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Worldwide State of Broadband - S Korea, Japan Lead
Geek of the Week writes "No surprise here, a report by the International Telecommunications Union shows the US lagging in broadband adoption. S Korea and Japan lead with between 60 and 70% of S Korean households wired for speed, with Japan catching up quickly. The U.S. ranks 11th. Story here and the full press release can be found on the ITU website. Having traveled through Asia for business I can't say I'm surprised, but it is disappointing that the availability and price are in such sorry states here in the U.S."
In Japan they pass out Broadband modems on the street for free.
And connections are 8-12Mbps at the low end.
it might just be me, but that excite link is being blocked by spybot S&D
"I'm not high, just stupid" --JY
These countries have concentrated areas of high population density.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Did they take into account that we are much larger then either of those countries with a large amount of rural area where broadband is expensive to run and with no ROI? It's easy to make everyone broadband when they don't have the amount of land to cover. Why don't they look at broadband saturation in suburbian and urban areas and compare us to Korea?
I think the reason is that the majority of the population in asian countries are in large cities, with easy access to broadband.
As opposed to the US, which has lots of rural areas that can't access broadband.
And I here online gaming is BIG BIG BIG too.
Japan and Korea don't lead... Hong Kong (CHINA!) and Korea are up at the front.
Japan ranks 10th.
With a highly centralised and urbanised population, as well as a telco infrastructure that wasn't originally laid in the 1920s (as with most of the western world).
Now if they could just do something about the price barrier for UK, US, and AU we might get some penetration...
one would argue that it's the relative size of the united states compared to these smaller countries that attributes to the wide distribution for broadband. does anyone have the straight up, other reasons? i'm curious, ill-informed, and too lazy/drunk to search google. and yes, it is tuesday.
Look at a map and compare the size of the United States to Japan or S. Korea. I'd imagine it's safe to assume that if the amount of money spend on broadband in the US were spent in Japan, every computer, calculator, lava lamp, and bathtub would be broadband wired.
Could it be that cities and houseing in Japan and Korea are all piled on top of each other.
I spent a year just outside of Soul, Korea and I can say that they don't worry too much about cableing. Huge junktion boxes of shody wireing jobs for electic and phone going into each building. I don't think it would be hard to wire up many of them quickly.
Most would make the back of a stereo or computer wireing job look like it was organized.
That was 10 years ago so it could be wired better now but they are still extreamely close together.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Could it have anything to do with population density? *DSL has a limited range, and so if you're out in the 'burbs, you may not be close enough to a CO to get DSL. In Japan and Korea, with nearly all of the population in very densely packed urban areas, I bet you can throw a handful of gravel and hit at least one CO. Not to mention that newly-built high-rise apartments are much easier to wire up than older suburbs.
Still, I agree with one premise of the report that the US telco's have a death-grip on broadband, and it will take government action (HAH!) to do anything about it.
-paul, lucky enough to live within 3 wire-miles of a CO.
So does the United Kingdom, although I doubt the UK is even in the top 20 of their list (it's not in the article), thanks to having one of the worst deployed broadband systems in Europe.
Countries like Canada, however, fare a lot better than the UK, yet their population density is a mere fraction of that in the UK.
Judging by the amount of spam I am getting from Korea I think we need to take the Internet away from them ;-/
Another day closer to redwood heaven
Small, countries on the eastern Pacific Ocean have a population of at least 60-70% people with darker skin than Americans.
Or somthing
Comon people, this is OBVIOUS; Smaller land mass + higher population denisty + late to the technology party = High rate of adoption. If local phone lines were as cheap there as they are here, they'd probably still be adopting dialup, not broadband. Instead, they skipped that phase, which is why that brings us to this point in time. Same deal with cell phones, for the most part.
moox. for a new generation.
"If you can't afford broadband, you don't deserve to have a computer." -Something I've heard many times.
What a bullshit thing to say. Everyone definitely needs a way to the internet, and the mass influx of information. Plus, certain schools and businesses require you to have a computer to do certain things.
The reason I mention this is that the reason people are still using dialup is because dialup is still cheaper than broadband. Maybe in the future, when broadband prices go on because it's easier to have here, then and possibly only then will dialup ever be replaced.
(and don't give me that Comcast offer BS where it's about the same price as dialup - that only works for a month or so, after that they jack up the price to normal).
it didn't say Japan led.
Anyway, what about size vs number of busineses.
Cox alone services areas about the size of s. korea or so it seems.
Yeah. That would explain why Canada was third, eh.
of these countries on broadband isnt fair, look how densly populated korea is compared to the sprawling states. no wonder korea leads in broadband adoption, it will be quite some time before every backwood area of the states has it available to them.
1st: South Korea 2nd: Hong Kong 3rd: Canada
According to this Sweden is at 7.8 subscribers per 100 inhabitants for 2002. I think it might be quite some points better for 2003 actually.
There, now you don't have to download that PDF. Why.. you're welcome.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Imagine that, countries that are a fraction of our physical size can get broadband out faster. Wouldn't 1 CO be around 10 or 20% of their population (purely speculation)?
It shouldnt come as a huge surprise that countries who 1 )generally embrace new technology and 2) feature high population density would tend lead in adoption of broadband (like Japan).
It would be more cost effective on a per capita basis to wire a urban center for broadband compared to huge expanses of suburbia or rural regions.
An interesting statistic would be to compare broadband availability vs subscription rates in major metropolitan areas from various countries.
ie. New York vs LA vs Paris vs London vs Tokyo vs Beijing etc...
Think about it.
Anyone know where to get a listing of the _full_ leaderboard?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Same way that a round-trip flight is 1/4 the cost of a one-way.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
For Japan at least the reason that Broadband has caught on is because there is a per minute rate for phone charges, the cost adds up significantly for dial-up connections (imagine if you had to pay 10 cents/minute for every minute that you are online).
e am .html
In Japan, monthly tolls for 56-Kbps users regularly exceed $90. 12Mbs DSL is $21 a month. A 100Mbs FTTH from NTT is connection is around $43 a month!
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/pipedr
In Soviet Russia, there is no broadband!
hey!
Several reasons for Japan's fast broadband growth are as follows: As has been pointed out, broadband modems are being passed out on the street by yahoo bb, who's service is cheaper than the phone companies' service. They are doing this at a great loss to try to build volume. They also include VOIP functionality, with calls to the US being charged at 5 yen (about 4 cents) a minute. Unfortunately Yahoo's availability is limited outside major cities. I live in a suburb of a prefectural capital and cannot get service. Another reason BB rates are rising, is that is is the only way to get flat rate internet access, as even local calls are charged per minute. Yes, ~$20.00 flat rate isps exist, but when the phone bill jumps $40, it is no longer a good deal. Also, although the bandwidth seems high and the rates seem low, the study probably doesn't take into account the fact that you need to pay both the phone company and a seperate isp for most connections. That can easily push the cost up into the 40-60 dollar range, and outside the major areas (tokyo, kyoto, etc.) the bandwidth rates are much lower. My fastest transfer rate was on a RH iso, about 60k over my 12MB connection. The penetration rates and adverstised speeds only show a small part of the broadband picture in japan.
Good Republican . Taking orders just for the wealthy.
Anyways the only way now for fast affordable broadband is through the municipalities like our powercompanies.
Only a Canadian could be satisfied with anything but being first.
If it were America that was that close to the top, we wouldn't say anything. HK and S. Korea would just wake up to the sound of cruise missles pounding their telephone infrastructures.
...for the maximum amount of money it can get. THEN, and only then, will broadband be cheap.
"For the people, of the people, and by the people"? Hah! Try "For the corps, of the corps, and by the corps"? Hah!
If you want a government that is truly "For the people, of the people, and by the people", then try Japan or any WEstern European country.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Also, Yahoo BB offers IP telephony, so long distance calls are much cheaper with a BB connection than with the standard phone system.
Another reason for the lack of mass broadband acceptance in America is frankly, a lack of a market. There's a lot of average-joe-computer-users who don't see an every-day benefit of broadband. They don't do anything on the web other than IM, Email, check a few websites. These are the people for whom the concept of uploading a digital photo to a web site is mind blowing. Forget about Warcraft III or video on demand. I don't see any of these people interested in broadband, and frankly, I can't blame them. Why spend money on something you *think* you won't use?
People in this boat might be technophobes, maybe they got burned on Yahoo! stock and are pissed off, maybe they're afraid of viruses, maybe they are just cheap bastards. But ultimately it all comes down to a classic chicken and egg problem. People aren't going to sign up in droves until there's the content, and because of the .com implosion there aren't any companies doing wild and crazy stuff on the web that's attracting people. It's probably going to take a massive investment by the tech / telecom companies to decide this is worth it, to subsidize the cost of broadband for a while and bring it down to the 10-25 bucks a month making it competitive or cheaper than dial up. And unfortunately in today's shitty tech economy, it's going to be a few years before this happens...
Broadband (MUCH faster than cable or most DSL) was a one time outlay of $100 with $0/month. I love wireless.
He said "penetration"... hehe
The US still has more internet users than any other country. By about 3 times, actually.
It's a big country, and it's hard to wire it all.
Extremely uninteresting without a chart of who's in what place. Or maybe I'm just blind today and can't find the link.
I think the main reason for lack of adoption of broadband in the U.S. is the effective monopolies that cable and telecom companies have in much of the country.
In most places in the U.S., cable television (and if you are lucky, internet) is supplied by a single provider. The same is often true of telecom (and thus DSL). With this effective monopoly, the cable and telecom companies set their rates at whatever level they feel like, since they have no competition to drive down prices. Usually this price is around the $50 per month range or more, which for your average user is simply too steep.
In some areas, access to broadband is still virtually impossible to obtain. I know of towns in rural areas where the cable companies have been promising broadband "soon" for 5 years or more - with no end in sight. Infrastructure is often a big part of the problem with rollout. In some places in the U.S., the phone and cable lines are so old that they cannot be used to carry broadband, or at least thats what they're telling people who inquire about such services.
Why this isn't a problem in Canada I have no idea. Less monopolies? Better lines? Providers who have a clue? Maybe there are less cheapskates in Canada? Inquiring minds want to know...
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
And who gives a damn? Since when is the status of a nation dependant on how many people utilize high-tech toys?
Should we be ashamed that Japanese tend to own multiple videogame consoles, while us backwards Americans only tend to own one?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Informative maybe...
..the US is a veritable broadband paradise. In the UK, the uptake is even worse than the US; whilst 80% of the country is wired for "broadband", the phone companies have no intention of wiring the remaining 20% - and the 80% broadband is DSL at phenomenally expensive prices; a 768k up/down line will set you back somewhere in the region of $80/month. I currently pay $35 a month for 2.5mbit either way on my cable connection; and the customer service in the UK is similarly dreadful.
;)
Maybe the US should count its blessings.
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I live in San Jose, California. Friggin capitol of Silicon Valley and I can't get any broadband access. The Cable company doesn't offer internet access, and I live to far away from whatever the hell it is to get DSL, despite living smack dab in the heart of the city. The reason broadband penetration is low in the US is because the cable and phone companies are taking their god damn time upgrading their equipment to offer it.
You like that, don't you, being penetrated?
You absolutely looove it when I penetrate you!!
I have a friend who spent last year in South Korea. He was hurting for cash so he could only afford the low-end service - 22 mbps.
And I thought T1 was fast...
Their connection speed is also ridiculous. It's not uncommon to find 7Mb-down /1Mb-up ADSL connection in their homes. No wonder their TV stations already have video on-demand for anyone who don't fit the stations' schedules.
Better would be to focus on the slowdown of American broadband. When it was first rolled out there were no caps whatsoever and it was generally allowed to run at the speed that the equipment could handle. So the average DSL user ran over 3mbit in some cases if they had good lines. Uncapped both directions.
Then came the abusers and greed of the communications companies and today you see the extreme chokehold on the broadband today. SBC's base package for DSL is 384/128k dn/up compared to Verizon's 768k-1.544M/128k and the cable companies provide service comparable to Verizon.
New trends are starting to take hold in some areas with Verizon Wireless rolling out EvDO 3G which can run upwards of 2.3M and Verizon Landline (Seperate companies) is testing 2M+ speeds in certain (Lucky) markets with future plans to turn up the dial on broadband.
While those trends are nice to see you still have many who still have dialup due to cost and some worse off areas still cannot get a better connection than 26600kbps!
Interestingly people have pointed out monopolies. There is basically 1 telepone company in South Korea. Korean Telecom and a handfull of offshots after other companies were allowed to spring up but I'd say 90% of that country is serviced by KT and TMK there is only one cable company there. So it's questionable if more competition really is the answer (Korea may regulate, the us de-regulates)
I'm not sure what goes on in Japan but I would suspect nearly the same situation there also but you'll have to understand both countries until very recently had complete conglomerates (Sp?) of many things from electronics to communications systems. Now there is free market competition but not in the manner of how the US Govt mandated AT&T split up those companies were just forced to allow competition to "try" to work their way into a established system. Which probably will work becuase the exec's of those companies realize given choice people will pick the better company that provides them value.
"one company to deliver the service all the way to the doorstep of the consumer" It's called a "Monopoly". This is largely what Americans are afraid of and is what is keeping them from supporting a single provider
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
Gee, I don't know if I should cry or... cry. ;_;
I don't need to imagine to pay 10 cents/minute for every minute I am online. Fast-Reverse about 6 years back into time and take a look at german telcos's prices for a dial-up/ISDN connection. I still remember a phone bill over 400 German Marks, what would be around 200 Euros, and I wasn't online that much... about 3-4 hours a day.
http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/ni/promotebroadband/PB0 3-PromotingBroadband.pdf
Iraq: war to save the U
And certainly, the logistics are different. But considering the US likes to think of itself as a leader in the net field.... well, excuses don't cut it.
No, they did not take into account that it is a larger country with more sparse population. Neither did they take into account that it's the largest, richest economy on earth, and currently the most powerful nation on the planet. It goes both ways.
Canada is #3 on the list, and we are significantly more spread out than the US is. Yes, even accounting for the fact that 90% of our puplation is within 90km of the US border, we are STILL more spread out than the US is.
"one company to deliver the service all the way to the doorstep of the consumer" It's called a "Monopoly". This is largely what Americans are afraid of and is what is keeping them from supporting a single provider. And you are right... The larger corporations probably would screw the customer if given the chance.
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
I'm in Seoul at the moment. I have cable broadband for 33,000won/month, about US$29, including the tv side. Most people do have cable or DSL here.
However, it sucks. Goes down often which is normal for some US providers too. But when it does work, it's got some fat bandwidth but it's VERY laggy making most online games unplayable. My friend has DSL and the situation isn't any better.
Maybe if they gave it away in the US for almost nothing also, it would be wider spread there. But I much prefer my broadband at my US apt to the broadband here! (Even though it costs more than double, worth every penny!)
-e.
S Korea and Japan lead with between 60 and 70% of S Korean households wired for speed, with Japan catching up quickly.
With about 80-90% of these households running open proxies to be hijacked by spammers. That is not really something to be proud of. (Ask any ISP who resorted to using korea.blackholes.us.)
but it is disappointing that the availability and price are in such sorry states here in the U.S."
Price is more of a setback than anything else.
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Most everyone in South Korea and Japan are MUCH closer to there local telco or big city... they have their hicks in the sticks, but think of Tokyo; 1 in 6 Japanese people live there.
Now, point 2, this is a PERCENTAGE number, not actual subscribers. If I had a "country" with 10 people in it and 7 were on broadband, that would beat the U.S. in percentage. The U.S. is the 3rd largest (population) country in the world behind China and India, so it's no surprise that it will take longer to get that penetration rate. I'm sure we have at least as many raw people on DSL as either of the front runners....
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I wonder if they know what the deal is with the ARP floods comming from my comcast cable modem. No, i guess if they were going to help us they'd have to bomb all major telecom corporations.
US households adopted the internet in mass quantity years before it was prolific in most countries that now lead with broadband access. It was that switch from government and educational internet access to massive general consumer use that popularized the www, reduced internet access costs, dramatically reduced the cost of PC hardware, and provided capital to drive technological advances in everything from CPUs to HDDs.
Simply put, it is easier to set up a modernized network from scratch than to modernize a legacy network and try and get consumers to upgrade. How many of us have ethernet 10 Base-T hubs in our homes because 100 Base-T didn't exist when we set up our LAN? I haven't rushed out and bought a new hub, even though I could use the bandwidth. The same basic thing is happening with internet access in the US.
Of course the population distribution in the US doesn't help the situation either.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
broadband at the end of a ac130
There is no country on earth with as wide a gap in average intellect than the U.S. Vast counties of uncurious, unserious drones who care more about their next beer than the direction of their country. This is why there is no broadband market in the U.S., because there are not enough people able to notice the advantages. Sure, it's a values thing, but it makes me ill.
Just a drive from Stanford to East Palo Alto, and you can almost see IQ points drop by 50 crossing Hwy101. There is no broadband equal to spending 1000 dollars for rims on a 500 dollar car. No coolness factor for the terminally dense in having a fast connection.
I'm not trolling, but just telling you like it is. In Silicon Valley, you can drive 20 miles from a rich neighborhood to a ghetto. From a Fiber ring where you can get 100M, to phone lines so bad, 56K is a pipe dream at best. If people wanted broadband, they would have it. More americans would rather spend their dollars on either having fake tits or squeezing fake tits to change things in the USA.
i highly doubt that the extreme rural areas of the united states would have broadband available. If it is available, it would most likely be at a high cost. As for the urban areas? sure broadband has its reasonable costs, but at the same time, the cost of living in many major cities (for example NYC BABAY!!!) has skyrocketed (1500 bucks a month for a small studio apt???!?!) at a time when broadband shouldve done the same. As a result, more and more americans are stuck with paying other more important bills...like electricity (at least when there is electricity ;) ). This is all due to the U.S.' sheer size. As a side note also, i'd say the bulk of breadwinners in the U.S. don't need broadband internet at home because theyre too tied up with setting up their tivo to record alex ross paintings.
Why is ther a completely fake headline on this story?
Hong Kong special administration region of CHINA is number 3 not Japan.
And I am definitely off-topic here.
But I do want to point out one of the things that make it hard on me when I am called on to meta-moderate. Posts like this come up and I am asked if its a fair or unfair moderation. And I am expected to reply. Its hard as hell to reply honestly without a helluva lot of research. And even then, if I confirm or deny the moderation, it was a helluva lot more trouble to do so than its worth.
Personally, I am very apt to metamod as "unfair" any moderation I see where someone attempts to post a decent response and gets whammed for it, but then, technically, I could be wrong.
Please, if you don't think its a stellar post, don't kill it, just don't bump it up.
I will always agree with negative moderations for those obvious crap-flood junk posts. Please hold the bad mods for guys who deserve it. There are way too many really good posts on these forums which receive no recognition at all. It seems a waste to use moderation to ram an honest poster.
And no, I have no relation to the poster. Its just I have had my fill of metamodding posts like this, and wanted to point a live one out while it was still "hot".
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I can offer some opinions on why broadband in Canada is so highly adopted:
- Cable and DSL providers have fought for market share throughout Canada, mainly by leapfrogging the other into markets the other had not. I am consistently surprised at the DSL availibilty here in Alberta, a province with a population density similar to Montana or North Dakota. Dial up simply does not exist anymore with price plans for basic broadband starting from US$15/month (C$25/month) for either cable or DSL. I can have cable broadband installed in seven days or DSL installed in three. Those are actual install windows, not theoretical.
- Regulatory environment that seems to have fostered both competion and wide adoption of broadband services. We have partly deregulated local service, deregulated long distance service and a regulatory equivalent to the FCC (CRTC) that seems genuinely interested in growing broadband services into remote markets.
- The reliance on telecommunications that has become a social phenomenon. I can't remember the last time I used dial up service, it was literally two years ago. EVERYONE has high speed, it's just assumed (and Kazaa). Maybe we have nothing better to do in the colder months than surf the Net for porn and legal MP3s.
- Even with competition the markets in Canada are no where near as fragmented as the US. We really have four or five companies that have divided their territories into Western Canada and Eastern Canada. You will find a major DSL or cable provider in either Western (Telus for DSL, Shaw for Cable) or Eastern Canada (Bell for DSL, Rogers for Cable) but not both. Our geography and population simply cannot support more players, it's just not feasible. Consequently, you have four or five business plans and not fifty or one hundred.
Anyone else?
South Korea and Hong Kong lead in broadband adoption, while Japan and South Korea lead in broadband speed.
Let me break it down for you:
Broadband adoption (per capita)
...
1. South Korea: 21.3% (60-70% of households)
2. Hong Kong: 14.9%
3. Canada: 11.2%
10. Japan: 7.1% (and moving up)
11. United States: 6.9%
Broadband adoption (number of users)
1. United States: 19.9 million
N/A. South Korea: over 10 million
Broadband speed
1. Japan: entire movie in 20 minutes (520x faster than dial-up modem)
2. South Korea: entire movie in 26 minutes
Worldwide broadband subscribers (start of 2003)
63 million (mainly DSL/Cable)
Monthly subscription prices
Worldwide: between $30-50
United States: $53
Finland: as high as $165.89
More mobile phone users (1.16 billion) than fixed-line phones (1.13 billion)
If the goddammed yankees (and the comment is the same - although a bit mitigated - for the limeys) didn't have their fucking heads so far up their arses, they'd see that not everyone else in the world is as brain-fuckedly-dead as they are, see there are ***ACTUALLY*** cases where State-Owned entreprises can vastly outperform private industry. Heck, in many respects, the USA is no better than many goat-fucking turd-world countries in many sectors such as air-transport, telecommunications and power distribution.
is the usa's poor showing based on lack of broadband appeal? or greater geographic diversity. mnay folks i know who are in an area that provides broadband access do not really want it. while others who crave it have no real cost efficient way of subscribing to it.
I am a DSL salesman, and I have called thousands of americans and talked to them about DSL so I consider myself somewhat of an expert here. The main reason adoption rates of broadband are so low is a combination of two things.
1: Americans are lazy. It doesn't matter if there is a better service available. If it requires them to lift a finger then they don't want it. God forbid you have to change your email. It takes how many seconds to send a message to your entire contact list? Now some services are providing high speed services with the same old software they have been using, and you would think then that people would be all over that, but that brings be to my second point.
2: Americans are cheap. Sure you could get high speed and keep your aol.com address for $50 a month. Or you could get DSL from the phone company for $30 to $35 a month. But why should you do that when you can get dialup for $9 a month now?
Thats all there is to it. I would say only about 1 in 15 sales for me are people who decided they just need something faster, and all of these are usually customers where DSL just recently became available. Typically if speed is the issue, customers sign up with who ever offers it first (you know who you are.) For the other %93 of them its about points 1 or 2.
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Its not like the US is hurting to put broadband in places that it will profit. But its hard to get IT spending during a recession into areas that may not be profitable for a long time.
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The benefits of being tightly packed in means information can travel much quicker. Whether that is broadband, rumors, or viruses.
And I don't believe the Canada argument. 90% of Canada lives very close to the US border. ALSO, what the hell do people do in Canada for the 9 months of winter? Plus, Canada could be an outlier. I mean they have citizens who just returned weed!!! http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/09/16/cana
In Australia we have one company and the problem is they have no need to deliver the service because no one else will.
They had competition in laying cable when a competitor began to put down a new network but as soon as the competitor stopped (because they ran out of money) Telstra stopped. So cable is laid to some areas but no more will ever be laid.
They have been dragged kicking and screaming into ADSL but continue to use Optical Fibre to RIM boxes in all new housing areas so making it a significant cost to upgrade later to ADSL capable services which they have just about stopped doing anyway. So if ypu live in an area that was built in the last 10 years or will be built in future, you probably won't ever be able to get ADSL.
Their latest idea is to drop costs of 2 channel ISDN to home users for internet access. They advertise it as an alternative to ADSL. Many suspect that it will officially be reclassified as broadband to allow Telstra to boast to regulators about broadband availability. And it might work. After all Sen Alston the Minister in charge of IT and telecoms has stated that he wasn't too concerned at the takeup in Korea cause after all it was only used for games and porn.
I suppose what I'm saying is that there are a lot of cry babies out there who cry over not being able to get all you can eat 1.5MB/sec plans for $10 a month and how unfair it is and I and millions of others have this much sympathy for them (holds thumb and index finger of right hand very close together and squints into the gap to see if light still shows through) and just wish they would shutup.
In Australia, where a huge proportion of our population live in major cities, and "within 100 miles / 160 kilometres" of a major city / regional centre, and the broadband situation is appaling.
.
There are a few decent providers out there, (a very few) the majority do nothing but deliberately trick people into long contracts at hopelessly slow plans)
In australia, $70 a month would be lucky to buy you 256/64 ADSL on a 3Gb plan, $90 a month for 512/128 with 5Gb, $150 a month for 1.5 / 256 with 8 / 9 Gb...
I have not seen any advirtisements for residential ADSL with speeds higher than these, and I don't imagine if they existed they would be 'affordable'.
Sure, there are cheap providers. if you don't mind being stuck in a pipe with too many people getting timeouts and incomprehensibly slow speeds.
Then there's the cable.
With so many people now sharing the cable, at peak times, the speed just drops. And drops. The Australian Personal Computer magazine reviewed broadband and the Cable service "at peak times, you would be better off with dial up".
Not to mention it costs $90 a month for 3Gb
I wish you 'poor americans' would stop crying.
I pity those in the same situation as me, over there, but the fact is, when I thought 33.6 was pretty cool, relatives in the US had cable for hardly much more cost.
Dialup Isn't a bad thing. If you don't need broadband, you shouldn't have to pay for it, but I would sooner see a range of cheaper, slowed DSL like products adopted as opposed to the majority of dialup, because it is a far better technology.
Wireless internet is interesting, and being trialled, but the security problems are a concern.
Please, US, please, stop crying about "The state of broadband". I give it to you that you don't have a high %age of broadband uptake with the population, but that also comes with a high %age of people who don't want it, or don't need it.
Ever had a cable connection? Talk about penetration! No lube, either... OUCH!
Nice troll,
Asshole
Right! Now, a question to those who are explaining the lower average US-wide broadband adoption as caused by the difference in population density: what does 100Mbs fibre cost in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago?
You don't need lower prices to get better penetration. What you need is lubricant when they send the bill!
He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
Most of the people in my family would love to have cable or DSL. But to them, $20 for 56k dial-up is already too expensive (let alone $40+ for Cable or DSL) for their needs. E-mail, chat, web cams, etc...
The value just isn't there for many people who are already paying $40-$50 a month for phone service and $40-$80+ a month for cable TV.
Compare the size of the two countries. Compare who deployed technologies first. It's just like the cell phone network. One reason why we've got such a mix of providers and a lack of commonly available high-speed wireless connectivity is that we've got all this expensive legacy equipment deployed in almost all population centers.
It's similar to the story that in some African communities, cell phone access is being installed instead of wired telephone service. Technological jumps just make sense in some areas. Just because one country has a more widely deployed "new" technology doesn't mean that every other country is in a "sorry state."
Just be thankful that a majority of our (U.S.) population have Internet access and that such access is not filtered by our government.
Actually, you can get flat rate for dialup also. I know I had it for a couple years before DSL and FTTH became widely available in Tokyo. A better explanation is:
1. Phone lines cost money here (to the tune of $500 or so).
2. You can get ADSL without actually buying a phoneline.
3. value adds like free VOIP between those on the service, and cheaper than regular phone rates to everyone else.
4. They have a huge marketing push. (Its true every day someone tries to give me a ADSL modem)
5. There has been a huge push by the government modernize the infrastructure, and it is really starting to pay off.
6. obviously the last mile problem is pretty much non-existant here.
--wyn
I think if voice over IP were offered in the states like say, over AOL, hopefully with video too, (like Apple's iSight) it could be a killer app that would spurn those without broadband to sign up.
Nothing like envy: say cousin Janet is showing off live video of her baby over this iSight and you cant participate.
I don't know how valid this is. Rather than focusing on the top rated, how about looking at those close to US figures. If the above poster's figures are correct, US = 6.5, Singapore = 5.5. Plainly, the population density of Singapore is WAY higher than US (Sing=6050/sq.mile, US=2404/sq.mile(urban density)).
Now, if we expected increased connectivity with increased density, Singapore should be way more connected than the US. Instead, Singapore lags.
Netherlands and US are dead even at 6.5 connectivity wise. However, Netherlands has 387/sq.km (2.6 sq/km=1 sq/mi, so about 1006/sq mile.
Being less dense than the US, we would expect Netherlands to also be less connected. It isn't.
Could it be that population density is just a lame excuse to explain why broadband sucks in the US?? Could it be that the lack of Broadband, or if it does exist, the lack of choice and competition, has to do with the way the Telecos and the Government are practically conspiring to ensure a broadband monopoly. Believe me, If I had a chance to ditch Cumcrust.net, I would.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I'm not supposed to get jigs in it!
As has been pointed out, broadband modems are being passed out on the street by yahoo bb,
I might point out that YahooBB discriminates against foreigners by not allowing their customer service reps to speak English. (They have a bad reputation anyway among those in the know, but this took me by surprise.)
...and it's dirt cheap. My family lives in Japan, I live in the US, and they pay only 7 cents for three minutes when they call me. I used to pay over $1 per minute to AT&T for international calls a while back. A huge difference.
hmmm...broadband == penis size?
.7% of Americans that enjoy bb even though its sad that it runs on copper and not a full fiber connection straight to my residence.
Well, not for all Americans. I'm not competing with these other countries and am happy to be one of the
As the Canadian so rightly put it...American Business Interests have taken a well run government monopoly deregulated it and squandered the resources it managed by fighting with each other over how to screw the American public by selling them back what was rightfully theirs in the first place.
Please More Deregulation, I want to take it up the ass even harder 30 years from now!
Well it's been harder to kill, er, liberate all those Iraqi patriots...er diehards so the oil really isn't flowing as fast and free as they where hoping.
and the 80% broadband is DSL
You are so wrong. Where the hell did you get that figure? How far up your ass did you have to reach to get that nugget?
Did you know that 2 out of 3 people use CABLE MODEMS for their high speed access? Go look it up.
Yep, its true. Yep, your wrong.
Not only is price a big setback, but availability is too. unless you live in a big city chances are you can't get broadband. where i live, i can get cable. i can't get DSL b/c they don't offer it, and i actually can't get cable in my home because even though it is a well made newer house the cabling isn't good enough. even if i could get DSL the phone lines are too crappy for it. and my dialup connection is a mere 28.8 Kbps. i would spend the money for cable if i could get it. but i can't.
It's more likely that some middle manager decided that it would keep costs down by restricting support calls to Japanese. No need to hire English speakers, no need to worry about updating the advertisement brochures.
Then in typical Japanese fashion, this mandate becomes gospel and anything representing thinking outside the norm becomes forbidden. Hence you end up with idiotic situations wherein customers who could be helped much more easily in their own language getting screwed because the salarymen who put the mandates from management into practice not only refuse to think outside of the box but simply can't think outside the box.
It's probably a little racist to generalize about the Japanese people this way, but even the most casual observer will encounter this kind of "service" in just about any situation. Go to McD's and ask for extra ketchup or a Filet O' Fish with no cheese. Try to get a straight quote from any salesperson on any price. See if you can get permission to use a store's restroom in an emergency. Anything that deviates from the norm is met with complete incompetence. It's like they haven't got any idea what to do once someone steps outside the lines.
It's one reason why crime is so bad here. The police simply don't know how to handle the criminals. Instead of treating them as criminals, they treat them with kid gloves and try to show them respect. It's really no wonder that the criminals have no respect for authority: authority licks the feet of criminals.
I have lived in the States for 13 years and now live in Hong Kong. I guess I can share some of my experience regarding to broadband use in both Hong Kong and US.
The reason why US broadband usage is not as high as other Asian countries is because of adoption and availability. I used to lived in California. If my memory served me right, SBC (aka Pacific Bell)first offer DSL service back in late 1998 or early 1999. When they offer DSL, it was price at $49.99 for 1.5mb/128kB DHCP (and later become PPPoE) and $199 for 6mB/384kB with 5 static IP. I had the $199 plan back then. Dial up service from Earthlink was around $25 bucks. Most areas still didn't have broadband service. My area didn't have Internet cable (Comcast) service till 2001. I think SBC offer the the 6M/384k plan for $159 and 1.5/128 still at $49.99 now.
Hong Kong offer DSL service at about the same time in late 1998. However, the difference is that availabilty become much higher than the State due to the coverage is alot higher. Dial up service was required to pay per minute charge (what they called PNet charges). So, people quickly moved to the flat rate DSL services. Right now, you can get 6mB/640kB DSL service at around $40 bucks with dynamic IP, and $80 bucks with 4 static IP. 1.5Mb/256kB is as low as $20 bucks.
In Hong Kong, pricing is already an advantage over the State. And the other reason is the coverage is much higher, people are easier to get broadband service. And thirdly, people in Hong Kong tend to like to use newer technology at a premium price. In the State, majority of the people who use Internet for checking email or light web surfing might just use dial up service. On the other hand, the same kind of people in Hong Kong will use the low end broadband service. Dial up service in Hong Kong is no longer offered except being a value add bundle with the pruchase of broadband service.
So, adoption of new technology is the key here. For example, celluar phone in Hong Kong is now a necessity. People will buy new celluar phone as new model release. It is a fashion and trendy thing. It is HARD to find an adult in HK without a celluar phone. Over 80% of high school kids have their own cell phone. Elementary school kids have their own cell phone is not uncommon too. Cell phone with built in camera is very popular in HK. 1 out of 10 people, you can find someone with one of those cell phone. On the other hand, celluar phone usage in US is a bit different. It is more or less still a luxuary stuff since the air time charges is not cheap. In Hong Kong, celluar plan can be as low as $17 with 1100 mins out of network + 1000 mins within network.
So, the key reason why broadband usage in the State is not as high is because of adoption of new technology, availabilty and most importantly, the way how people look at new technology.
It can be damned annoying getting past the Yahoo BB vendors hawking their wares outside of all the metropolitan train stations. "BB syou!" ("Let's BB!") You need a phone line to get the service, and if you don't have one, a one time license for the line is about $700. (You can transfer licenses from other people and NTT has deals, for example if you purchase an ISDN line instead you'll get a reduced rate.)
Because of the mind-numbingly high price of regular phone lines, most young people use cell phones now. I myself held off because I hate them with a passion, but this year finally gave in and said goodbye to any land line.
I did buy a landline connection at that outrageous price 3 years ago. The serviceman came out to my brand new apartment (which I had noticed already had phone lines running to it) and used his cell phone to call the main office. One word and my phone was hooked up. The only thought going through my head was: I just paid $750 to have my name entered into a database.
I've heard nothing but bad things about Yahoo BB, similar to what someone else posted.
Japan is not that advanced when it comes to the internet or computers, contrary to popular world opinion. Discussing computers or electronics with anyone in a retail store would drive the average slashdotter crazy. The Japanese know about gadgets, not about components, architectures, connections.
I made my own videocamera by cutting up other components once. I had to do it that way. Even in the electronic district of Tokyo, Akihabera, I get blank looks when I ask for certain cables, components. After I finally get the person to understand what I want, the usual response is, "Do foreign countries have that???" "Yes," I'll reply. "It's the same piece as connected to that TV but I want to buy it separately." Them: "We have a TV." Me: smacks self in forehead repeatedly.
NTT is competing with Yahoo now, and since I have a laptop I took advantage of their cheaper DoCoMo mopera cards, so now my laptop is always connected to the internet, anywhere I go with cell phone access in Japan (i.e. 95% of the country). $25 for the card and about $35 per month flat rate "tsukaihodai" use as much as you want, at 64k. Not the fastest, but it's always connected. I figure as long as I don't keep the transmitter next to my balls (for extended periods) I'll be alright.
..this message brought to you by a 26k connection on a 56k modem over a POTS telephone line. At least the connection doesn't drop when it rains anymore.
Most people in Canada live in one of a half dozen large cities. It is not suprising there is broadband penetration there. Also, a lot of telecom research happens in Canada - Caller ID is very, very old here - in fact, was developed here.
My best hope for broadband is none of these pipe dreams. I'd settle for something in the $100/mo range providing solid 128k/s always on via the cellular networks.
..don't panic
I also live in HK and you know "what is available" - sweet fuck all to the masses.
Hong Kong's Pay-Tv industry has been slow to develop meaningful competition. This may be about to change as later this year two new entrants, TVB's Galaxy channel and City Telecom will join PCCW (the local fixed line incumbent, for now) in launching a new service. They will all have to compete with the dominant Pay TV provider Hong Kong cable TV (HKCTV). It provides 26 channels of varying quality, safe in the knowledge that its exclusive coverage of live English Premier League football keeps its audience captive if not always content. I couldn't give a rat's bum about soccer so my channel selection falls even further. Having been given a 5 year grace period before it had to face competition from new licences, HKCTV now has 600,000 users and can reach 90% of the population.
PCCW has understandably been keen to exploit its early investment in its broadband network and was possibly ahead of its time launching it iTV pay television service in 1997 (?). However it failed to reach critical mass and was dogged by technology glitches before finally being discontinued. Undeterred it later launched broadband TV with its much-hyped Network of the World (NOW) service - even on its rival HKCTV's backbone in 2000. It proved an embarrassing and costly let down and was quickly dropped (along with Richard Li), along with much of the hyperbole of the dot.com period.
Now PCCW is back again with Broadband TV and is aiming to resurrect its NOW brand - hoping this time will be third time lucky. It plans to launch a series of channels using multicasting technology over its broadband network from next month. While it doesn't have HKCTV's drawcard of live sports, it does have the advantage of flexibility as special interest channels can be purchased individually at a cost of as little as $20.
Somewhere in this melting pot of proposed services is Yes TV, however they've been embellishing their proposed service for three years.
The bottom line is that there is a lot of hype about what you will receice in your home. For now, the bulk of the population are stuck with truckloads of soccer and a healthy dose of hype.
The general trend is that these countries (esp. Korea) adopt new technologies faster than US or Europe. What will obviously follow is that those countries will be better suited for future opportunities, while others play a catch-up (U.S.) Unless U.S. starts to look at broadband infrastructure as an investment (like a library/university) rather than a cash cow for the greeds of capitalists, this trend will only accelerate. Remember that Russia was a superpower like U.S. only 2 decades ago.
These are probably the same idiots that actually leave the house occasionally to see a movie in theaters, rather than download a zero-day cam release to watch on their 21 inch flatscreen monitors. The same people who pursue fortunes and adventure outside the realm of Everquest and engage in games and activities that exercise more than just their thumb muscles.
And some of those people may still have a library card.
You realize that the title mentioned S.Korea and Japan for different reasons:
South Korea is the leader in quantity (broadband penetration), with over 21% of inhabitants being broadband subscribers. They have internet cafes at almost every corner.
On the other had, Japan is the leader in quality (speed at reasonable cost): they offer 28 Mbps ADSL connections for about $25 a month. And for about $100 a month, you get fiber-to-the-home, with 100 Mbps up and down.
Sure, $100 Mbps is a bit pricy, but other day, I downloaded the latest Knoppix ISO in under 3 minutes. Man, did that feel GOOD!
I code, therefore I am.
Services are provided in a per city basis. The most populated area - medium to large cities on Sao Paulo state are ADSL served by Telefonica de Espana - the guys who own Lycos -
Price tags for Telefonicas ADSL or concurrent Cable Modem or Radio (mostly avaliable to apartment and office buildings only, not to houses) are all around R$120,00 monthly. In brute values, that would be U$40,00, but given that our wages are in Real not in US Dolars, that is roughly equivalente to an United States dwelling American who would pay U$120,00 for the same service.
HOWEVER until Telefonicas ADSL, unlike most competitors used to have no transfer limit. They are changin this policy, and are coming up with a monthly limit of 3GB transfer. No were to run to, no one to complain to. Just pay them.
IMO, they can make up whatever excuse they want for coming up with these limits, it IS due to some kind of pressure from the phonographic and movie Industries.
Among other things, one can see workers laying more and more fiber along the roads as one travels about. So it is not lack of bandwidth which is leading to this policy change.
-><- no
100Mbps optical fiber line is available for around $50-55US/month and it's fast growing now. Its real maximum throughput is around 30-40Mbps because of backbone ISP, but far more stable and consistent than ADSL that can deliver some 10+Mbps for 26Mbps service.
ADSL services are at the lowest around $15US/month in Japan, but won't grow so much further because of optical fiber lines.
a standard broadband agreement in the US?
1. You guarantee that we (the ISP) are not liable for anything you do
2. If you do something we think we could be liabl for, we pull the plug
3. We allot you rediculously lopsided bandwidth 3Mb/640Kb (in my case)
4. If you actually USE that much bandwidth we'll consider it abuse and pull the plug
5. You are now allowed to do anything with the service except browse the web, you can not serve any content
6. You'll only be allowed to hook up one computer, try to connect more and we'll pull the plug
Broadband isn't widely accepted in the US because it's a joke. You don't get an ISP you get a finiky grandmother who snaps at you every time you sneak in past 9pm.
When American companies start offering symmetrical througput, unrestricted use/access and charge a reasonable price; then broadband will become ubiquitous.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
first of all about pricing:m egapass01.jsp
you will notice speed is not mentioned. it is because the provider's wish to avoid being sued. if you ask wherever you are purchasing the service they will tell you what speed you can expect, also the ASDL provider(s) has a site that can measure your speed and they actually refund if you get a speed too slow many times in row for a certain period.
http://www.kt.co.kr/new_kt/eng/personal/megapass/
i use the cheapest service(Megapass Lite) which is about 10 times slower than the service my dad uses which is about 1.5 times the cost of 28,000(22$) won per month i'm paying.
i noticed a LOT of whining about quality of service/lag etc... foreigner's will probably feel the service is worse than koreans because foreign sites are SOMETIMES(not often) a lot slower. i don't know why(caching??) but the default DNS server(in my friends/dads ADSL too) for non-korean sites seem to not respond sometimes and sometimes the connection to non-korean sites slow down. i set my DNS server to a different one then the default and am having much less problems with foreign sites.
someone on slashdot complained about gaming, but my personal experience(and friends) is ADSL is way stable enough for gaming, at least much less problems than i had with a modem(which were few too).
with my cheap service(most of my friends have MUCH faster connections) i average without problems almost always about 200~240 kb/sec on korean sites and max out at that speed on P2P software like edonkey, kazza often. i upload at about 20kb/sec to korean sites and about 10kb/sec to foreign sites and 1~5 kb/sec to foreign ip address's in P2P software and about 10~20 kb/sec to korean ip address's in P2P software.
i consider the service in korea, quite good bang for the buck
ITU Report
Makes for a good read.
No chance, this is slashdot
The definition is a bit vague of course, but for simplicity let's say 5 mbit symmetric connections with no traffic volume cap/charges and no connection time charges.
My guess is the list would be completely different as most of the users said to have "broadband" in this ranking probably uses some dsl connection with a download cap and crappy upload transfer rate. The difference is important because the number of future services available to develop for users on a 128/512k line are a lot fewer than those connected for example to a normal "real" building broadband connection(fiber, then 100Mbit switched in-house). For example high quality video on demand and things like that. DSL just means a better www/p2p browsing, but no fancy future broadband services.
You guys in England and US better not complain too much, at least you guys get to choose your own broadband providers.
In Malaysia, most users can only dream of getting broadband hookups.
As if it's not bad enough, the two biggest (and so far, working) ISP in Malaysia gonna be merged. The merger is not due to economic consideration, but because of the government (the biggest shareholder of both the ISP) mandate.
The merger will form a monopoly.
Just like all the other monopoly in Malaysia (just like their counterparts all around the world), the consumers will ultimately become the victims.
Most of the net users of Malaysia still rely on dial-up service, not because we don't want broadband, but because the coverage is just not there.
Most of us live outside of the coverage area, and even those who have signed up for the broadband service (streamyx) they have to put up with frequent system failures.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Overall, monthly subscriptions are generally between $30 and $50, but run as high as $165.89 in Finland, the report said. The average U.S. cost was $53.
Where in the hell have they been doing their research? Not in Finland, that's for sure. The average price for an ADSL 512/512Kbps is about 50euros/month here in Finland, and I have a 10Mbps (capped upstrem though) cable for 45euros/month.
Bringing Internet access to campus computer centers made it possible for academics to invent all kinds of interesting communication early on, and commercial deployment of it made it possible for businesses to do interesting things, and bringing high-speed connections to college dorms brought us Napster and its followers, and so we'd expect that deploying the internet to large numbers of residences should let people develop interesting new applications also.
So where are they, and what are they? In the US, the cable modem companies and too many DSL providers have the suicidally clueless idea that their customers should be couch potatoes consuming entertainment, rather than active users providing content or interaction, but most of the rest of the world lets you do what you want with your connection. Is gaming all that's happening, or is the fact that 150% of all Koreans are addicted to online games really a deeper and more complex social interaction (e.g. conversations in MUDs with better fragging?) that's deeper than that?
Or are all the teenagers in Asia and Europe getting their interactivity from cell-phone texting and related services and the broadband is mostly left to improving the mundane stuff? Are people starting to build gateways between them? Will 802.11 suddenly create a new wave of wireless broadband in Asia to compete with the phone companies? (It's easier there than in the US, partly because of wired broadband usage and partly because of geographical concentration and population density, as well as because of provider policy stupidity.) Is broadband cheap and competitive enough that the providers won't worry about 802.11 tapping off customers?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Finland: as high as $165.89
That's probably a bit outdated, the prices are coming down fast... At the moment the "normal" home internet choice is probably 512kbit/512kbit for 50e (~$55) a month.
I used to have an "experimental" 1M/1M wireless (IEEE 802.11b) net for 42e per month, but it didn't work too well... So first they made it 8,5e and after about a year of that, they shut the whole experiment down.
"The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand", or so I have read.
Stolen from the Executive Summary of the report, I give you the top 30:
a nds
Malta
Korea (Rep.)
Hong Kong, China
Canada
Taiwan, China
Denmark
Iceland
Belgium
Sweden
Netherl
Japan
United States
Austria
Switzerland
Singapore
Finland
Germany
Macao, China
St. Kitts and Nevis
Estonia
Slovenia
Spain
Portugal
France
United Kingdom
Israel
Norway
Italy
Australia
New Zealand
I'm still paying 99$ for 32kbps + 1 IP. :-)
Using fixed wireless + 650ms ping to yahoo.com
Minimum salary here is 125$
Who said globalization is bad?
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
Here in Denmark there is a law that if your company provides you with a computer (i.e. laptop), they must supply you with an internet connection at home. This is great for broadband uptake, since big companies can easily afford it when they're ordering it for hundreds of users.
1. Price The price of broadband in Japan is very cheap compared to the USA. You can get 26MB DSL including voice over IP for about $40 per month. 2. Marketing You can't go into a local electronics store in Japan without being bombarded by advertising and sales agents trying to get you to sign up for DSL. On a separate note, the words I read here often defending the USA's lack of leadership in the area of broadband, to me represent a complete ignorance of world geography and population density. Korea: Population: 48 million Land area: 98,480 sq km People/squarekm: 487 Sweden: Population 9 million Land area: 449,964 sq km People/squarekm: 20 USA: Population: 290 million Land area: 9,629,091 sq km People/squarekm: 30.1 Canada: Population: 32 million Land area: 9,976,140 sq km People/squarekm: 3.2 The issue is not population density contrary to what some folks believe. The east coast of the USA has a high population density, but I would say their broadband isn't that great. Also, people say the Canada's population is dense, being close to the US border etc. This is overstated. Even if the majority of the population is within 50 miles of the US border, the US Canada border is HUGE!! This doesn't even account for the fact that even in many small towns that aren't close to the border in Canada have better broadband cost and performance than in the USA. And what about sweden where you can get cheap broadband at 20mbps as well. I don't know why some here seem to be such staunch defenders of US broadband providers.
Of course Koreans have easy access to broadband, it's subsidized by their government. When a government wants to get behind something, they can make it work, whatever it is. The downside is that government resources only stretch so far, so when they push broadband, some other area (education, public welfare, defense, economic investment, etc.) will inevitably get less funding. It's just a matter of priorities.
~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!
Did anybody actually read the story? I don't know where the poster got that story title, but Japan was #10 on the list, barely above the US. South Korean, Hong Kong and Canada were the top 3 in the study.
It's more likely that some middle manager decided that it would keep costs down by restricting support calls to Japanese. No need to hire English speakers, no need to worry about updating the advertisement brochures. Then in typical Japanese fashion, this mandate becomes gospel and anything representing thinking outside the norm becomes forbidden.
I agree with that being the probable source of this particular problem--not that that excuses it--but I wouldn't characterize it as "typical Japanese fashion"; Japanese are, in general, doing quite a bit better than that nowadays. (I've only been in Japan about five years myself, so I can't speak to what Japan was like before that, but assuming that it used to be "typical Japanese fashion", then yes, it has improved.)
Go to McD's and ask for extra ketchup or a Filet O' Fish with no cheese. Try to get a straight quote from any salesperson on any price. See if you can get permission to use a store's restroom in an emergency.
Interesting examples you chose; I've had no trouble with any of them--though I live in the Tokyo area, and it may be that things have changed more quickly here than elsewhere.
It's one reason why crime is so bad here. The police simply don't know how to handle the criminals. Instead of treating them as criminals, they treat them with kid gloves and try to show them respect.
Assuming "here" == Japan, the stories I hear regarding police are usually along the lines of brutal police questioning (which could, granted, result in the police becoming overly careful, but there does not seem to have been much improvement in the time I've been here). From what I have seen and heard--modulo reporting bias, of course--a large part of the recent crime increase seems to be due to (1) foreigners who take advantage of Japanese naivete, (2) kids who don't believe in societal rights and wrongs (probably due to bad parenting), and (3) the conviction of most Japanese over 30 or so that economic growth under 10% is a horrible depression and means the end of the world.
If you are living in Japan, then with all due respect, do you speak Japanese? I frankly think it foolish to try and judge a culture without even being able to speak with the people on an even basis, i.e. in their language.
Interesting note about the bosozoku kid, but I suspect that that's because he isn't actually violating any laws--it isn't until recently that some local governments (Hiroshima comes to mind, can't remember whether it was the city or the prefecture) started taking action--and it's fairly well known that the police don't take action without a sound legal basis. I would agree, however, that society as a whole needs to take more responsibility to deter bosozoku and similar problems.
As far as traffic laws not being enforced, I suspect that's partly due to reluctance to get involved in others' matters, and partly due to the general view that as long as nothing bad happens, breaking the rules is okay. (On the other hand, a friend of mine had her license suspended for stopping less than the requisite three seconds at a stop sign with no traffic around, so it looks like the laws are enforced sometimes...)
The number of disaffected Japanese ojisan going crazy and blowing up office buildings is very tiny,
Actually, I didn't mean to suggest the 30+ people were committing the crimes--but that their endless wailing about the state of the Japanese economy has almost certainly had a negative influence on the children who have grown up listening to it. (I wrote an article on my Japanese home page discussing this very issue, though it's rather lopsided in discussing only this aspect of juvenile crime.) There was a poll done of schoolchildren a few years ago in which one of the questions asked the children to draw a picture representing their image of the future, and 25% or so turned in black or mostly black papers. Not a good sign.
It really makes me sad looking at this country and how the culturally based general apathy and lack of respect for others (interestingly, this is supposed to be one of the big things that the Japanese supposedly have) has brought the societal climate to one of edginess and frequent outbursts of anger. I ride from Shinjuku to Chiba every day, twice. I see this lack of respect played out every single day.
I'd guess the majority of the offenders are in their teens or 20's? I likewise see that frequently from that age group. As to why other people don't stop them, that's probably due not so much to apathy as to the fact that said teens and 20's offenders won't hesitate to injure or kill anyone who annoys them; most "traditional" Japanese are probably scared shitless of the younger generation. I don't know how long you've been in Japan, but there was a rash of incidents along those lines two or three years ago--one at Sangenjaya station where a 40-or-so businessman got beaten to death by four college students because one's foot bumped into the other particularly sticks in my mind.
(This is probably getting off-topic for the article; feel free to E-mail me at achurch@achurch.org if you'd like to continue the discussion.)
This is ironic more than unsurprising I think. It was a long time before broadband became widely available in Japan. I was sitting here using dialup with no other alternative for a couple of years while everyone I knew back in Canada had either cable modems or DSL. Of course, once we could get it ... we got it. Now I know a guy who has freaking fibre!
Of course, when the only other viable option is NO broadband at all, I'll quite happily take the monopoly provider, no matter how ugly.
Would you take broadband if no incoming connections were allowed, everything outgoing but port 80 and port 443 were blocked, and your IP address changed every time one minute has passed with no packets sent?
Would you take broadband if, in addition to the preceding restriction, access to the ISP's affiliated sites were high-speed but access outside the ISP's network were as slow as dial-up? For example, AOL might introduce a web access plan that gives fast access to CNN, Cartoon Network, and other Time properties but slow access to ABC News, MSNBC, Slashdot, and pretty much everything else. Would you want this?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Jeez, I never even thought about using their crappy CD. I've set up SBC dsl for many many friends. I always talked my friends into buying one of those consumer brand router (Dlink or Linksys). Those things take care of PPPoE for you in the cleanest way possible.
Using PPPoE itself, in general, is an ugly affair. Using it on your desktop is even uglier.
For most of us, there is no choice. You have to use SBC. If you don't have to deal with them as your provider, you most certainly have to deal with them as a your last mile provisioner. From my experience, they're rough around the edges initially, but pretty stable in the long run. And the best type of customer service is where you don't have to call in for customer service.
I would not be surprised if their CD was infested with spyware, scamware, etc. But every PC I help set up, I make sure ZoneAlarm, Norton Antivirus and AdAware is on. Those three combined pretty much takes care of any kind of malware you can find on those commercial CDs.
Sorry you're having bad luck with SBC. But believe me they're not THAT bad, compared to scums like Covad, et. al. Good luck!
On my DSL if I connect to a place that has, say, an OC-3, I'll get my full 1.5, since my connection is slower. If I conect to a modem, we'll only get modem speeds of course. However with BBB, you can have a 10mb connection, connect to another 10mb connection and still only get 20k or so. See my ISP has sufficient upstream to major backbones to provide for my full rate all the way. BBB does not.