretty poor mechanism for delivering music and video, as I think it will be for a long time to come.

To reiterate, the real value of the Internet is in the availability of two-way communication -- the empowerment of the individual to have a voice that is as visible and strong as that of a company with many more resources. It is the stifling of this that will be the broadband companies' downfall.

Hollings will fix this

[Curunir_wolf]

If all you folks would just get behind Senator Fritz Hollings and his innovative, consumer-friendly Broadband Promotion program everyone would have cheap broadband access everywhere! ... and all the pay-per-view, copy-protected content you could ever want!!!!

Information tends towards dissemination.

[Anonymous Coward]

Information wants to be free is a priori. That is, it's true by obviousness.

The problems with this statement that lead to misconceptions are twofold:

One: it's poorly stated. It should be "Information tends towards dissemination."

Two: English speakers don't know free from free. Information wants to be free in the same way as the founding fathers, not in the way of the AOL CD at the check-out counter at wal-mart.

If you insist on a demonstration, look at gossip. Once "the cat's out of the bag," it's very hard to put back in. Why? because information flows freely between people, and sticks itself all over inside their heads. It's impossible to get back after this. It's been liberated--freed.

I'll say

[mrphrtq]

Considering that the only broadband available in my part of the world (I live in eastern Loudoun County, VA) is a T1 at $675/month, price is the primary factor in my decision to not get broadband.

Verizon and Adelphia Cable need to PITFU and get broadband available to more people if they want to bring the price down.

Always check your audience

[netruner]

Another reason people aren't signing up for broadband is where it's available. Hey, great- the whole city is wired for broadband, but what's the population density of computer literate people, much less the power users that need broadband. If you're targeting telecommuters, you ain't gonna find them 2 blocks from work. More attention needs to be paid to the 'burbs- especially the nicer apartment complexes where computing professionals are likely to live.

The problem is that the broadband providers targeted a mass of people (cities) instead of considering who in that group would actually want their product and developing a strategy to get it to them. This product will not be profitable if the keep with the philosophy that everyone needs to have it.


Disclaimer: this post was not checked for speling and grammar- any complaints will result in the complainer being labeled a whiner and a ninny.

I've gone OT, but what the hell

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I reinstall my Win2K annually - apparently not many other people do

I would, but it's too much of a pain in the ass... You have to reinstall EVERYTHING... you can't just back up your apps...

Broadband often does not live up to the hype...

[krinsh]

I got broadband because my employer paid for it; and because I needed to host demonstrations of software that would not be viable over a dialup. I had to dink with the ports and other settings to get around my provider's blocking of outbound web ports "for virus/security reasons" - unless of course you pay the corporate rates for cable and let them assist you with the web hosting - and oftentimes there are still issues with the local routers going down and the (1st tier) support staff needing me to tell them exactly what they should do to rectify the problem. I love calling them and politely letting them know I've done all of the basic steps to reset my modem, refresh my DHCP; and make sure the splice they had to make two blocks up (because someone cut the one inch of cable exposed in a sinkhole no one else would have found) next to the neighborhood box is still in place. They start telling me again so I just go do personal things and nod and say yes until they go "OK, it's upstream from you." Duh.

I'm keeping it and paying the fee now because my wife enjoys the performance difference; and I can do small projects, play online games and look for work a little bit easier without cutting into our phone line. (I always refused to waste money on a second number just for internet or faxes, etc. I can dial *500 on any phone in the house and kick my fax machine on just fine if it doesn't get the transmission on its own - it's a smart little Sharp device.)

More than Just Faster

[Dr. Mu]

What those who refuse to upgrade don't realize is that the differences between dial-up and broadband are not just quantitative, they're qualitative. Having an always-on connection means not having the hurdle of connecting with your ISP. Consequently, the idea of a "web session" just disappears entirely. The connected computer becomes a very large open window on the internet, instead of a small spring-loaded door. This is a transformative difference that changes the very nature of the internet from somewhere you "go" from time to time to a larger and richer "here". I've tried to explain this to non-broadband users, and most just don't get it. Those who switch, however, have always said, "Yeah, I see what you mean!" And this is what the broadband companies need to communicate -- not just the jump in speed.

Re:Definately the case ...tiered service.

[Anonymous Coward]

How would tiered-level schemes fit into that picture? Start'em low. Get them addicted. Offer something better for more money. Takes care of the new users dragging down the network. Besides cable can more easily handle scaling issues. Remember when cable only offered a few channels? Now look were we are. Try that with dialup or DSL.

Italy is considering consumer tax break for broadb

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ilnuovo.it/nuovo/foglia/0,1007,152275,0 0.html

Should be value added service...

[zorcon]

I seem to recall a story not to long ago of people who sign up for Cable Internet, and then use that incoming line to watch cable television for free. This is truly the right kind of idea. AT&T should offer cable internet to their current cable subscribers at an extremely minimal fee...as there is no advanced setup to route this ability to their customers. If I could get basic cable and broadband for $40-$50 bucks...I definately would. I'm absolutely not going to pay $50 bucks a piece for something that could easily be combined.

Same goes for Verizon(my phone and dsl provider). Give me digital phone service and combine the price with my current DSL. Don't make me pay $35 for phone and $50 for DSL. Combining the two for $50 would be a great deal...and I way for them to offset any losses on the DSL.

The reason that broadband internet costs as much as it does, is that dial-up for many costs between $15-$25 (depending on provider). Rarely is new technology issued at equal or lesser pricing than it's predecesor...especially when they're making plenty of cash off dial-up users.

Re:Too expensive? Sure.

[krinsh]

Those people will still get AOL because they'll be conned into paying almost what they paid for regular dial-up AOL to get AOL over their broadband connection; or still paying the $25 a month [or even for those people they've still managed to sucker into a per hour contract, $90-$300]. I remember back in 1994ish when I had AOL for a brief period; I could access my whole account from any LAN by telnetting or using some client software they provided for getting into your AOL from "work" (as they said back then because you often didn't have high-speed connections from home or even small business).

WAAAAAAYYYY OT! -- Your sig

[Amazing Quantum Man]

"UNIX is a fascist state, Windows is a democracy.Which works?"

Say what? Which has changes implemented by fiat? Which has changes implemented by the community?

Went back Re:people who won't pay for broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I very easily went back to dialup.

I had DSL with a static IP for two years
at $40/month.

I had to move to a new place and Pacific Bell
said that if I wanted the static IP address
at the new location I would have to pay $70/month.

I cancelled service and have been using
dialup for the year since and it isn't
that big of a deal.

The only thing I can't get is streaming video
but now much of it is pay for view (CNN)
and I'm not buying...

Re:Went back Re:people who won't pay for broadband

[ZillaVilla]

I think you're that one guy that has that much patience.

tiered service

[Trepidity]

A lot of cable modem companies are starting to offer tiered service, since they're realizing that charging the person who just reads email and the person who downloads 30 GB a week the same rate isn't really a good idea. So you may in some areas be able to pay $20/month for "low-speed" cable (probably capped at 128k or 192k or something like that).

broadband access not to expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I live here in BC, Canada and here I got 3 choices; cable, dsl, or satelite. Now I do work at one of those dial up isp's and have heard so many reasons for people not switching from dial up to a faster connection. Here are the main ones.

1. They don't know about it and think dial up access is the internet.
2. They don't wanna switch even if it might save them some money since they got a second line plus dial up access and the big hassle of cancelling the 2 seems too much for them.
3. They're a die hard dial up user and will refuse to switch even if its only 5 dollars more per month.
4. They think that a faster connection should cost the same, no matter how hard you try to tell them it costs the companies more money to serve up broadband access then dial up.
5. They got aol and would rather have aol's ease of use plus problems then a faster connection.
6. They just ignore the times that they can't dial in to connect.
7. And my favourite, their computers are setup to automatically dial in soon as they open up their browsers so they still think its an always on connection, despite not being one.

Now here if people who were on dial up were aware of the prices of broadband access compared to dial up, it would be cheaper then trying to use dial up and having a second phone line to try to imitate broadband.

As for digital cable which the convo here has swayed to, I love digital cable. So what if the channels take 2-3 seconds to show up, that's why they include a tv guide that you can view and choose what to watch. And here's a hint for clear picture and sound, go buy some audio/video cable, and hook up the set top box to output the audio/video to your tv. You'll notice a difference then.

A few points to ponder:

[X!0mbarg]

As someone that has DSL in Canada, and pays for the Less Than Highest Speed verion for $42/month, I see the difference in speeds from Dial-up to ADSL. Personally, the Upload cap of 16KB/sec really make is hard(read painful) to upload anything large, like a CD full of anything.

Dialup is also painful, but it's less than half the price. There used to be days when you'd select something you wanted, and leave your system on overnight to get it. Those days are back, now that there are Movies and DVDs being shared.

Broadband is nice, but it's not always worth the more than double dialup cost. For those that don't do much more than surf, e-mail and newsgroups/IRC, Dial-up is More than enough.

Most typical home users are not Power Gamers(tm) and, therefore, don't need the Grotesque amounts of bandwidth, and low ping times needed to 0wn yer targ3tz and Use your 1337 sk!11z to the M4x.

That being said, I am not suprized that there are a Lot of people that can't be bothered with Broadband.

On the flipside, it's far easier (amd cheaper) to have broadband for more than one home system. Routers are cheap, and getting cheaper. Home networks are also becoming commonplace. And broadband dosen't tie up the phone, or require a second phone line.

Then, there are those that have a second phone line for their system. These people are spending almost the same money per month for their conneciton as boradband. These people should switch.

P2P has killed it for many of the rest of us that don't do rabid file sharing. Alas, we're suffering form the bandwidth caps, and upstream limits because of the few that tended to overuse what they had, and ultimately spoiled it for the rest of us.

There's my rant for the week.

Have at! ;)

Is it?

[PurplePhase]

I suppose I haven't done my duty as a comparative consumer to check it out, but since I started my DSL back in January 1999 I've been out of touch with the market. I was surprised when I saw PvpOnline.com's provider's deal for DSL service with a free X-Box/PS2 - when I looked into it, it turned out the cost is > $300 for installation and $199/month for 384Kb service (IIRC), using the same phonelines and I about died! These were supposed to be the consumer rates! I can't believe anyone would pay that much for internet service! (Um, no one is, right?)

Now that my modem is paid off, my total for service with phone service and some free long distance time is less than $75/month including all taxes.

So a new Slashdot poll: How much do you pay a month for your bandwidth?
1) $ 0.446 ($25 AOL/56Kb)
2) $ 0.065 ($50 /768Kb ADSL)
3) $ 0.528 ($199/384Kb SDSL)
4) Nothing, I paid it all up front
5) Just enough service to survive on
6) The most bandwidth I could find ...

:PP

Broadband is a chicken - egg problem - wrong

[Animats]

"But broadband is a chicken - egg problem."

Baloney. Broadband is not a chicken - egg problem. Broadband is a niche application. About 20% of US users have broadband now, and if there were something more commercially interesting to sell people at the 0.5Mb/sec for $50 level, it would be for sale now.

Broadband in the US is probably more widely used than bookstores. Only a fraction of the US population reads more than one book a year. And there's considerable overlap between heavy Internet broadband users and book readers. You have to like reading, after all.

But it's not good enough to compete with television, which has much higher penetration than books. That will require more bandwidth at lower cost.

To keep myself in line with my comments on WMP...

[krinsh]

windows media player from a few weeks ago; my broadband makes little difference in looking at the porn because you get so many burped downloads it takes just as long as 52 - oh I mean 56 - K. [You do know about the FCC mandated 52K data transmission limit for phone lines, right? Or was I bullshitted by a dial-up provider's tech support since every provider we tested for our home inspectors only got 52 max?]

my experience before/after

[gosand]

Before broadband:
People must be crazy to spend $50 a month for internet access. I pay $12 for dial up, I can check my email while at work, and I have no good reason to get DSL. I just use email and surf a little.

After broadband:
I can't believe everyone doesn't have this! It is awesome, and worth every penny. Now my wife and I can both be on at the same time. We can check out what movies are playing without having to wait through a 10 minute moviefone advertisement call. No need to tune in to the annoying local news to get the weather. Pay bills online. Shopping. Games. Home web server to share pictures with out of town family and friends.

If you have it, you will use it. Always on is the best aspect of it, and I get fast speeds too. It is nice to be the LPB sometimes. :-)

broadband makes sense if you split it

[ohpo]

i suppose if i were living by myself and had to pay $50/mo on my own, i might hesitate at getting broadband. but the fact is, one person web-surfing uses only a fraction of the bandwidth you pay for. the main draw of broadband is the "always-on" factor.

in college, i shared an apartment with 3 other guys. splitting the connection with a router pretty much had no noticeable impact on performance for us, and brought the cost down to something like 12-13 dollars per person. worth it? definitely!

now, i'm living with one other person, which makes it $25/person. still worth it. 56k might be bearable for one computer, but split, it's impossibly slow even for browsing. even worse would be having to limit ourselves to only 1 computer online at a time.

so what i'm saying is, if broadband seems too expensive, try SHARING it! even 2 people splitting the cost of a WiFi setup would probably find tons of benefits versus 2 dialup accounts. when you get more people, well, broadband can become dirt cheap!

Maybe employers should subsidize it

[Anonymous Coward]

It might boost productivity if people used high speed access at work FOR work. I bet productivity would go up if employers put more limits on access at work AND partially subsidized home acess.

Tiered service

[Anonymous Coward]

is the answer-get the foot in the door.

What about Telecommuting

[Anonymous Coward]

The AP article mentioned telecommuting as a broadband "Killer App". Any thoughts from fellow /.'ers on why broadband telecommuting has not taken off, or how it could be made to do so?

Other possibilities

[malachid69]

I originally signed up for 802/802 SDSL for $40/month. Less than a month later, they could no longer provide the service to us.

I moved 2 miles away, and the best option I was able to get was 384/384 ADSL for $40/month ISP and $40/month Phone. So $twice for less than 1/2 the bandwidth.

I contacted Verizon and asked why I couldn't have faster speeds. They said that there was a 26-gauge wire between me and the CO and that there were no plans to ever replace it.

And yet, I still pay twice as much for half as much. Kinda sucks, if you ask me.

Malachi

Price convinced me of broadband (cable)

[waltc]

A couple of years ago when I found out I could buy a cable modem for $100 and easily hook it up myself, and when I compared the $55 per month for Earthlink and a separate phone line I was paying, to the $45 per month I'd have to pay for an @Home double-IP-address account, going broadband was a very easy decision. Now that Comcast has taken over the service it's been terrific--almost never goes down--and the difference in service is like night and day compared to dial-up. Anyone who has any degree of daily involvement with computer tech and the Internet is going to go broadband. Price certainly isn't a barrier and hasn't been for some time, at least in my area.

Geeks vs. Normals

[rossz]

Joe Sixpak just wants to get his email and do a little browsing. Unless he's downloading large number of graphics, dialup is just fine for his needs.

The slashdot crowd is not the same. We do more than just email and browse. We often want to run various types of server, but the AUP almost always forbids that. I don't give a rat's ass about the various bits of "content enhancements" my ISP has to offer. I never go their "customer targeted home pages". I just want a pipe with decent broadband in both directions. I'll handle everything else. I'm a little better off than most broadband customers. The AUP does not mention any ban of servers. I can't really abuse this because my upload speed is (unforunately) capped at 128k. It's enough for my modest requirements, I suppose.

I'd love to have a bit more, but enhanced dsl with 384k upload is priced at $175/month. That's simply not in my budget. It's listed under their (PacBell/SBC) business packages.

Re:Too expensive your ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live (Columbia S.C.) basic cable is not required for cable modem service.Time Warner/RR cable can be had for $50/month.

Mojo Rising

i pay $25/month for cable

[ohpo]

the answer is simple: share! the OTHER advantage of broadband that people haven't mentioned is that it's enough bandwidth to split with a router. if you have more than 1 computer online at once, it's definitely worth getting broadband. 56k is (barely) enough for one, but no way would i split that with another person. i've split with 3 other people before, bringing the cost down to $12-13/month, for an always-on connection that is STILL much faster than 56k. throw in the possibilities of a WiFi network, and you have your solution right there.

Must be in the 'not most' catagory

[nurb432]

Id kill just to have it offered out here.. Its been prmomised forever..

We cant even get digital cable, and the out of town provider switched all the channels over to digital 6 months ago.. Leaving us with basic cable.. ( and no sifi channel ).

Cost difference understated here

[Anonymous Coward]

I pay $5.95 per month for perfectly stisfactory unlimited dial-up. I use it 6-8 hours per day. I can read or download everything I want from the internet - if I am patient. I even downloaded the 650MB .iso of my current operating system (Slackware 8.1); it took 40 hours, but I just let wget do it for me over 5 successive nights while I was sleeping.
Sure, I would love to have broadband. But, here are my local choices:
1) Sprint DSL, at $50 plus local, state and federal taxes; about $60 total, or 10 times what I am paying now.
2) Comcast cable, for which I would have to subscribe to basic cable for about $45 plus another $35 for internet, plus modem rental and taxes - around $90 total, or 15 times what I am paying now.
Some have included the phone line as a cost of dial-up, but I consider the phone essential for emergency use, while cable TV is just a luxury I don't consider worth the money. I neither need nor want a 2nd phone line.
I consider broadband is probably worth about 4 times what I am paying now, and if I could get it for less than $25 I probably would. But there is no way until hell freezes over that I will pay 10 to 15 times my current cost just to save a little time. End of story.

Re:Cost difference understated here

[iceperson]

>I consider the phone essential for emergency use Where I live you can dial 911 even if you don't have service. Because of this my cell phone will do just fine. ice

Re:That's why Europe is ahead -- and Canada, eh!

[axis-techno-geek]

I live in Canada and have worked in the US on and off, when I was working in San Fancisco, I got a cable modem for $34.95 for the first six month (I was only there for about 5 months) so it wasn't too bad, about $54 Canadian. When I was in Seattle, I couldn't get broadband in the area, but the best price was $49.95 US (about $77 canadian) plus all the taxes and rental fees. I think the best connection I ever got in SF, was about 1.2 - 1.4 Mbit/s.

Now at home in Canada I pay $74.95 a month ($48.00 USD) for a 2.5Mbit ADSL connection, with two STATIC ip addresses and NO blocked ports. I had to buy the "modem/router" for $70 ($45 USD).

The lower package is $34.95 ($22 USD) plus the modem purchase, which gives you a 1.5 Mbit line, two dynamic IP addresses, and most common posts blocked (WWW, FTP, POP3, SMTP, so you can't run servers on standard ports).

The only people in Canada that I know who are still on dial-up are those who live out in the boonies where they can't get cable, and are more thank 4km from the central office for ADSL.

Heck when I was in Seattle it cost me $22 US a month for unlimited dial-up.

my 2 cents

[iceperson]

I get to use internet pretty much as much as i want during the day at work. I also use a cell phone for all my calling needs so I don't even have a land line at home. This makes taking the plung into any internet at home just too much. no matter what i do i'm out $40-50 a month.Let's break it down. Phone line: @$30+/month ISP: @$10/month total=$40+/month cable internet: $40/month cable modem: $10.00/month total: $50/month that's just too much for a non necessity. i think this is going to be a bigger and bigger problem as people start to dump the land line in favor of a cell phone. just a thought. ice

Broadband Prices High..

[mmentges]

I like to use the example of Phone companies and DSL solutions.. The Phone companies such as Sprint, SBC/Ameritech, Verizion and so on and so forth.. Sure you can get a DSL account but the charge for the "local loop" is so high most cannot afford the cost. As an ISP we can offer our services via some of their networks due to some tunneling... The price on this connection does not allow us to be competitive due to the charge the telephone company places. What is so special about a peice of copper or a fiber punch panel that it costs me so much to tie in to??... While some ISP's may not be offering a VOIP solution as of yet it is in the near future where you ISP will act as your Telephone carrier. This will need to be transparent to the Telco or their charge for "local loop" will skyrocket.. All in all the high prices can be blamed partly on the Telephone Companies and over-zealous ISP's that own their own cable plant such as Time Warner...

DSL

[dirvish]

It turned out to be cheaper for me. I have two room-mates and each of us was paying for seperate dial-up services. I think that totalled about $55 between the three of us. We only pay $50 for DSL, and with a lynksys router we split it three ways. I will never go back, I hated dial-up. The benefits of DSL are big for me. Always on, doesn't tie up my phone line and it turned out to be cheaper for me.

Always on, not speed

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of downloading a new program in 10 seconds rather than the 5 or 10 minutes it takes on dialup sounds lovely, but what I want is a constant connection.
I run a fairly popular web site (which I'd rather not subject to the /. effect by linking to it ;-) with a very busy support forum and IRC chat room. For most of the day, I have to share the phone line with other people, so that dramatically cuts into how much time I can devote to it.
I'd love to get the cable service that just started up here, but I'm not paying $50.00 per month just to stay on all the time. The local telco is the only game in town, knows it, and charges accordingly. It would cost just as much for a 2nd line as it would to get cable.
So, no broadband for me until prices come down.

Cost is my issue

[rasterboy]

I can't justify the cost of broadband. Believe me, I wish I could. ;) (Luckily I've got T-1 access at the office for those big downloads.) I've stuck with dialup because it would probably double the cost per month to switch to DSL, and if I do switch to DSL I'm going to want to run a server, which might even cost more...

If I could get broadband for under $35 per month I'd most likely go for it. I'm only getting 46k connection speeds with dialup, and if I could get speeds up to 4 times faster for about 1 1/2 times as much money, well, you do the math...

Mods Smoking Crack...

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this offtopic? It's directly related to said article.

Re:That's why Europe is ahead -- and Canada, eh!

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Nova Scotia
it's $40/month for unlimited Cable
(5mpbs up and 5mpbs down). Used to be 20GB limit for up, 20GB limit/month down, but I don't think they ever counted it. No ports are blocked, and there's no problem with running servers, as long as you aren't sucking up too much bandwidth.

It's $40/month Canadian (~$26/month USD)

Not too expensive for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I get Cable From Telewest, and its only £25 month. Compared to ADSL (Which isnt avalible in my area because of BT). Compared to ADSL, which is around £28-£40 a month, its really cheap.

BT YOU SUCK. AND YOU ALWAYS WILL. INSTEAD OF WASTING £33 MILLION POUNDS WHY DONT YOU UPGRADE SOME EXCHANGES IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS!

Sure everyone could ahve broadband! Not.

[Shadow99_1]

"Almost all U.S. families live in areas where a high-speed Internet connection is available, but many see no compelling reason to pay extra for it."

Sure that's a nice thing to say, but it's not true... In my area (North Western PA) less than 10% of the area is currently capable of getting any good form of broadband (sure satellite is possible, but sat sucks so I'm not including it). Cable & DSL are almost non-existant... Verizon owns all the phonelines & care only about college business & broadband is done by cablevision (which is part of aol-time warner) who don't care about broadband at al... Adelphia is also in certain limited areas (mostly a chunk of the city of Erie the biggest city within 100 miles in any direction), but they are tiny locally...

I'd sell my mother for broadband, but no ones offering... I've tried to buy a T1 & no one would install one... Verizon won't even support ISDN over the local CO... I've looked into WISP's & other wireless sources (since wired conenctiosn are owned by 3 companies in total that I already mentioned), but none exist & unless we can get something higher than a modem here it's not ever coming... Eventually I found someone who would specifically run a T1 conenction, but they would charge $2000 to run the line & then $800 a month... I was seriously considering it even though it's slower than the versions of DSL offered by Verizon (where you can get it) & is hugely more expensive...

I'm not the only one either, with PS2's & Xbox's (as well as Gamecube's eventually) being able to go online (but only really with broadband) the local market demand is increasing... But no one bothers to care if we'd buy it or not...

PPPoE and static IP

[nuggz]

I found that there is decent PPPoE software available.
and dyndns.org works just fine for me instead of a static IP.

Fast and cheap, why argue over details?

In the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Prices are very competitive, One ISP recently offered ASDL for £12.99 a month, and it was oversubscribed in hours. But if you really want good access in the UK, you gotta go with cable.

Misleading figures...

[SmokeSerpent]

Given the population density of the US, I think it is likely that a large chunk of the "most Americans" in this study have 3 broadband "options"; T1, DSL, or Satelite, which aren't really options at all for most households.

Re:Misleading figures...

[SmokeSerpent]

Brainfart... read DSL as ISDN

The Internet is evil...

[spiffyjoe]

The Internet is evil...

Well not really, but I would consider going back to dial-up. DSL is sort of expensive in my area (Both when I live in Austin, and now in Houston). And cable modem requires you to buy cable. I dont mind shedding $40 for cable modem, but then I have to buy cable for $20-30 extra, costing total almost the same as DSL. Of course depending on your lifestyle, but for me, I just dont watch much TV. I dont want to spend more money on cable just to have the internet.
I can get $10 dial-up monthly. Compare that with the $50 - $80 I could be paying for cable modem or DSL!

As for the second phone-line, I dont plan on using the internet much. Having broadband currently, I know I end up spending a lot of time on the internet. Almost too much time! (One reason I dont watch TV) But I think I can spend my time better than surfing on the web all day. It can be addictive. I could read a book, learn a skill, or even go outside. I dont need a second phone line so I can spend my life in a virtual world.

Why do I still have broadband? Because I do live in a virtual world =) My work IS the Internet, and so I need broadband at home for when I need to work from home. But I would consider cutting my internet broadband if I was to work in a different field.

Time what is time

[Luckster7]

Does the RIAA expect people to believe that internet users are cheap people with hours of time to waste downloading music through a 56k modem connection?

I can leach a 100GB site in just over a year on 56K using wget.

Re:Time what is time

[Saeger]

Yeah, I find it funny that some broadband co's have lower monthly download/upload caps than you could get with a 56K connection running 24/7.

--

Re:That's why Europe is ahead -- and Canada, eh!

[Jardine]

Yet my ISP in Ontario (Rogers) has recently cut speeds in half (3Mbit/400 to 1.5Mbit/192) and are planning on bringing in monthly limits, probably the same as Sympatico's 5gig up and 5 gig down.

Screw it, I'm moving to Nova Scotia.

Re:Always On

[Door-opening Fascist]

Which means you just leave your PC on all the time, of course. I haven't turned mine off for almost a month, which was when I moved into my dorm.

The internet on floppies

[yerricde]

He asked if he could get the Internet on floppies instead of a CD because he didn't have a CDROM drive.

Actually, the installer for Netscape 2.0 that came with my first ISP account was floppy-based.

(OT) Re: Your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

I am still waiting to hear one good reason to run Netscape 7 instead of Mozilla! :-)

Easy. Some sites are on Mozilla's Tech Evangelism list because their crappy user-agent sniffers treat Mozilla as an unknown browser and block access to the site while allowing Netscape 6.2 and 7.x to view the site.

-- Pinocchio

Well, really...

[The Great Wakka]

In other news, sky is blue, white, or grey, Slashdot color theme teal, BASH superior to ASH.

You really didn't know most people can't afford broadband? Yikes.

Three reasons to pay extra for cable TV

[yerricde]

But why pay extra for [digital cable TV vs. the dish]?

For one thing, you apparently get a better repair contract. For another, you get shorter-term service contracts, which can be important if you're only home for summer vacation. For another, you get a discount on cable Internet access, which has a much better latency (important for web surfing and game playing) than satellite Internet access.

Lack of fill rate makes it painful

[yerricde]

The channel ID overlay can be drawn in a single frame (1/30th second).

In theory, it can. However, the low fill rate of the video architecture in the decoder boxes keeps the overlay from being quickly drawn in practice.

They also grab info like the show name, channel name, etc. from sideband data -- none of which is available on analog cable.

Not even on TV sets with Gemstar Guide Plus?

Or you could learn how to actually use new technology -- like menus.

Which, again, are slow because of the severe lack of fill rate on the overlays.

you bring up the menu and see what's on now, what's on soon

Unless your cable provider has set up the menus to show only 10 channels and 30 minutes per page. Waiting for the menu to switch pages becomes excruciatingly slow because of the fill rate problem.

Besides, you can't always tell by reading the menus which channels are showing men dressed in flowing robes (which I like) or women dressed in 1860s crinolines (which I also like) or which channels are showing T&A (which some Slashdot readers seem to like).

Driver support?

[yerricde]

Linux, *BSD, & Mac: $29.95/month unlimited

With some home broadband Internet providers, you'd be lucky to have the service even be compatible with a platform other than Microsoft Windows on x86.

Windows95/ME: Upgrade

The operating system designed as an "upgrade" from Windows 95 (namely Windows 98 Second Edition) is no longer sold. The operating system designed as an "upgrade" from Windows ME (namely XP) won't run on many machines that were sold with WinME because their CPU is too slow, their RAM or HD is too small, or their hardware doesn't have Win2k/XP drivers.

Win98/NT/2K/XP: add $20/month for StupidOS tax

So you're asking $240 per year just for the privilege of running an operating system that supports the video, sound, and network cards that came bundled with the computer that I bought before you instituted the pricing scheme? I don't exactly understand what you mean by a "'Surf at your own risk' disclaimer".

Re:Driver support?

[Anonymous Coward]

WinXP runs just fine on my P2-450; faster than Win98 even.

All you have to remember to do is TURN OFF ALL THE USELESS EYECANDY!!! geez

Eggs, bacon, and spam

[yerricde]

E-mail, which is still far and away the #1 reason most people go online, might as well have been designed for dial-up users.

Even when your mailbox gets a MB of spam e-mail (enlarge your penis, real estate scams, Klez viruses at 125-200 KB a piece, etc) per day that you must download before you can even filter?

Re:Eggs, bacon, and spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Mail programs like sylpheed let you set filters to bounce messages based on the header, so you're not really downloading all those megabytes of spam.

I'm in Saskatchewan

[Inoshiro]

As you'd know if you went to inoshiro.com and read the FAQ, ^^^ :)

Re:I'm in Saskatchewan

[dadragon]

You used to be the sysop of Games Garden, no?

Re:I'm in Saskatchewan

[Inoshiro]

That'd be correct, Mr. McGregor.

Re:I'm in Saskatchewan

[dadragon]

Wow, you spelled my name properly and everything :)

As if it was hard to figure out, you at least changed your handle.

Burning cell phone!

[yerricde]

If you get rid of your dial-up internet account ($20 per month) and your land-line

Doesn't the emergency call dispatch service (911 in the USA) have a harder time pinning down your location for calls from a mobile phone than for calls from a landline phone?

Burning cell phone!

online gaming

[Erpo]

What is wrong if they are to offer 256Kb/128Kb DSL or Cable for like $15/month for those who doesn't need huge broadband for Pr0n downloads and online gaming?

I'd totally agree with you - most people don't need the speed that broadband provides today, except I'd also argue that unless you're sending and receiving large volumes of data (music, movies, etc...), 256/128 would do just fine for about everything, including online gaming and porn. Only the greediest online games (network-wise) even begin to touch data rates of 16KB/s (128kbps). Sure, you can configure them to use more than that, but the difference between 32KB/s and 16KB/s dedicated to a game is incredibly small compared to the difference between 5KB/s (a modem) and 16KB/s (limited DSL/cable). Also, packet latency is a much greater contributing factor to a positive gaming experience than data rate. Considering that low pings cost _nothing_ to provide as they are mostly a result of the technology bridging the last mile and not the ISPs backbone connection which, for most providers, are very very very low latency. Besides, I find (and I think most people would agree with me) that the most useful part of "broadband" is that it's always on (yeah yeah, I know, only when your computer is) and it doesn't tie up your phone line or stop you from watching cable tv at the same time (depending on service type). I'm a "power user", and I'd be more than happy to "downgrade" to a 256/128 for $10-$15/month compared to the $50 I pay now for 2000/256 if I get to keep the always on and low latency parts.

The price will never go down

[randomizer9]

Well, not in the U.S.A. anyway; look at who's in charge: the telephone companies and the cable companies. Have they ever lowered prices on anything??

marketing facts

[bwhalen]

At the current price point, it's only too expensive for those whom are not good marketing targets anyway.

"Families" is the key word

[Anonymous Coward]

This problem will kill itself off.

The very fact that a family does not want "broadband" is going to change, just as the concept of only having one device connected to the Internet is going to change. Once you have more than one computer, a game console, DVR or whatever, and you are in need of connecting them to the net, modems suck.

It's far easier for the avarage family to share a broadband connection than installing several phone lines for dial-up net access.

It's happening already, and it's not about to start moving the other way.

What are European Killer Apps?

[billstewart]

Other than reasonably-priced basic internet connectivity at less than the cost of overpriced metered phone service, what interesting new broadband apps have come out of Europe? The US cable modem carriers usually have policies against running servers or doing anything interesting on cable modems, even running a home web server, and while most of the DSL providers don't, many of them only provide dynamic addressing which is a bit hard to use for servers. The last few interesting applications I've seen were Napster and its follow-ons, plus increased use of instant messaging. I don't count games as interesting, but I gather the gamers are somewhat heavy broadband users, though the online games are mostly designed to work adequately on dialup to maximize their markets.

Re:What are European Killer Apps?

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Other than reasonably-priced basic internet connectivity at less than the cost of overpriced metered phone service, what interesting new broadband apps have come out of Europe?

Well, that's still a bit of an issue. There hasn't been that much innovation yet.

I'd say that personally, the one service that developped quicker (much quicker in fact) here than in the States is on-line banking. Most of my friends here in Northern Europe did their banking on-line, when most of my Amercian friends still sent chequeues (sp?) through the mail.

There's probably a bit of tradition that helped (if you can call it that) here to. Such as us Europeans having had more of a tradition of treating our banks as semi formal institutions rather than private enterprises. Personal Giros etc was common here a long time ago, at the cost of not using personal chequeues.

But if you don't count the Web, came from CERN after all ;-) That's about it, of the top of my head.

Spare a thought for those in other countries...

[Colitis]

In NZ, real broadband (not the 128Kb/s throttled crap) is so expensive that even the geeks don't go for it.

Re:Spare a thought for those in other countries...

[Colitis]

Whoops! Somehow I managed to save that comment early. I'll try again (somebody mod down the parent):

In NZ, real broadband (not the 128Kb/s throttled crap) is so expensive that even the geeks don't go for it.

We pay (at current exchange rates) around $30/US a month for a 128Kb/s connection with 5-10GB of free traffic. Or we can get an unthrottled connection for around $47/US a month with a few hundred MB of included traffic.

Once we go over that limit on either type of account, we get stung for around 9c/US per MB.

Sucks.

I'd pay double

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay double the going rate for high speed access if I could just GET IT where I live. Some people don't realize how lucky they are.

News flash! Slashdotters aren't normal!

[edunbar93]

Most people only use maybe 30 hours a month on the internet. I work at an ISP and I can attest that at least 60% of our customers use less than that, and a good chunk of those use WAY less. Like about 5 hours.

Are *you* willing to pay $40+ a month to spend 30 hours on the net, just to check your e-mail and maybe read theweathernetwork.com or espn.com every morning?

Of course not. That would be stupid.

cheap excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry dialup folks but complaining about cost really ain't your right. pony up or stay silent.

make all artistic works available, and get paid

[spage]

Right on.

Remember the Qwest ads: "every movie ever made in every language, anytime" ?

There are two ways the evil content owners can do this and still get paid, and drive the adoption of broadband.

1. Bite the bullet and offer everything they have at low prices, as dwheeler suggests. Sure the stuff will show up on P2P networks, but they can offer reasonable prices, easy searching, guaranteed quality, ... Imagine if every song at Amazon had a download this at full quality for .90 cents checkbox next to it. Sure the warez crowd will ignore this for P2P, but your average consumer and a few ethical people would be delighted.

2. A tax on 'net access. This is controversial, but if there's a tax on blank media because sometimes it's used for copying intellectual property/copyrighted works, then there can be an equivalent tax on Internet access. The faster your access, the more you pay. Then the content owners can get out of the way, let people freely trade 1s and 0's, and at the end of the month the artists get a slice of the money.

Either approach will align the interests of content owners and broadband providers.

Right now as John Gilmore's great "What's wrong with Copy Protection" article (toad.com seems down right now) says, the tail of movie/music revenue (a few tens of billions) is wagging the dog of communications revenue (hundreds of billions). The dog should quit whining about consumer lack of interest, eat its own tail and be better off.

Follow through

[PMuse]

Strip away the clutter and follow the logic through. The article seems to think:

1. We must find a way to sell broadband. (Why? Either to help the economy or to give justice to the access-lacking masses, take your pick.)

2. To get people to buy broadband, we need content. (The proof of this is that Napster sold broadband.)

3. Therefore we need DRM so that MPAA and RIAA will sell content, thus selling broadband, thus saving humanity.

Is this article really doing anything more than pushing the case for DRM?

Yes...

[Inoshiro]

But I've never hidden my real name. It's always just a click away :)

You did change "the" to da ;)

Re:Res v. Business?

[MichaelDelving]

Nope, I telecommuted over ISDN for two years before Cable access became available. ISDN phone line = $40, not counting any long distance plans. Access = $20/semester, from local university. Usage = $0/whatever. Grand total = $45/month, no bandwidth caps, no limitations. Good luck getting DSL this cheap, Mr. Smarty Pants!

Re:Res v. Business?

[Pii]

If you paid no usage fees, then you were on some type of Centrex plan. For most people, this is not an option, which was the point of my post.

Grand total = $45/month, no bandwidth caps, no limitations. Good luck getting DSL this cheap, Mr. Smarty Pants!

I'd say the 128/kbps line serves as it's own bandwidth cap, and that's quite a limitation in and of itself.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading
it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
from where you left them to where you can't find them.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...