FCC: Broadband Usage Has Tripled Since 2001

not bad.. by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2004-09-12 05:08 · Score: 2, Insightful

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..

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Re:not bad.. by soluzar22 · 2004-09-12 05:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm surprised it's been that slow. EVERYONE seems to have broadband now.

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Re:not bad.. by DrEldarion · 2004-09-12 05:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm surprised that it's not faster. Once people come to the realization that what they're paying for a second phone line plus their AOL/Earthlink subscription is more than it costs for broadband, they usually switch pretty quickly.

I wonder why the broadband providers haven't been pushing that angle.
Re:not bad.. by Toresica · 2004-09-12 06:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

Only people who live in or near cities.

It's not possible to get broadband in remote places - Nothern Ontario, for instance.

In other words... by flewp · 2004-09-12 05:08 · Score: 5, Funny

Porn has increased three-fold...

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Re:In other words... by DrEldarion · 2004-09-12 06:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

You joke, but many of the higher-profile sites are going more towards video than just pictures nowadays, and that just won't work with dialup. It's not rare to find sites with gigs upon gigs of downloadable videos.

...

or so I hear.

There's a missing preposition that sentence! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-12 05:13 · Score: 3, Funny

"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."

200 kbps uplink? by ca1v1n · 2004-09-12 05:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

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?

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Re:200 kbps uplink? by lphuberdeau · 2004-09-12 05:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

A while back, my ISP had 1 mbps down and 64kbps up, now it's around 3mbps down and 640kbps up. Since it's one of the largest ISP in Canada, that change sure is part of the statistics. I wonder how many other ISPs increased the upstream during this period.

One of the questions I ask myself is how 1mbps can be considered as not broadband, even if the upstream is lower.

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Re:200 kbps uplink? by QuickSilver_999 · 2004-09-12 05:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually it didn't change the statistics at all. Since this was an FCC report about US statistics, Canadian ISPs wouldn't be reported. It's just that the reporter is obviously a self centered US citizen, since he uses the generic term "American" to mean ONLY the USA. :)

Course, I usually fall into that category too. When will you darn Canucks learn that you aren't American just because you occupy more of the continent than we do? :)

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- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
Re:200 kbps uplink? by Zen+Punk · 2004-09-12 06:47 · Score: 4, Funny

you darn Canucks...occupy more of the continent than we do
Dude just because that whole area is labeled Canadia on the map doesn't mean they're spread on there thick like Cream Cheese. All them Canucks settle to bottom, like potato chips. All that room up top is just, like, bears and stuff.

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Sleep is futile.

In other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-12 05:14 · Score: 5, Funny

In other news... virus activity has tripled since 2001.

Both directions? by Fooby · 2004-09-12 05:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

...broadband services (speeds exceeding 200 kbps in both directions)...

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.

Re:Both directions? by ajiva · 2004-09-12 05:45 · Score: 3, Funny

YES! I have 384k down, and 256k up! I have broadband and YOU don't! Neer neeer neee!
Re:Both directions? by The+Analog+Kid · 2004-09-12 05:56 · Score: 2, Informative

You know since you have 1.5 down your less than 15,000ft from the CO, you can call up and get a free upgrade to 384k up. Verizon also now offers 3.0/768k for $40 if you have the Freedom package and $44 if you don't. You have to be 11,000ft max for that though. Make sure to call billing though since only they do the upgrades.
Re:Both directions? by Grym · 2004-09-12 06:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Hm, I get 1.5Mbps down, 128kbps up from Verizon DSL. Does this mean I don't have broadband?
No. You don't.
Somewhere along the line, the word "broadband" got a legal definition. Because of all the Peer-to-Peer stuff, though, most ISPs prefer to severely limit the upstream. This is why nearly all companies advertise their internet connections as "high-speed" rather than broadband now.
-Grym

In other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-12 05:17 · Score: 5, Funny

...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.

Not that it matters... by QuickSilver_999 · 2004-09-12 05:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.

Re:Not that it matters... by QuickSilver_999 · 2004-09-12 05:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

You miss understood. The problem is not the bigger and better hardware/bandwidth. The problem is that programmers and designers become more and more sloppy as things get bigger. One of the best word processors I ever used was Appleworks, which ran in 64K (128K if you wanted to do anything serious). And that 64K included the operating system!

Now we have to have some from MicroSoft (which is rather an ironic name now that their programs have become so damn bloated. Maybe we should rename them MacroSoft) that take minutes to load on anything less than a 100% state of the art machine, and can only be used if you have a shitload of memory and hard drive space.

Same for the bandwidth. Look what Microsoft tried to do with IRC! Let's send little cartoon representations of everyone on the chat line. After all, people have 28.8K modems now, we can waste a little bandwidth. *sigh* IRC did the job just fine, and still does it. We don't NEED to add crap to it like that.

What it means though in this case is that even we will always have the problem of running out of bandwidth. It won't matter if every house in the US has a fiber 100Gig connection to the Internet, as it is designers will figure out a way to overload it to the point that it's worthless.

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- No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades really cramps his style.
Re:Not that it matters... by hackstraw · 2004-09-12 06:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

I disagree. Standard web stuff is expected to be pretty much "instant" with a "broadband" class connection, and its been that way for years, and if a standard website does not load fast, it would have to be of some pretty unique and desired content that cannot be found elsewhere for someone to wait for it.

Now transferring masive files, that is a different story. A download (or upload) is expected to take some time, and even with a fast connection, the transfer rate will vary according to the protocol of the transfer, the speed of all the internode hops, etc etc. If anyone consistantly gets downloads of over 1 mbit/s for all of thier downloads, please let me know what your internet connection is. Right now I have access from anything from a cable modem at home to Internet2 at work. The fastest transfers I get in real day to day life is about 3.5 MByte/s using scp (I could be CPU bound here), and that is more than fast enough for transfering gigs of data at a time. When I transfer large amounts of data, its ususally audio files, and I transfer about 1 Gig at a time which takes less than 5 minutes. Thats fast enough for me. I can transfer data faster than I can realistically process it. Meaning I could not burn that much data to CD in that time, or listen to it, or hell even finish reading all of the info about it.

I don't know anyone who still does dialup except my dad and he says its "fast enough" for him and its not worth paying the extra $20 a month for a faster connection.

The broadband advantage... by Ianoo · 2004-09-12 05:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

and why not? by tc3driver · 2004-09-12 05:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

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...

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Rest of the World by Cutterman · 2004-09-12 05:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

Re:Question... by phillymjs · 2004-09-12 05:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

Because we are supposed to be consumers of content, not producers.

Endusers running servers are verboten by the broadband services Joe Sixpack is most likely to use (like Comcast and Verizon), so Joe Sixpack is only given enough upstream bandwidth to send HTTP requests and whatnot.

~Philly

Re:Question... by exi1ed0ne · 2004-09-12 05:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

The size of an http request is very tiny compared to the webpage content you are requesting. The theory goes that you don't need to send a lot of data out, but you will get lots of data in. Also, it makes it frustrating to operate any services like mail or web. This way they can charge more for symetrical speeds.

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Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.

Re:Question... by Geiger581 · 2004-09-12 05:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

There is only so much bandwidth on a copper line. The split is made because most end consumers just downloaded content, with very little traffic needed to send HTTP requests, emails, or IMs. However, P2P makes the lopsidedness much more acute nowadays.

I think a more interesting number would be.... by ARRRLovin · 2004-09-12 05:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

..........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.

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-Randy

Unsurprising. by rincebrain · 2004-09-12 05:29 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

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It's only an insult if it's not true.

Funky math by toetagger1 · 2004-09-12 05:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

"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."

Doing my own math here:

12/2003 - 12/2001 = 24 months;
12/2003 - 01/2001 = 36 months

So is it:

6,900,000 people / 24 months = 287,500 people/month
6,900,000 people / 36 months = 191,667 people/month

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Re:Funky math by Mod+Me+God+Too · 2004-09-12 05:44 · Score: 2, Funny

Sir, I find your math funkier.

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DSL vs. Cable by rozz · 2004-09-12 05:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

In North America, Cable clearly dominates the broadband market ... Western Europe and the far East on the other had are overhelmingly betting on DSL.

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?

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"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Re:DSL vs. Cable by angrykeyboarder · 2004-09-12 05:51 · Score: 2, Informative

From my POV, it's who offers the best overall deal. I've had broadband in two metropolitan areas (Atlanta and Phoenix) and in both places Cable offered a faster connection (4 MB/s download vs 1.5 MB/s download for DSL) for approximately the same price.

Advantage:cable

Also having cable broadband allows one to completely free themselves of a landlines phone. Get a cell phone with unlimited local calling along with your cable internet and who needs a landline phone?

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Scott

©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
Re:DSL vs. Cable by True+Grit · 2004-09-12 11:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

Advantage:cable

That depends on what you need, and how much money you're willing to spend for it. For cheapskates like me, who are still fine with land-line phones, and also not addicted to cable TV, the advantage goes to DSL.

I chose 512kbps/128kbps DSL from a phone company (Sprint), even though its not true broadband and not the fastest available. My thinking was, since I already "had to have" local and long distance service, getting the whole package together effectively makes the DSL service ~30$ a month. Now, my net connection is always-on, doesn't tie up my phone, and is roughly ~9x faster but only ~12$ more than dial-up.

Cable on the other hand doesn't offer me anything else I'm interested in. I dumped cable TV ~3 years ago, when they wanted 35$ for ~100 channels, of which ~80 I considered to be absolute junk, and almost half of what was left were broadcast channels I could get locally.

who needs a landline phone?

Well, since I'm not a big talker, and never considered instant convenient communication to be essential, I never bothered with cellphones since they are always more expensive than land line phone service.

This perhaps may depend on who your local phone company is, but it goes both ways too. Adelphia is the only local cable company I have, and because of financial difficulty (bankruptcy) and mismanagement (being financially gutted by their former owner), Adelphia is milking their customers for every dollar it can get (to help it recover), making the phone company's package deal (local/long distance/DSL) very favorable (to me at least).

Of course, I'd love to have 3mbps downstream, but 512kbps means apt-get update only takes about 80 seconds, and the following upgrade runs at 3MB/1min, instead of 1MB/3min. Now web pages are almost instantaneous, what took hours now take minutes, and since I'm not a heavy downloader (no movies or music), thats more than good enough for me. Most importantly, the net increase in my monthly costs is just $20. OC, YMMV.

Not Surprising by poofyhairguy82 · 2004-09-12 05:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Broadband "fixes" the Internet for many people. It might shock some /.ers, but some people hate waiting for computers. In a world where your TV, dvd player, radio,ect. just instantly comes on and works, broadband allows the internet to do the same.

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."

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Open Source Sushi

Exceeding 200k? by nurb432 · 2004-09-12 05:54 · Score: 2, Informative

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..

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The Company I work for by Laebshade · 2004-09-12 05:57 · Score: 2, Informative

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.

P.S. I hope our servers can handle a /.ing.

Verizon 2x speed by sometwo · 2004-09-12 06:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

Not very surprising.. by baudilus · 2004-09-12 06:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

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.

Re:The September that Never Ended.... by mat+catastrophe · 2004-09-12 06:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

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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Trustworthy? by DeltaHat · 2004-09-12 06:14 · Score: 4, Funny

I don't know if I can trust this report. Netcraft has yet to confirm it.

Yawn by CrystalFalcon · 2004-09-12 06:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

Xbox Live? by xombo · 2004-09-12 07:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

The report is probably part marketing... by 3seas · 2004-09-12 07:45 · Score: 3, Informative

.... 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 haven't seen that by Trepidity · 2004-09-12 07:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.

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Re:I haven't seen that by Saeger · 2004-09-12 10:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

And I first got broadband in the form of SDSL from Northpoint, in 1999. IIRC, it cost $180/mo for 784kbps/784kbps (and I got a northpoint friend give me a "free upgrade" to 1.5mbps/1.5mbps). When Northpoint went belly up about a year or so later, I switched to RoadRunner cable's 2mbps/256kbps for $40/mo. Another year later and Time warner increased the speed to 3mbps/384kbps at no extra cost to me.
Overall, I'm getting more bang for my buck. Oh, and I download and upload multiple Gigs like a mofo, and not a peep from Timewarner in over 4 years. (NYC area.)
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FCC: Broadband Usage Has Tripled Since 2001

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