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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.
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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...
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.
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...
..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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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.
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.
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.