Slashdot Mirror
US Ranking for Broadband Falls
Ant writes "Broadband Reports mentions Declan McCullagh's CNET editorial where he believes everything is a-ok in the world of broadband, and people concerned with falling global rankings are over-reacting. 'FCC figures released last month show that 94.3 percent of U.S. ZIP codes have high-speed lines available to them,' he writes; though as we've pointed out, the FCC considers one home in a zip code with broadband to mean that entire zip code is 'serviced.'"
At least in America there is /CHOICE/ in the affordable broadband market sector.
.au, we have ONE carrier providing something in the order of 90% of the broadband connections' layer 1/2 infrastructure (with some smaller DSLAM operators and two other cable cos, one of whom is regional only).
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Additionally, nobody LIKES this one carrier, who up until just recently were actually charging their wholesale customers (ISPs who lease DSLAM ports via PPPoA/L2TP) more per connection than their retail customers. This ended when the ACCC (.au equivalent of the US FTC) served them with a competition notice, which they are now currently trying to work their way out of.
Yes, America has it good, comparatively. And, unlike Korea, they're not responsible for ~5/6 of all reported open proxy hosts.
You're doing it wrong.
In 2000, 79% of the US population lived in urban areas, the 2001 Canadian census lists 79.7% there is hardly any difference there and yet claims about "Oh, but Canada lives closer to the border" still persist. Urban vs Rural is NOT the big issue. The big issue is GREED by companies and COMPLACENCY of the population to bend over on issues such as this.