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FCC: Broadband Usage Has Tripled Since 2001
Brainsur writes "According to Newsfactor more and more Americans are migrating to high-speed Internet service, with the number of broadband subscribers tripling in recent years, according to a comprehensive report from the Federal Communications Commission. The U.S. is making progress in delivering broadband access underserved areas, the report states. The report also says that the number of users of broadband services (speeds exceeding 200 kbps in both directions) soared to 28 million in December 2003 from 9.6 million in 2001."
I'm surprised too, that it's been that fast, but I really shouldn't be. Everyone and thier mothers now have Cox Cable for internet in my area..
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Porn has increased three-fold...
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
In a few weeks, I'll be one of 'em. I'm really not surprised, the increase in gaming has made computing much "cooler".
"The U.S. is making progress in delivering broadband access underserved areas, the report states."
I thought we already HAD broadband access underserved areas?
Perhaps you meant, "The U.S. is making progress in delivering broadband access TO underserved areas, the report states."
A lot of people have 200+ kbps uplinks that are artificially capped in the realm of modem speeds by their ISPs. I wonder how many of these have been counted in this survey?
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
In other news... virus activity has tripled since 2001.
Hm, I get 1.5Mbps down, 128kbps up from Verizon DSL. Does this mean I don't have broadband?
It sure would be nice to have a fatter uplink, even if it wasn't a symmetric connection. Of course even though this is slow compared to connections in some countries I'm not complaining too loudly. A few years ago a dual-bonded ISDN 128kbps connection seemed would have been a dream come true.
...the RIAA and MPAA announced the number of people probably stealing their precious intellectual property has probably tripled since 2001, and that they'll be suing everyone just to make sure they don't miss any infringers.
I have become with complacent with this paltry 170kbps down and 15kbps. I need more! I want 125mbps and I want it to be symetrical!
Computer people can eat up excess capacity faster than it can be created. How many people here said when they got their first 20Meg HD "I'll NEVER fill up THAT much space!" I know I did.
All this really means is that in the near future web designers and multimedia providers will start to upgrade the amount of bandwidth needed, and the average person will still be screwed. We all saw it with the 2400 baud modem, the 14.4, the 28.8, and the 56K. We'll see it again with DSL and Cable. Until the day comes when web designers realize that too many geegaws ruin the experience, we'll continue to have this problem.
- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
It doesn't surprise me. Broadband really does change the way you use the Internet, and indeed the computer. No-longer do you have to dial up (or dialing up is automatic and takes seconds), the Internet is just "there" whenever you want to access information.
I have always used the Internet too much, but I definitely notice it has changed the way several of my friends and relations have used their computers.
Just being able to search for something on Google whenever you want, without worrying about people potentially trying to phone you or your minutes running out or your phone line getting hung up is a major boon to trying to write a document or even just read the news.
I wasn't even able to get cable internet untill early 2001, no wonder it's trippled.
It doesn't suprise me, cause i was one of the first people i knew to get Cable internet in my area, now everyone has it.
I remember wanting broadband since 1995. I think it just took the cable industry forever to get the stuff rolled out. www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
I may sound naive, but for the benefit of all naive people like me, why are upload rates typically so much lower than download rates?
I wonder how many cable/DSL services that eliminates. I have cable from a pretty big provider and their TOS states you can't host servers and blah blah... but the upstream is capped at a disappointing 128k, so I couldn't really run a server if I wanted to.
it is getting increasingly inexpensive, faster, and more reliable than dial up...
... the down side, more people means more traffic, the pipes can only get so big, before there is no room left for all, and then there is the IP address problems that will come of it, there is hardly enough to go around now...
IPV6 that will help, but the costs of such a large protocol change will be daunting, to say the least... and what to do about those users that are still on win95/98...
42 69 6C 6C 20 47 61 74 65 73 20 69 73 20 61 20 77 68 6F 72 65 21
t's an interesting thing. There's a huge difference between broadband and POTS (or even ISDN). It just changes the whole connected experience. More and more internet content is predicated on users having broadband access and is not accessible to us 56K'ers. Giant apps., huge patches, streaming video and all the rest of it are just not a possibility for a vast number of internet users in much of the world (probably the majority). In my country broadband is available in some places but is prohibitively expensive for private individuals. Two days (and considerable expense) to download a new kernel versus 20 minutes or so. It is really creating a two tier system with a 56K underclass - sort of a Two Nations scenario.
..........availability. What is the amount of households that actually have access to broadband, that previously didn't in 2001? I know availability has been a real kink in most people's plans to get high speed internet access.
-Randy
As people become more accustomed to using computers, they become less patient.
As people become less patient, they become less likely to want to wait for the loading of such bandwidth intensive sites as, oh, say, Slashdot.
As people become less patient, they become more willing to pay for broadband, and be able to browse at speeds that will amaze them.
Also, file sizes have increased, and so gamers are increasing their pipes to compensate. For those of us, myself included, who have not seen the World of Warcraft beta...that's two gigabytes, downloaded over your internet connection.
Finally, I must point out...BitTorrent really became popular in 2003, as is evidenced by WoW using it as a distribution method.
Small wonder, then, that broadband is increasingly becoming a necessity.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
Doing my own math here:
So is it:
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Is this another stupid "war" like the old GSM vs. CDMA?
Or it's only a simple matter of who owns the connections - cable & media companies in US and Telcos elsewhere?
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Recently my girlfriend started surfing big for the first time in her life when she got cable broadband. I asked her why she didn't use the internet back during dial-up days and she said "Well, it took so long to get to web pages; I always thought the Internet was broken! Its now like changing a channel on TV."
Open Source Sushi
Hmm my out going is capped at 128k like everyone else on my system..
That is, if i dont use it, once i do, my downstream is pretty much cut off at the knees..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Helps in increasing this. We're sort of a meta-ISP. We do cable modem infrastructure rollouts and provide phone technical support for small MSOs (multiple service providers, i.e. cable companies). Check us out at ibbsonline.com. And, wouldn't you know it, it was founded at the end of 2001.
/.ing.
P.S. I hope our servers can handle a
Verizon is launching a DSL service that is twice as fast as its current DSL offering, with downloads of up to 3 Mbps. story here
Especially because of this, the broadband wars should become interesting.
I think you can attribute this to more and more "package" deals that weren't available previously. For instance, here in the NY/NJ area, Optimum Online is offering a TV/Internet/telephone deal for $90 / month for a year (digital cable, internet, SIP phone) to users of any one or two of their services. That is a stellar deal in my book, considering that with optimum I am used to averaging 8.5 megabits down. I'm sure there are deals like this all over the place.
Coupled with that, take a look at the number of modem-friendly web pages out there - I would think that this number declines proportionately with the increase in broadband use.
Oh, I'm sorry. I guess one of you out there has no sense of humor. So, I'll explicate just a little bit.
As someone who installs broadband devices for a living, let me tell you what this "explosion" in broadband numbers means. Every day more and more people are getting on the Interweb for the very first time. They aren't doing much more than fucking up signal-to-noise ratios, when they do manage to interact. For the most part, they just want in on ebay or poker room or porn.
The Internet failed to be a wonderful, great, uplifting experience for humanity. Now, it's just another corporate shill in a never-ending line of shills.
Now, you may also mod this as bitter, off-topic and a troll. But it is true. And you all know it.
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I don't know if I can trust this report. Netcraft has yet to confirm it.
...mostly due to one the major drawbacks of the modern computing:
Bloating in all of the ways possible, so the increase of the data size creates a need in increase of the amount of storage required for it, as well as the bandwidth for its transfer
I have often dreamed of a cable router that is capable of using two phone lines in with dsl service. Lets say 2 lines at 3.0 Mbps downstream doubled to 6.0 (!) and 312 upstream side. The cable modem would have to be smart enough to manage and combine the two lines as one line. But man, talk about nice and fast! I am sure its most likely not a complete solution, but its just a dream of mine. It would be cheaper than anything else i can think of for those of us who need bandwidth on a budget. And that most likely applies to all of us.
Will this suffice as 'proof of concept" D
How much has internet use increased in the last 3 years? I'm sure tripling the amount of broadband users is a big deal, and I'm part of those statistics, but how many are still without broadband (and still will be without in another 3 years)?
Most who don't either:
A) Can't (lack of availability) *** this is big
B) Don't know the benefits
C) Haven't used it before
D) All of the above?
I know a family that pays for multiple phone lines and TWO $20+/m ISPs...they could have DSL for both computers for $30-40/m from verizon.
3x increase in 3 years is nice and all, but we're still way behind some other countries due to all the rural areas. Rural areas not having broadband won't change because there's no profit in expanding there. I'm talking out in the sticks. I'm guessing in 3 years one of my friends still won't even have the OPTION of broadband if he still lived where he does now. Luckily for him he probably won't live there.
The Xincom TwinWAN, model number XC-DPG402.
I haven't used it, but Cringely uses one and seems to like it.
~Philly
The latest new DSL offering in Sweden was 26Mbps, and that came last summer.
The most common upgrade these days in Sweden is 10Mbit full duplex to 100Mbit full duplex.
When are you US guys going to realize you're being shafted? The phone companies have no interest in promoting broadband beyond the lowest rate the market will bearably tolerate; it threatens their existing cash cow.
Is 200kbps broadband nowdays? (Has 200kbps ever been broadband?)
It might be better than modem, but.. 4 times faster, I don't know. It's, halfband, ASDL, but it's not broadband!
I'd go as low as 512kbps!
Ivan makes us wet and blows hard
Tobacco products may or may not cause cancer
Slashdot readers have little use for obvious news
I wonder how many users signed up for broadband particularly for Xbox Live. I've got several customers at the store where I work (we sell games) that discuss Xbox Live and how they're considering signing up for broadband particularly for this purpose.
Speed & 200 kbps in the same sentence...
200 kbps is so 1999........
.... the rate is probably not what they claim, but less than that, especially since I recently saw a story on slashdot saying doubled....
Broadband was/is subsidized by dialup subscribers.
Dialup legal position is one of insuring better competition.... some FCC thing about telephone line equal opportunity..... anti-monopoly.
But cable is not that way legally and can be and is used in a monopolistic manner. If I want a cable modem here there is only no choice but comcast.
I'm sure the report is a marketing effort making things sound better than they are in order to attract the "jump on the (broad) band wagon"... keep up with the jones...
It works against your consumer freedom of choice.
I first got broadband, in the form of a cablemodem, in 2000. It cost $40/month for 3 Mbps down, 384 kbps up. Now it costs $50/month for the same speed.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Our American government colludes with business to rape the consumer. I see only one solution--make the politicians accountable to public opinion, and then start indicting, trying and hanging some politicians.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I hope you aren't surprised by who he is blaming since he will say anything for elections.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
...there's no such thing as too much porn.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
If we go straight to hanging I'm willing to bet it would work wonders as an inducement for honesty and true public service for the survivors.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I just recently ordered a high-speed cable internet connection, to go along with my existing DSL connection. 6 months ago, I would have said doing something like this was "complete overkill" and "bordering on crazy" - but with recent price-drops on routers and service itself, it's not a bad option!
I'm planning to use a load-balancing router that supports 2 simultaneous incoming connections. The "Hotbrick" unit I went with only costs $189 (with free shipping from a couple vendors such as Eagle Computer, if you look on pricewatch.com for it).
Right now, my local cable company is running a special where installation is only $9.95, and the first 3 months for the fastest package they offer is $29.95 per month. After that, it's about $39.95 per month. You get about 3mbit download and 256K up with this plan.
Meanwhile, I can get about the same rates for $38.95 per month for DSL. Combined, I'm paying about $80 per month (less for the first few months) for all of this bandwidth. Sure, it's not exactly "cheap" by some people's standards -- but I remember paying about $130/mo. for a lousy 128K ISDN circuit years ago, just to do a little better than dial-up modem connections. We've come a long way!
unfortunately, i'm still stuck on a lousy 56k modem AND aol. talk about frustrating. i live out in the sticks, so no one offers broadband to my house, but my (not-so-close) neighbors can get verizon dsl or charter cable
"As you say - certain behaviors minimize the HIV risk and writing Slashdot tripe on Friday night is by far the most secu
Stop gloating you spoiled Swede!!! Just kidding.
Darnit, I just looked, and there is no "-1 Bitter" mod.
I don't really know what your point is. Is every new invention judged by whether it turns out to be "a wonderful, great, uplifting experience for humanity"? And if it isn't its an abject failure? Kinda setting the bar a little high aren't you?
The corps are here, but they don't have a monopoly on usage of the Internet (not yet at least). Personally I think the open, decentralised, collabaration, as well as the global communication characteristics of the Internet means it has enormous revolutionary potential, and you only need to look at Linux to see something that never would have been created if not for the Internet. Never mind that there wouldn't be a F/OS community either.
Uhmmm, wrong.
Yes, the net is a medium for information, and maybe the corporate control is not total.
But it is remarkably prevalent in the households that are swarming to broadband. After all, what was the last commercial you saw advertising a website that was free, didn't require registration, and would let you look up interesting things? You don't.
Instead, these hundreds of people are signing on to their corporate billboards - being sold crap without the nasty inconvenience of the unwashed masses actually going out to stores (even if they themselves are the unwashed masses).
Is the internet a failure? Not quite, but it's looking bad for the home team. Should inventions be judged by their relative merit to humanity? Mmmm, probably. That's why I'm not sold on the space program. I do not see how most of that money could not be better used down here, used in demonstrable ways to improve living conditions - instead of promising us some idea of how "we might be able to get five people to Mars alive!" Or whatever. Joy to the five space colonists, and fuck the rest of us?
Would Linux and OS be possible without the net? Who knows? But this isn't really about that, it's about what has happened now that broadband is exploding. It used to be said that the Internet was like the world's largest library, with no card catalogue and no librarian to ask help from. Now, it's that same library, only with thieves and killers in the rows. And unprepared users are swarming into it every day.
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"speeds exceeding 200 kbps in both directions"
That's the definition of broadband there. By that standard, most of us aussies don't even have broadband, except for those "business broadband" customers who pay a lot more.
All these thanks to our evil phone company telstra. Apparently they charge $70 to the ISP just to provide a "service" of catering a 1500kbps adsl connection. While charging a lower fee to 256k adsl lines.
Yet, the irony is.. there is no cost differential for them whatever port speed they provide.
This kind of thing can only happen in a monopoly!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
I cruise upstream at a blazing 16Kbps. Thank you, Mediacom. :P
When was the last time you gave a damn about the last commercial you saw?
Yea, but so what? That's always true in any "open system" where the commercial interests will concentrate on their profit concerns, but anyone who bothers to look around will find other uses for the system. Have the corporations killed off USENET? No, it may not be as popular as AOL forums (never been there, don't know), but plenty are still using it. I don't have the problem you have with sharing the net with the commercial interests, as long as they don't try to control or dictate how I can use the net, I'm fine with them being here.
Huh? Its a "buyer beware" world out there, and has been long before the net showed up. If people want to be sheep, or just idiots, and buy what the corps want them to, thats the people's problem, not ours, its their money after all, and its not the Internet's fault if they choose to waste it. It sounds like you want to blame the car when people use one to go to a distant Walmart instead of a local mom-n-pop shop. Is that the car's fault? Look, as frustrating as it may be, people being stupid/naive/lazy/selfish hasn't been made illegal yet.
Never mind defining who the "home team" is, we don't even agree on what definiton to use for "failure" here.
See, we definitely don't agree on what is valuable to humantiy and what is a waste of money. Personaly, I believe the space program will save humanity from itself one day, assuming people like you don't manage to shut it down before then.
I know. Anyone who knows anything about the development of Linux knows the Internet was the only vehicle then (and still now) that could bring all the disparate peoples from around the world together in one virtual place and allow them to collabarate on Linux's construction. It couldn't have happened any other way, a global, decentralized, digital network was simply a requirement.
That's a really weird analogy. Seriously, if you're referring to fraud and con-artists, they existed long before the Internet too. A conman will go anywhere "the mark" goes, and if the mark (the victim) goes online, the conman is going to follow. I still don't see that as the Internet's fault either, and it certainly doesn't prove the Internet is a failure, only that its popular.
Its my impression that you're saying the Internet's commercialization is proof of its failure, and that just doesn't make sense to me. I agree that the commercialization may not lead to the most profound and revolutionary consequences of the Internet, but it doesn't prevent those conseqences from happening either. The corps will play their old money games, but the rest of us will keep on doing our own thing as well.