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Report: Broadband In US Homes Nearly 20 Percent
jangobongo writes "A Commerce Department report, prepared in September, shows that the number of Americans using fast internet connections doubled from 2001 to late 2003. Experts are disappointed though, because even though 12 million households switched to broadband, the total amounts to about 19.9 percent of all U.S. households, lagging far behind countries that include South Korea, Taiwan and Canada."
Queue comments on relative population density of Canada and the U.S., and how Canadians actually tend to live in cities more than Americans, yadda, yadda, yadda... blah, blah, blah...
It is the same reason why a lot of people buy crappy cheapo PCs that will break and improperly run software vs. spending the extra money and buy something that is more reliable. Because Americans have a hard time quantifying Value for a product vs. the Cost of the product.
Excuse me? Somehow this just doesn't compute for me. Inexpensive PCs don't equal problems you know. Everyone has problems w/ALL PCs, regardless of original cost, mostly because they don't know how (or care to know how) to take care of them.
Take anyone who goes and buys the top of the line PC from Store X. It's wicked fast, has all the extras, and is great for two months until they fill it full of worthless programs, Spyware, and fail to do even the most basic maintenance.
It's like a car... Regular mainteance and care and the car will likely run well into the 100s of thousands. If you push either car to 10+k miles on each oil change, never bring it in for regular service, and let the tires bald you are going to end up with more problems.
the difference is that we americans pay for it right out of our pockets whereas in many of these countries where it seems so great that everyone has low-cost high-speed internet access, they're paying for it with taxes and subsidies, so in the end it really evens out.
What do you think those franchise fees and random taxes attached to your X services are for? Exactly. Funding line upgrades, service extensions, and rural users' 28.8k dialup connections.
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We've got money, and an appetite for media.
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YOU may have money and an appetite for media, but most New Yorkers probably don't.
I would wager that in New York city, the people who want broadband likely have broadband.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Exactly! We all know that watching Survivor and COPS is for morons. People with a life play MMORPGs and read Slashdot.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
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If your government considers it inappropriate to help treat you when you're sick what makes you think that it would consider it any more appropriate to help you download MP3s at a faster rate?
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Maybe it's because most Americans are man enough to take care of themselves instead of whining to their nannystate to take care of them when they have a runny nose that we're the only nation (the fine Brits and Aussies excepted) who still have enough b**** to actually take care of murdering thugs around the world so the French can continue sipping their wines on the Rhine and comment on how gauche those American barbarians are.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.