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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."
Some experts said growth was disappointing, far behind countries that include South Korea, Taiwan and Canada. The report also identified troubling figures for use or availability of high-speed Internet services among blacks, Hispanics and people in rural areas.
"It shows we continue to have a significant divide between urban and rural America in the infrastructure for the economy of the 21st century," said Gregory L. Rohde, who was top telecommunications adviser under President Clinton.
What it shows is that competition rarely exists when it comes to broadband and when it does the price/speed ratio isn't even close to what we see in foreign countries.
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.
3000/256 in a neighboring area for Comcast at 45.95 (with cable) or 63.95 (without).
3000/256 in my area for Charter (with all it's port blocking glory) at 39.95
2048/256 in my area for Frontier (line) at $51.95 (not including the required telephone service which is ~$30)
We hear these great stories of inexpensive HIGH SPEED service in the countries listed in the article all the time here on Slashdot yet here in the States we have all this "competition" yet we are stuck w/slow speeds, sometimes unreliable service, and high costs (comparatively).
Once the prices drop to a reasonable level a larger percentage of people will likely switch. Right now you usually have to pay the same for dialup service that other countries pay for high-speed (and you need to have a phone line to boot).
"This is lousy," said Harris Miller, head of the Information Technology Association of America, a leading industry trade group in Washington. "We're just not keeping up with our competitors. We're not even keeping up with countries we don't consider competitors. It's not acceptable."
Yet the government continues to allow monopolies like Comcast and the local phone companies to take over areas and hog the available broadband transmission mediums. How are we supposed to compete with other countries when individual businesses don't have to compete with themselves because of government sponsored monopolies?
Americans tend to be more fix cost centric vs. Total Cost or Value centric. They will look at dialup lines and see that they can have internet service for $10-$20 threw dialup vs. $30-$40 for Broadband. They are paying twice as much then dial up. So they will stay with it. 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. When people do put the money in buying a higher priced product is usually isn't for the fact that it was the best value but they feel the need to impress someone else. This is the reason why WalMart is a Huge retail store because it gives loads of stuff at a very cheap price, it may not be the best quality or even the best overall value but it is cheap and people can get it now.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
My first thought was that maybe the gubmint should do too broadband what they did with the home phone market. There are two issues with broadband to the home:
- it's still to expensive (my Comcast connection is still ~$45/mo, but my wife will only give that up over her dead body)
- some areas are still too remote (my in-laws can only get bidirectional satellite service)
Could the gubmint make providers charge business more to subsidize rollout and support of the full cost of service for residential users? Or are there other issues that don't apply to POTS?
That said, giving broadband to Joe Sixpack may not be all that great of an idea... Just imagine the field day phishers/worms/other nasties out there will have with unwary users with those big pipes. If casual home users (with no immediate relatives who know how to support PCs) want to get this service, they ought to be made to take a quick course and a test to make sure they know how to protect themselves.
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I'm currently looking to move in to a house in a more rural part of my state, but one of my must haves is high speed access. Unfortunatly, realtors are clueless to the fact that broadband is a major selling point, and its up to me to do all the research in determining if an address is broadband available. Most do list CableTV as a selling point, but it'd be great if they'd just go a step further.
For many a house without broadband is a worthless shack.
Sadly, our being behind is fuelled by corporate interests who seem to like the status quo solely for profits.
I urge Americans to visit Sweden, Norway or Denmark in order to see how a "near perfect" system works.
No wonder, trends on technology are now being "dictated" on us by foreigners, who seem to be way ahead of us on a number of fronts including the all important Mathematics.
Cb..
Reading the comments in this thread so far, most Americans seem to be whining that "Broadband's too hard" in America, compared to urban S. Korea. Grasping for reasons why "we're not lame", though we're losing. It's not that hard - and even if it were, what happened to the famous "Can Do" American spirit? We raised skyscrapers, dammed thousands of rivers, put a man on the Moon... Oh, right, that was our *parents* and *grandparents*. They already did the hard stuff, made America #1 forever, right? Why should we work hard now, and ignore all the advantages to be lazy and cop out that our ancestors slaved for?
"Forces of evil on a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
'cuz one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey-neck and it's hangin' from a pigeon wing
You can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite
That's chokin' on the splinters"
- Beck, "Loser"
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make install -not war
The argument that the US is so large may work for Korea, but Canada is twice the size of the US and has only a fraction of the population. Our entire country has only 30 million people.
Rather then take offense to this and think that it's an attack on the way the US does things, why not realize that the US did not do a poor job, however, Canada has done a good job. As we have some government owned phone companies, they did what was best for the area, not what was cheapest.
In Saskatchewan, Sasktel (the government owned phone company) installed phone lines that were much more poweful then necessary 30 years ago, so it was an easy switch when the internet came around. We don't have the costs of digging up old lines. We also try to improve the lives of everyone, rather then make a profit, so we have farms with high speed internet, and small towns of less then 1000 people with internet.
So, we did something right, and size has nothing to do with it. The province of Saskatchewan has less the 1 million people and is six times the size of California.
Your excuse of size is useless, just admit that someone else did something well.
I live in NYC, even more dense than Japan overall. How come we don't have broadband adoption rates here like the do there? We've got money, and an appetite for media.
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make install -not war
Sometimes early technology adoption can stiffle a country's development. For example France promoted a custom national network (minitel) which fell behind the more open and dynamic general InterNet. On the other hand the expense of land lines in China forced it into cell phones earlier than the states.
Dialup comes free with the US$9 per month telephone service. 3M/0.5M broadband comes at around US$15. 6M/1M comes at around US$25. Its much, much cheaper in Hong Kong. And everyone uses broadband. Like.. everyone. I don't have any numbers, but consider this: I live in a flat, in a building with 25 floors, 8 flats per floor. I get 20 b and 3 g wireless networks covering my bedroom at any time. Helps when wireless routers cost US$50...
Oh, so basically there is a fair chunk of the population that is neither urban nor rural, to reach the 19.9% figure?
I'm a Korean, and I currently live in Seoul.
Why broadband could success greatly in Korea isn't just because there was competition, or because most of the Korean population lives in cities with high population density.
Another big reason is because unlike the broadband market, the phone network were monopolized by a single giant Korea Telecom. Since there was no competition in the phone market, dialup was horribly expensive (approx. 5 cents per 3 minuite translates to $1/hr).
It was completely nonsense to use dialup instead of broadband even though broadband costs more than $50 per month. (Now I pay $25/month for a 100meg Ethernet connection directly to my home) I used broadband as soon as it was available in my town, since the dialup costs were already somewhat around $100 per month. (that was something around 1998, I remember)
Though it looks wierd, broadband was the cheap alternative of dialup.
KT still makes a lot of profit from the phone business, but it's getting smaller every year, and dialup is still damn expensive. I didn't use a dialup connection for the last three years.
As it is, the cheap local calls serve as a disincentive for US households to switch whereas the expensive local calls elsewhere make broadband an economic solution for more than sporadic use.
Americans tend to be more fix cost centric vs. Total Cost or Value centric. They will look at dialup lines and see that they can have internet service for $10-$20 threw dialup vs. $30-$40 for Broadband
You're right. But Americans are no different from others.
In France, for instance, people are massively switching to DSL services not because they value Broadband more than their american counterparts, but because for several reasons the DSL market is terribly competitive : legacy operator France Telecom is forced by law to open its network to every broadband operators (and there are now more than a dozen of them, at least).
The competition is fierce and you can have 8 Mbps ADSL service for as low as 15 euros per month (http://www.neuftelecom.fr/). An other company (http://adsl.free.fr/) offers ADSL 2+ service (up to 15 Mbps download / 1 Mbps upload) for 30 Euros per month and that includes TV via DSL and Phone via DSL (unlimited local abd national calls). And you can even opt out from the legacy operator and you won't have to pay a fee to France Telecom to use their line (they own the last mile of copper) : the DSL company will have to pay a small fee to France Telecom to use the line, and most of the time they won't charge it back to you. So you have unlimited phone, high speed internet and Television via DSL, all for 30 euros per month, which is dirt cheap.
This have nothing to do with french infrastructure being more modern or anything : It's just the direct effect of fierce competition. I mean : even AOL offers 1 Mbps DSL service for 17 Euros per month (5 Mbps for 23 euros) !!!
It was the same a few years ago when 3 mobile companies battled over the emerging mobile market : prices went down and equipment rate sky rocketed.
There is an easier way to achieve nearly 100% internet access in the US. Univeral broadband seems like a wonderful goal, but lets start by getting everyone basic (dial up) access.
Add a small amount (say, 1 dollar) to all land-line phone bills. In return, provide dial up access as part of the phone package. Presto! Instant universal access. If everyone pays a small amount, the prices stay low. No more 'digital divide' among low income groups which cannot normally afford the additional monthly bill. This seems like the easiest, most cost effective way to provide everyone with Internet while we wait for universal broadband.
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.