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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.
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?
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...
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.
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.
Yeah. That would explain why Canada was third, eh.
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...
Anyone know where to get a listing of the _full_ leaderboard?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
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.
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...
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.
Raw data transcribed from the PDF. All errors are possibly mine. (**LIST AT END OF COMMENT DUE TO LAME FILTERS**)
This added because of lame lame filter, bla, bla, bla, bla. And so on. This is so lame I can't believe I have to do this.
As local and national governments prepare for the challenges of the information society, there is much interest in who is doing well, and who is doing poorly, in broadband Internet access. Broadband access is being touted as a way for governments to attract investment, ensure future economic prosperity and provide enhanced social welfare. But among developing countries, there is a fear that the huge investments necessary to establish wide-scale broadband access will open up a new digital divide.
This workshop examined the different strategies that have been followed by ITU Member States, at local and national levels, for promoting the deployment and use of broadband networks. The key research question was why some economies have been more successful than others and whether this success can be replicated.
The topic "promoting broadband" was selected on the basis of priorities expressed by ITU Member States and Sector Members. This and other topics in the New Initiatives series are chosen on the basis of a regular questionnaire sent to all ITU Member States and Sector Members.
Workshop objectives
In April 2003, the ITU Secretary-General convened a small group of policy-makers, broadband service providers, telecommunication regulators, academics, and various other experts, serving in an individual capacity, to discuss the best ways to promote broadband deployment and use around the world. Through these discussions, the workshop attempted to identify the characteristics of successful broadband deployment that can be used by other governments, especially in developing countries, in establishing their own broadband policies.
Trying to get this posted took longer than writing down the data itself. This is so idiotic it's amazing. Hey, I'm trying to post at Score: 2 here. I'd maybe understand if anons had it a little tougher...
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 30.3). We'll then I guess I'll just keep on trying then. This _is_ going to be posted, one way or another. Where did I put my markov-generator, I need it.... Take some source code in the meanwhile " bool r = ( left_weight_table[b] + right_weight_table[b] > 4 ) && (left_weight_ table[b] != right_weight_table[b]);"
33.5 and still not allowed to post. I mean, this is just an amazingly stupid heuristic. Who the fuck wrote this crap? Please stand forward in the light and show yourself.
How about a little SCO quote then?
35.2 ... Oh, well. There goes my chance of making a meaningful contribution early in the thread. You know, that sort of thing that slashdot should encourage, not make impossible. How about some of my tech-docs then?
The size of this table is Ceiling(num_chars/2.0), which can be calculated as follows using integer math: There are (num_chars / 2) + (num_chars mod 2) where num_chars := last_char - first_char + 1 bytes in the wtable,
where the width for the first character is in the high bits of the first byte of the wtable, the width for the second character are in its low bits, and so on.
Not a dent. This is very depressing. I've been at it for five minutes now. Man, oh man... where's the limit then? 60? How stupid can this thing get?
0.3 Argentina
0.6 Australia
6.6 Austria
0.2 Bahrain
8
Belief is the currency of delusion.
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
..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 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...
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.
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.
I'm in Seoul at the moment. I have cable broadband for 33,000won/month, about US$29, including the tv side. Most people do have cable or DSL here.
However, it sucks. Goes down often which is normal for some US providers too. But when it does work, it's got some fat bandwidth but it's VERY laggy making most online games unplayable. My friend has DSL and the situation isn't any better.
Maybe if they gave it away in the US for almost nothing also, it would be wider spread there. But I much prefer my broadband at my US apt to the broadband here! (Even though it costs more than double, worth every penny!)
-e.
S Korea and Japan lead with between 60 and 70% of S Korean households wired for speed, with Japan catching up quickly.
With about 80-90% of these households running open proxies to be hijacked by spammers. That is not really something to be proud of. (Ask any ISP who resorted to using korea.blackholes.us.)
but it is disappointing that the availability and price are in such sorry states here in the U.S."
Price is more of a setback than anything else.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
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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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)
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.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
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.
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.
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.
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.