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Broadband Usage Up 42% In The U.S. In 2003
Kickassthegreat writes "As reported here by Reuters, broadband usage in the U.S. jumped 42 percent in 2003 as compared to 2002. As more people sign on to high-speed access, how long will it be before we start seeing the cable companies (such as Comcast) start dropping their prices to levels which compete directly with dial-up?"
It would be nice to know what they took as "broadband" speed. I know that the speeds of broadband in Japan are blinding compared to what we have in the U.S.
If they raised their standards perhaps we would see quite a different deployment figure.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
As soon as enough people have broadband you can be damn sure ISP's will start introducing draconian bandwidth limits.
Damn if I know when Comcast will drop their prices but damn they're expensive!
I've had three broadband connections (that I've actually payed for). DSL at home in NJ which has good pings but wasn't high bandwidth, Time Warner RR cable in Rochester which was pretty good in both respects, and now Comcast in Boston. If someone had told me in advance that my Comcast connection would be 9Mbits/second I'd be less irritated with their absurd fees.
Damn bastards usually want $60 a month plus all kinds of installation fees and shit. Fortunately I'm getting it for $20 a month for 3 months, and that's as long as I need it. But in the end their customer service still blows chunks.
What gets me is that in different regions around the US the same service can vary in price by $30 dollars. DSL in some places is $30 a month and in others it can go as high as $60, for the same speed! And I'm not even referring to people who live out in the boonies who may have to pay a premium which is somewhat understandable.
Presently here, but not there.
Infrastructure costs to the ISP are several times higher for cable than dialup or DSL. Also, there's value to the customer in providing faster connections.
That said, after watching my third web host lose data for me (yes, they said they did daily backups and I believed them) I decided to host my own domain, pitched my cable modem and found a provider that gave me a 768k SDSL pipe for the same price as my cable modem.
Comcast's pipe is four times as fast downstream but my pipe is considerably faster upstream - fast enough for me to host my own web and mail and pitch the web host. My DSL provider gives me a synchronous connection for $45 a month and doesn't care if I run a server as long as I don't exceed his rather generous bandwidth allocation. For me it was a win-win situation.
If the market will bear higher prices I guess it's reasonable to expect people to charge higher prices. Sad, but true.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
What do you think your digital cable box with 1000's of channels does all damn day with that bandwidth? Set up spam from China? Wouldn't suprise me much to be honest.
Dialup sucks ass. It's only used by those who can't get Fiber To The County or so, for the most part. I remember one customer yelling at me years ago because a sales rep said I'd go out there and install a cable modem and internet setup even though he lived some 10 miles from the nearest fiber optic node and didnt even have hard line ran near his zip code. He had a phone though. Imagine the trouble I'd got in for suggesting that he go through a competitor to get dialup.
Thats just a small testament to how lucrative that market is. They need every penny they can get and there is a huge job market for fiber splicers and installers alike. Problems only arise when there is only one company offering broadband in a given location. For years in mine we saw ads like "Time Warner Cable - Your Only Choice" with a big fuckin smile across it on bus stops and billboards.
There are of course the huge issues of how that bandwidth is used. Ideally we wouldn't NEED all that expensive head end multiplexing with GW/hr power consumption if there was not:
- spam
- media pirating
- worm ridden windows boxes
This is where a large part of the cost seems to emanate. The ISP doesn't even really care about how much you DOWNLOAD, its what you UPLOAD, and 2 of the 3 above are good examples of what problems should be dealt with first. I know you gotta upload it to download it guys but usually people who upload aren't real concerned that its going to cut into thier 56k modems QoS capabilities.It seems here we find the core of many many issues present in today's communications' agendas.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
Why is the question relevant? Although they provide access to the same thing, the infrastucture, support costs and underlying service differ enough that there SHOULD be a cost difference. I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but to me the guy just said Lexus are selling like crazy, now when will they have Chevy prices? And I'm not a business mind, but if sales (demand) are up, what motivation would there be to lower costs to your competitors' inferiour service?