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."

Comments

The United States is big

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it lags behind smaller countries, or in the case of Canada, one which is all bunched up along the US border for the most part. We've got a LOT of ground to cover.

Re:The United States is big

[cyber0ne]

We've got a LOT of ground to cover.

Exactly. The Asian countries listed are about the size of one US state, but with much higher population density. So high-speed lines run through a town there will reach far more people per mile of cabling. (Not to mention the labor force to roll out such lines is much cheaper.)

As for Canada... Last time I checked, the population density of about 85% of the land mass was between 0 and 1 person per square kilometer. Put up some high speed networks in the southeast of Canada, stretch them west along the US border, and you've pretty much hit your entire population.

The US, on the other hand, has metropolitan areas (ranging in size/density of course) dotted across much of its land mass, with vast spaces of land in between. And not nearly as much of that land is as sparsely populated as Canada's northern wilderness. It will take a lot more work to reach as much of a majority of homes.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the US has a much larger, older, and more complicated communications network in place than just about any other country in the world. It takes time to roll over to new technologies without disturbing the existing infrastructure.

Re:The United States is big

[Technician]

We've got a LOT of ground to cover.

That's only part of it. The other is price. For those who just use it for getting the news and checking E-mail, $50 + per month is a little steep. The cable company has the trick of calling a extra fee a discount if you also have cable TV.

We have lots of ground to cover as you mentioned, but most of the population lives in cities. There are not that many people in the woods in Montana, in the deserts of Nevada and Utah, and in the plains of Oklahoma and Wyoming. Even in those states most of the population in clustered in cities that have broadband. Having a large country does not mean it's population is away from population centers.

All it really amounts to is if you are not subscribing to pay TV, they charge an extra chunk of change to provide broadband. Not everyone is buying it.

The phone company tries to do the same thing in many areas with DSL to combat the consumers fleeing all the tack on charges on POTS. It used to be cell phones were expensive. All the tack on fees on a landline have leveled the playing field. Now many people don't have a reason to keep a landline and landline subscriptions are down. (I think I heard about 20% of US households no longer have a landline, but use cell service as the primary phone.)

Between the two jacking up the price with all the fees for not also getting other services, I simply am priced out of broadband. I use broadband at work to get my latest distro and use dial-up at home simply because a year of broadband is about the same price as a new PC. One option many take to beat the high cost is wardriving. I'll deal with the e-mail speed and get the new PC or laser printer instead.

Slashdot works fine on dial-up. I load a page ahead of time in a new tab and continue reading in my current tab. Dial-up is fast enough. I can't read any faster.

Many countries have affordable broadband. In some cities the city can provide the entire city with broadband for almost an order of magnitude less per household than a connection here. Here the rollout is slowed by the desire to please the shareholders. Too many markets have too few choices permitting the monopoly pricing of broadband to replace income lost to Satelite TV and Cell Phones. These markets have slow growth.

Broadband is not priced for mass use in the USA yet. The providers are trying to cherry pick profitable consumers. Those willing to pay the price are those who tend to be heavy downloaders. The price keeps low bandwidth profitable users from signing up. Now the ISP's are trying to figure out how to make a high bandwidth user not be such an expensive user. I'm still waiting for them to price it for the low bandwidth users.

Re:The United States is big

[ThePiMan2003]

Good but age of country != age of comunications infrastructure. If the telephone had been invented 1000 years ago you would be right, but I'm afriad you are not.

Re:The United States is big

[timeOday]

Exactly. The Asian countries listed are about the size of one US state, but with much higher population density.

OK, fine, so let's compare Taiwan to New York City - just the city. That should be population-dense enough for you. What do you find? US still loses.

Re:The United States is big

[cyber0ne]

Wrong. Unless you are comparing the US to countries like Israel, Taiwan and Kuwait, but you weren't, you where comparing the US to just about any other country in the world. The US is a very young country when compared with just about every country in the world. Come back in 500 to 1000 years, then we can talk.

Are you actually suggesting that other countries have had comunication networks comparable to the ones in the US for longer than the US has even existed? Given that the telegraph wasn't even invented until decades after the US broke apart from GB, that's pretty impressive.

I realize that the US is a very young country when compared to the rest of the world. But what does that have to do with wired communication networks?

Re:The United States is big

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

The issue is commonly referred to as the "last mile" problem. Yes, there are backbones that reach coast to coast, border to border.
When we speak of population density, it's not so much at a macroscopic level, but block-by-block. Getting a connection to each living unit is expensive. The Bell System got there with subsidy dollars. The Cable Companies got there with subsidies, but also operating at a loss. (Many now-bankrupt cable MSOs can testify to this)
Our hunger for better net connections hasn't (yet) pushed us to the point of approving government subsidies for 100Mb connections to each house, and there isn't a business model that will justify private dollars paying for the infrastructure.

Yes, most major Japanese cities can get 100Mb net access for US$100 or less, but the cost of connecting to the living unit is spread out over the hundreds of apartments in that living unit, and the cost of reaching that building is only a small step up from the cost of reaching that block of buildings.

--

Re:The United States is big

[cyber0ne]

OK, fine, so let's compare Taiwan to New York City - just the city. That should be population-dense enough for you. What do you find? US still loses.

No, New York City loses. When you subtract the rest of the US from one side of the equation, you should subtract it from the other side as well. I realize it's fasionable to hate the US these days, but at least make sense about it.

Now let's also take into account the fact that NYC has a much more established communications grid than Taiwan. Where is the need to upgrade? Most people there just don't see it. Consider also the sheer cost of adding to and/or replacing this grid in New York. It's a lot of work on a lot of expensive property and has to be done without disturbing a single important transaction, without disrupting traffic, etc. It's just more of an undertaking than Taiwan and with less demand to back it.

Re:The United States is big

[Sepper]

Maybe but while the combined population of all these country is about a third of all US population, The total broadband users of these 3 combined is HIGHER than the number of broadband users in the US.

I would blame the large distance to cover in the US but it still doesn't explain why Canada a pourcentage twice higher...

Hell, I live in Montreal, and i only know one 'household' without broadband...

Of course we all know these number are just that... numbers... You can make statistics say almost anything :)

Re:The United States is big

[SETY]

So? This proves zero. So since USA has 8.8 times more people than Canada then it takes 8.8 times longer to have DSL rolled out.....ummm no.

You can argue things like population density being a factor, but overall population numbers are really irellevant after you hit a certain critical mass. I suspect population densities in US and Canada are comparable.

What would make sense is to see what percentage of households have broadband available to them and see how many of these people of subscribed to
broadband. Price and value can then be argued here. I didn't RTFA, so maybe they did this.

Why 100% of households don't have broadband available to them is something to do with phone/cable deregulation and population densisty. If you can prove there is a shortage in DSL/cable equipment you might be able to argue that the USA's larger population comes into play, this is not the case.

Re:The United States is big

[Anonymous Coward]

People critizing the US is the not same as hating the US. You've been around Bush for too long.

Re:The United States is big

[Anonymous Coward]

Population in Canada is actually much more concentrated in cities than US. They are all squeezed along the southern border where its warmer.

Re:The United States is big

[BMazurek]

• The US, on the other hand, has metropolitan areas (ranging in size/density of course) dotted across much of its land mass, with vast spaces of land in between. And not nearly as much of that land is as sparsely populated as Canada's northern wilderness. It will take a lot more work to reach as much of a majority of homes.

Then explain to me why my brother, who lives almost 8 hours north of the US border, 1.5 hours away from the nearest "city" (city of 5,000 people) in a town of less than 1,000 people can get broadband access, and how all these centres in the US cannot? Hell, the largest city in our province is about 200,000 people, and that's about 4 hours away!

Brad

Re:The United States is big

[avronius]

Just a little debunking of the Canadian communications infrastructure myth.

We advanced technologically *with* the Americans. We installed telephone systems along side the Americans. We upgraded to digital telephone systems as well as the Americans. We Implemented our cellphone networks on the same types of systems as the Americans.

From every little hamlet, to every major city, there is telephone connectivity. We had an infrastructure that dates back to *shortly after* the invention of the telephone.

At each major technological evolution, our infrastructures were replaced - just like the Americans. Of course there were always some hold-outs - I think that rotary service was still available as recently as 8 years ago (still available as special service where required, at added expense).

The argument of "it's costly to roll over new..." doesn't wash, as Canada has a lower population density for areas that it delivers signal to, and yet still manages to introduce the technology / replace the outdated gear, and provide the new services. Sure, there are still areas where ISDN is the highest speed available, but we have a large landmass, and a small population. We'll get to them when we can. :)

The *real* reason that high speed connectivity isn't as available in the US? Corporations aren't interested in spending money to replace an infrastructure that the bulk of it's customers aren't willing to pay extra for. Perhaps it's time to use the enormous power of your population to force the mega-corporations to offer the services that you want.

As an aside, our towns are not *mostly* restricted to the American border, as we have communities dotting our countryside - similar to the United States. And, while it is true that we have a major trunk that runs coast to coast connecting the larger cities, we have major branches running north/south into each province (and subsequently, the territories) to provide coverage for as many of these communities as possible.

Your infrastructure will only improve when you demand it. We did.

Re:The United States is big

[slam smith]

I think the people in other countries are paying for their broadband. They just pay for it indirectly through their taxes etc.

You're lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

Because in Spain is very far from that percentage... Maybe in 20 years more we'll be on a level with you...

It's the Cost!

[Enigma_Man]

For a basic "high speed" connection, you're pretty much looking at spending $50+ dollars a month in the US (In the northeast anyway, where I'm from). That's a lot of dough.

-Jesse

Re:It's the Cost!

[also aswell]

While dialup goes down and down again. Most people I know are waiting for prices to come down on high speeds aswell. They are expecting and waiting for this to happen.

I'm still with my local dialup that I've had for 9 years (started with AOL) and they can't give me a deal, because the baby Bells refuse to give them any deals, and the local cable, Cox, isn't competitive unless I go with cable, phone and high speed. Until the small isps can give a price break, I don't see where the baby bells or the cable providers are going to compete.

What I don't understand is why the copper wire providers which were forced to share, don't get the same break using fiberoptics. If that were to happen then the prices would come down.

Until then I run a couple windows at a time on my browser and let one load while I check the action on the other. But I'm waiting for $25 -30 price range before I change.

I'm not disappointed

[Snowgen]

[i]Some experts said growth was disappointing, far behind countries that include South Korea, Taiwan and Canada.[/i]

I, for one, am not disappointed. To me it means that many Americans have decided that they have priorities other than the Internet. Good for them!

Maybe someday I can have a life, too!

Re:I'm not disappointed

[KillerHamster]

And realistically, most Internet users have no need for broadband. You don't need tons of bandwidth to do email, instant messaging, and read your friends' blogs. Most people probably don't even know that it's possible to do things that require more bandwidth, like downloading movies or operating systems or running a huge Freenet node.

Stating the Obvious

[Ironsides]

Significant numbers of rural Americans said they couldn't subscribe to high-speed services because none was available. Most Americans who did not use fast connections said service was either too expensive or they did not need it.

1)Not Available
Many areas are not populated enough to get Cable or close enough to an exchange get DSL. Try getting either of these in Kansas, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Alaska and many other states in the more rural areas. At least until the phone companies all go fibre like Verizon is.
2)Too Expensive
As soon as the phone companies start competing with the cable companis the prices will go down. Until you have both options available in your area you are stuck with high prices.
3)Not Needed
This is the most overlooked. Who needs broadband when all they do is ocationaly send and recieve email and do light web surfing for at most an hour a day? I'll agree that this isn't most slashdoters, but most of our parents are probably like this and probably our grandparents as well. Assuming that they even have internet much less a computer.

Re:Stating the Obvious

[Hatta]

1)Not Available
Many areas are not populated enough to get Cable or close enough to an exchange get DSL. Try getting either of these in Kansas, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Alaska and many other states in the more rural areas. At least until the phone companies all go fibre like Verizon is.

Try getting DSL in rural iowa. Chances are it will be cheaper and faster, because it's provided by a co-operative, instead of a screw-the-customer-all-that-matters-is-profit corporation.

2)Too Expensive
As soon as the phone companies start competing with the cable companis the prices will go down. Until you have both options available in your area you are stuck with high prices.

Yes it's too expensive. Again, it's because the providers care more about profit than service.

3)Not Needed
This is the most overlooked. Who needs broadband when all they do is ocationaly send and recieve email and do light web surfing for at most an hour a day?

Farmers are businessmen. Enough said.

Re:Cost vs. Value

[jbeaupre]

Actually, what you are describing is the difference between what you value and what others value. If $20 service gets them what they want at a price they want, then they are getting a good value. It's the same internet, just a different speed. I put more of a premium on speed too, so I have broadband. But my mom couldn't care less. She does email. $10 a month is more service than she needs.

Cause I can't!

[tigershark97]

Articles like this wondering why people in the US haven't switched to broadband really piss me off. I have a simple reason for not switching. There is nothing remotely close to broadband available where I live. My choices are dialup, and getting hosed by a satellite company. So I pay the cash to the satellite company, but its far from broadband.

Re:The United States is crooked

[Anonymous Coward]

Philadelphia was going to wifi the whole city. Not any more, Verizon got a law through the PA legislature saying no govt can set this up in the territory of an existing telco. All that remains is Gov Rendell's signature, he'll rubber stamp it.

This same thing is happening all over the country. Verizon has no competitive worries any more, you can forget broadband in PA.

Wifi will be as fucked up as cell phones. Ever try to use your TMobile phone in a rural area with GSM? Doesn't work. Urban GSM is 1900MHz, rural GSM is 800MHz, and TMobile disables 800 in all their phones. Sucks to be their customer.

Worse quality too

[Hatta]

"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."

Not only that, but the quality of the broadband in the US lags way behind the rest of the world. Cable here is 3mb/256kb for $50, while in korea you can get 20mb down for about the same price.

And it has nothing to do with the population density either. Here in iowa it's apparently not worth while for comcast, qwest, et al., to provide service. So the people took matters into their own hands and started broadband co-ops. The result? Rural iowans are better connected than their urban counterparts.

Re:Of course we can't compete!

[wiredog]

Tell you what. Roll out your own broadband service in your area. All you have to do is get easements from every property owner whose property your lines cross, lay cable to everyone who wants it, setup the servers, and presto, you're now a broadband ISP.

Of course, it will cost money, which has to be recouped, and you'll need to build up some funds to pay for future expansion and upgrades. But I'm sure you can do it for a low cost. Say, $40/subscriber.

Re:Numbers for Canda, Taiwan, etc..?

[aelbric]

This report is a red herring. Although the percentages are higher in those countries, the actual number of installations in the US is higher.

After all, assume households of 4 people:

Population Households
Canada 32M 8M
Korea 48M 12M
Taiwan 22M 6M
USA 300M 75M

If the US penetration is 20%, then 15M households in the US have broadband. Almost 70% of the number of households in all three countries. They would need to be collectively at 70% of penetration to be over the US. Oh, and by the way, the US has 60 million to go wheras those three are at saturation.

Not the most scientific extrapolation, but I don't think I'm too far off.

Also, it's interesting to note that the person disappointed is "head of the Information Technology Association of America, a leading industry trade group in Washington." Need I say more?

Re:Does this really come as a surprise?

[Stevyn]

Keep in mind though, that they started from nothing to broadband. Not from POTS to broadband. The same goes for cell phones in China. The test of which country can do better will be in 20 years or so when this technology is mature and the next form of communication takes off.

The US is usually slower in adopting new technology than developing countries is because we are upgrading while they are just getting started. We have to piggy back new technology on to old technology while they can learn from our mistakes and do it the right way the first time around.

Re:Of course we can't compete!

[ajayvb]

Costs is one thing, monopoly-forced bundling is another. Verizon does not provide DSL to my area without me getting at least a basic landline. I don't need one - my cellphone suffices. I am paying around $12 / month more for my phone line (min plan possible + taxes + a few dozen service fees.). So $30/month for 1576/768 DSL is hokum. Plus, add bandwidth throttling, and we have service that sucks a%$.

Re:Ready, set, go...

[udowish]

igloos, sure another example of american ignorace :) face it Canada is just a more connected country, keep trying you'll catch up soon Froto. :) PS its not 20% exchange rate anymore, remember the yankee pasco? By the end of next year the Canadian buck will be worth way more than the us buck.

South Korea vs. United States

[heir2chaos]

I was in Chinhae(excuse the spelling), South Korea in April of 2001. During this time, the locals were running 8 MB DSL lines to every home in this "small town" of a few hundred thousand people, who have open sewer systems running through their streets. Now, this was a decision that was made by the government of South Korea not long before this time, to work towards making their country a technology powerhouse. If officials are disappointed that our country doesn't have as much broadband users, then they should work at pushing regulations that can help that, such as getting monopolies like Bell South here in Tennessee, to drop their rates, and allow other providers to use their lines. Just earlier this year, all the 3rd party offerers such as AT&T and MCI had to stop offering DSL because the government sided with Bell South in line use issues. Our DSL runs about $45/month for 1.5 Mb/s. Cable isn't much better, because there is no competition. For myself, the speed is worth the price, and I pay it. However, for the common user, that price isn't worth the bandwidth.

Re:Way behind...!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who seem to be way ahead of us on a number of fronts including the all important Mathematics."

Ehh... Please elaborate. With most of the best universities being in the US i'm having a hard time seeing how that can be true.

Re:Cost vs. Value

[Jimithing DMB]

She does email. $10 a month is more service than she needs.

That's all fine and good except what I've found with my parents is that having broadband, particularly the always-on aspect, has caused both of them to use the Internet more often. Particularly my mom because she can just open up her PowerBook anywhere in the house and look something up. My dad uses it primarily for e-mail and to download his bank transactions. He did not like having to wait for the modem to connect.

My mom has made the comment to me several times that she has no idea how we got by without having the Internet instantly available. She's right. Having the ability to just look something up whenever one feels like it is very empowering. I recommend to anyone who can afford it to get broadband.

Is it 20% or 45%?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a couple months ago Slashdot had posted a news story about broadband now reaching abouit 45% of US internet users??? Now it's back down to 20%? Who's news reports can we trust for accurate figures????

Re:The United States is crooked

[saider]

Government also has no competitive pressures to innovate or operate efficiently. The best solution (in my opinion) is for local government to own the access lines and have private industry provide the service. The last mile lines should terminate at a government building where space is leased out to the service providers for their equipment. Much like the city owns the roads and business uses the roads to get to your house. This is the only solution that provides a relatively level, competetive field for large and small service providers while minimizing the role of government.

Guns or butter?

[nysus]

Well, folks, it's your choice. Do you want big government to spend $40 billion for the recently launched f-ww jet fighter (designed to go to war agains the mighty Soviet empire) and another $200 billion for occupying Iraq (unnecessarily)? Or do you want big government to spend money on things that will build a more productive, prosperous society?

You can't have both.

Re:Cost vs. Value

[Anonymous Coward]

$30 or $40 for broadband? What planet do you live on? I pay $50+ per month for broadband via Comcast, which works out to $600+ per year.

I pay less for electricity. I pay less for all telephone services. Only my natural gas service (for heat) is more expensive per year (I keep my house nice and toasty in the winter)

The fact is, broadband in the US is only for the wealthy like me. With the government willing to accept unregulated local monopolies, there is no reason for the providers to charge less. Someone should bring capitalism to the broadband industry.