Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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
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
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.
Derek Greene
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.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I don't know about DSL, but Time Warner and Adelphia both offer cable modem service for the first 3 months at $20/month.
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
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.
Stefan Axelsson
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.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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
7d9e63e9501751ff4bf9307989d5623d *SheepHead
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.
_______________________________________________
ACK
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.
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.
---------------------------
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.
Gorkman
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.
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".
"Downloading Pr0n from USENET for Dummies."
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.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
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.
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.
Evil is the money of root.
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?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
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.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
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*
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.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
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.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
- The worst offender was the time that it takes to change channels. Digital takes almost half a second where my analog is almost instantaneous.
- The picture quality wasn't improved. In fact, I noticed significant mpeg like artifacts especially right after you changed the channel.
- The programming was almost the same. I never used any of the extra channels I got.
- 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.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.
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
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
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.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
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
Lots of petrified grits
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....
Quoth the article:
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.
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.
At the moment it isn't because there isn't much practical use for it, i.e., insuffient compelling content.
/. isn't compelling content!???
You mean
The Anti-Blog
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.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"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...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise