America's Not So Up to Speed

indiejade writes "According to The Broadband Life, the U.S. has quite a way to go before catching up to countries such as South Korea, Japan and even Canada when it comes to percentage of the population enjoying high-speed internet access. 'In 2000, the U.S. ranked third in Net users connecting at high-speed among the top-30 world economies. The next year it fell to fourth. Now it's 11th,' the article said." Commentary on this is also available at Foreign Affairs and The New York Times.

Comments

Country size matters

[Rosyna]

Why not compare it to Countries like India and China. Places with very large populations and a very large land mass. I think it'd be a little more fair than comparing it to countries with a high population density (the majority of Canadia's population is settled within 100 miles or so of the US border.

Re:Country size matters

[Adult film producer]

Sure, its settled within a 100 miles of the u.s. border but that doesn't mean they're all stuffed into one corner of ontario or quebec. They live along a huge waterway & lakes, remember the St. Lawrence, Lake Ontario/Erie, etc ? Millions of people living from detroit to montreal.. this is not comparable Hong Kong or New York.

And then there's a few million people displaced into the prairie provinces that stretches thousands of miles.

Saying everybody lives within 100 miles of the u.s. border oversimplifies things a wee bit.

Re:Country size matters

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Comparing US to developing countries like India and China is ludicrous. The US has had development in IT for far longer than either of those two countries, and has had far more resources for far fewer people.

Broadband penetration is a matter of public interest, not geography. If there was a demand for it, it would be provided even in the remotest regions, especially in a country as developed as the US.

Re:Country size matters

[clambake]

Places with very large populations and a very large land mass. I think it'd be a little more fair than comparing it to countries with a high population density (the majority of Canadia's population is settled within 100 miles or so of the US border.

Ok, how about comare New York and, say Osaka... What do you see?

Re:Country size matters

[Guppy06]

"Every time the topic of poor broadband availability in the US comes up, this fallacy is repeated."

And every time someone like you posts the "But we have connectivity X-thousand kms away from anything!" I have to say "Look at the picture!"

Canadians clump around cities. Period. It can't be compared to the contiguous 48, especially the US Midwest or South. Thanks to that, you only need to run a few long-distance legs to a major hub and then only worry about those tiny little hops from hub to end-user.

The reason you're connected even though you're a 5-hour drive from anywhere is because you're alone out there. All that was needed was that single long leg out to your community and the job was done.

You say that you're 5 hours away from a city with over 50,000 people in it. OK, how many towns of 5000 people are within 2.5 hours of you?

At this point I'm not an apologist to our broken method of running out public utilities here in the US, but I don't see how you can deny the lower per-capita cost to connect people in Canada.

Re:Country size matters

[Senjutsu]

the majority of Canadia's population is settled within 100 miles or so of the US border.

Three quarters of all Americans live within 80kms (49.7 miles) of the coast or great lakes. If having larger parts of the population in a small number of clumps was the over-riding factor here, the US broadband penetration would still be expected to be higher than it currently is.

Re:Country size matters

[abigor]

Halifax is nowhere close to being a "large population centre". In 1995, the place wasn't much over six figures.

"Why? Because it simply isn't cost effective to wire up a "small" subscriber base of 100,000 people."

See above.

Re:Country size matters

[1u3hr]

it simply isn't cost effective to wire up a "small" subscriber base of 100,000 people

I live in a village in rural Hong Kong (it's not all high rise) with a population of about 3000. We got broadband three or four years ago; 3M DSL. All they had to do was install the equipment at the local phone exchange, then we coul;d plug in our DSL modems.

As TFAs point out, the problem isn't that providing broadband is unprofitable; but that it will eat into the profits of the phone companies (by allowing IP telephony) and cable companies (by allowing downloading or streaming of video content). So they're delaying installing broadband as long as they can get away with it, while doing everything to block other providers using their circuits. Here the old phone monopoly company was forced to share its network, which led to several companies offering DSL at less than half their rate, along with IP phones and broadband TV.

Re:Country size matters

[ozmanjusri]

Percentage doesn't mean jack.

It's moments like this I wish Slashdot had a (score:-1, Dumb as a post) moderation.

Well then...

[parasonic]

Is technology really the end all, be all in America? In the world? Some people do have priorities. And hey, by the way, I am a comp e major, and I realize this.

Ok, here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

You know how some people don't own a TV because they simply aren't that interested in watching it?

Well, some of us are the same way about high speed internet. Dialup gets you all that you really need. Applications like bittorrent are not really necessary (unless you're addicted to video pr0n).

Re:Ok, here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people like living on upaved, dirt roads
in the country. It's nice and quaint for some.
You can choose to live that way.

But the GOVERNMENT should be building interstate
highway systems. Right now, the government
has failed in its job. When Bush took office,
we were number 3 or 4 in the world with internet
connectivity. Now we're 11th.

The whole georgraphy argument is bunk. Sure,
the US is larger in size. But running cables
long distances is not the problem. It's
called "the last mile", or the last link from
the long hauls to the home owners. That has
to be done (primarily) by government policies
that foster competition, since monopolists have
no incentive to improve bandwidth. (In fact,
you only see high speed bw in cities with
competition from the old ISPs... coincidence?)

What would America be like if we didn't
build the interstate highway system in the
1950s (which spawned countless industries)?
Well, we'll find out, since the government
no longer promotes the creation of the
new information highways, and creates FCC
policies that favor monopolies (instead of
competition, growth, etc.)

Me, I'm learning Chinese. Half our foreign
debt is now held by China. It's the rise of
the Asian Century, facilitated by the
PeopleWhoDon'tGetIt (tm) in Washington.

Fiber

[caryw]

We have so much dark fiber laid it's ridiculous.
In a big city or town in other countries most buildings have ethernet running throughout with one tap to a fiber backbone in the telephone closet. Here every office suite is expected to pay a premium for DSL. And you wonder why we're behind on the times, it's our marketing and poor policy machines at work.
Residential users are a little different, but very rarely do you hear of a homeowners association getting together and buying a fiber trunk or something.
--
NoVA Underground: Where Northern Virginia comes out to play

What about the midwest?

[TelJanin]

Just how do you plan to get broadband out to the middle of the country? It's much more profitable for ISPs to hit the coasts and large cities.

ALL infrastructure

[Ars-Fartsica]

How about the hole in the roof of the local school? How about the 50% of bridges the US govt says are in need of serious repair? How about the 50%+ of municipal sewer systems local govts say are in need of "major" overhauls? Roads? Same. Don't even mention the power grid.

I like broadband but its pretty far down on the list of critical infrastructure projects we have neglected to pursue war, enriching the upper class, and funding a global colonial regime.

Re:ALL infrastructure

[Ars-Fartsica]

I'm not trying to troll, but is money really this tight in the US?

No, there is plenty of money, we just don't spend it on things most Americans really want it spent on. For the cost of the Iraq war you could have demolished and rebuilt from the ground up, a significant portion of all of the school in the US. Or you could have paid for everyone's healthcare for one year (every US resident), or you could have wired most major cities for 100MB connections to the residence, or at least made a dent in the debt.

Americans pay taxes comparable to other market-based nations too, so the idea that they are saving the wealth is also wrong,

Re:ALL infrastructure

[coaxial]

I'm an American. I'll fill you in.

Yes. Our infrastructure is falling apart quite literally at the seams. Yes. The corporations have enough power to shutdown municiple WiFi ("It amounts to unfair government price controls, and government price controls are communist.") Yes. Education spending and educational standards are falling. Yes. The wage gap is getting larger. Yes. some care. No. Not enough are willing to do anything about it because they're distracted by gay marriage. Yes. America is moving full tilt to dismantle every socioeconomic safety net in the country, and effectively repeal the 20th century.

America's best days are behind it.

wrong conclusions

[Dr Kool, PhD]

The reason the US lags behind these other nations in access to high speed internet is because more Americans don't want high speed internet access. The internet is more a part of the life of the average South Korean, so more South Koreans choose to buy high speed internet access.

The fact that more Americans don't want high speed internet access isn't a bad thing, it isn't a good thing either. It's just what makes the people of this country unique.

Re:wrong conclusions

[lifebouy]

Way to not say much. But I'll retort anyway. It's not that "more Americans don't want high speed internet access," but that noone wants to pay more than about $20 for it. For most people, it's simply not worth more than that. Apparently Moore's Law doesn't apply to internet access, or we'd be paying much less. The main reason municipal wifi is getting roadblocked is because that would drive high-speed internet prices way down, and ruin the oligopoly that currently strangles internet access. Bottom line.

Just me...

[Psionicist]

Reynolds, now a telecommunications analyst at the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), an international body that researchers the state of world economies, says South Korea is a far different place today, with 73% of the population enjoying high-speed Net access at home.

Is it just me or do anyone else find it highly annoying when articles with statistics like these don't bother linking to any source material? I would like to know Swedens position for example. According to TFA 73% of South Koreas population has broadband. What's the figure for other countries?

Shame on you Yahoo Editor.

Re:US v. Canada

[Monkelectric]

Dont forget -- the lockin effect. Broadband usually costs round 50$ a month, but in reality its more like 100$ -- reason being -- you cant GET broadband in most cities without subscribing to other services. Our cable+internet bill weights in at about 120$/m -- 50ish a month for internet, 70$ a month for a modest subscription to cable.

Population Density

[tankenator]

While the obvious is well, obvious, it stands to reason that S. Korea has a pretty insane population density (supported by the assistance of U. S. Troops, or they would likely be under the thumb of a dictator by now btw.) The U. S., for all its faults (poor legislative knowledge base on things technical being one of them), has its population base stretched over much area, thus making broadband more expensive for the provider. Hence you see the attempt at WiMax et. al.--they realize that they can make money on those far from the wire if they could only reach them......

What's up with these "scare" articles?

[IntelliTubbie]

Geez, it seems you can't go 2 days without reading an article about how America is lagging behind 37 other countries on (insert random metric for technological progress). Won't somebody do something? Our children are falling behind!!!!

Now, I'm sure some of these things truly do deserve concern -- but this kind of scare tactic has been around since the early days of the Cold War, and probably long before that. Last time I checked, though, we haven't been conquered by the Soviets/Japanese/nation-du-jour -- sure, we may be worse at some things, and better at others, but things in general have hummed along pretty well for the last half-century.

Cheers,
IT

Re:What's up with these "scare" articles?

[clandestine_nova]

This articles exist because it's sort of an American ideal to be good at everything, and also because America has been a global superpower for a long time.

Moreover, the gist of this article doesn't mean that the U.S. is going to suddenly become irrelevant - it means that the U.S. isn't as technologically advanced in certain areas as other, seemingly weaker countries. And that the U.S. is falling behind, as well, which is certainly something to note.

might be a little off topic.....

[mangus_angus]

but I wonder if these other countries have city wide wifi like you see popping up here now. And if they do, do they have the ISP's trying to stomp this kind of thing out? I think these big companies are our major problem.

Them is all COMMIE-NIST countries

[Cryofan]

dontcha know that cheap broadband aint for Americans? Only commie countries have cheap broadband! Otherwise, how are the megacorporations media empires gonna keep their god given monopolies. Now git back to Russia, you commienists!

Re:US v. Canada

[Cplus]

I'm pretty sure that very little, if any of your taxes went to helping out the communications sector. You have cheap broadband because that sector of industry is given tax breaks, and encouraged to thrive. This is not a bad thing, it's probably why you make so much money (just a guess).

You should seek out a decent accountant and get some advice on how to manage your finances so that you don't have to pay so much tax. There are ways of making as much as you do and not putting it all in the pot.

Re:I for one..

[Stalyn]

And foreigners wonder why Americans hate them... their lack of sense for sarcasm!!!

Broadband for all of B.C.

[The Real Nem]

I was just reading in the paper (Vancouver Sun) the other day that the B.C. provincial government plans to make broadband accessible to every community (defined as any area containing a school or hospital or other public building) in B.C. in the immediate future.

A quick look at some fun B.C. facts shows that B.C. is roughly four times larger than Great Britain (~950,000 km^2), has a population of 4.1 million people and comprises of 75% of the world's stone sheep population. So, with a population density of 4 people per square kilometre, I think it is safe to say that population density is not the limiting factor of broadband availability. The article also claimed that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 95% of B.C.'s population already has access to broadband (I hate to paraphrase something like that though).

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Korea and Japan were totally rebuilt in many places after wars destroyed everything. Infrastruture in the US is old. Even the stuff installed in new subdivisions is old tech. Korea and Japan didn't do that. Canada didn't build new stuff with old tech.

Most people are fine with dial up for what they do anyhow in the US. Me, screw that, having to use dial up on the rare occasion I have to just flat sucks. Before I bought this place and the place I am moving to I made sure I could get Cable broadband that works (not SBC ADSL or SDSL that is crappy and trouble plauged.) The Cable company give 3 mbt standard and will sell you 8 mbt for more a month. It's been down once in 5 years, my modem died, they replaced it next day.

If you rip all the infrastructure out and replace it you can deliver broadband everwhere thats built up damm near but delivering Broadband on 80 year old wires doesn't work too well. Forget the hugely overpriced wireless offerings, that doesn't even start to play well with me.

Demand isn't always enough.

[cbreaker]

How do you create demand for something you simply cannot get?

A lot of people now a days DO demand high-speed internet access. And what they get in many cases is a 1.5Mbit/256Kbit connection via Cable, or DSL if you're in the city. Sure, I can say "I want more" but it's just not offered.

Some of it is user education - if people knew the potential in 100Mbit to the house connections, they might want it more. But what do the broadband companies care? They like the status-quo. They can get paid just as much now for low-tech gear that they could if they spent 40 billion dollars on new networks.

And if you're a residential customer in a rural area (and we're not talking about farm land here) you could be completely out of luck and stuck on dial-up.

I understand that the USA is a much larger land-mass then Japan, which this article seems to ignore. But, that's not what's currently stopping true high-speed Internet - it's the fact that there's absolutely no incentive to give people the access they want.

Our governments are SUPPOSED to help the people they govern, and in this case they really should provide the incentive that the market is unable, or unwilling to give. When that happens, and if broadband is still not offered en-masse, then we can talk about land-mass and crap like that.

Broadband in the U.S.

[RealRav]

The vast majority of U.S. households have the ability to access broadband. They just choose otherwise. Most Americans aren't like the slashdot crowd and are happy with their dial-up. OF course, if they ever had fast access they'd never go back.

Just my two cents.

Even Canada?

[Sj0]

The Canadian government decided quite a few years ago that it was going to try to make broadband available to 80% of Canadians or something like that.

This isn't a suprise. The free market is good, but not as good as pre-existing infastructure and a government mandate.

Re:Even Canada?

[akuma(x86)]

>> This isn't a suprise. The free market is good, but not as good as pre-existing infastructure and a government mandate

Government mandates eliminate choice and result in an inefficient allocation of capital. What about Canadians that don't give a shit about broadband - they have to pay anyways because of higher taxes. Let the market decide. Not some govt. bureaucrat. It's policies like this that made me leave Canada for the US about 9 years ago.

If people don't want broadband, then they should have the CHOICE not to fund it. Just as it is in the US.

Let's take a look at one measure of wealth - per capita GDP and compare Canada vs. the US:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ran ko rder/2004rank.html

Mo Money Mo Problems :-X

[xshariq]

We're only behind because I think it's high-speed internet is expensive.
correct me if I'm wrong

High-Speed
Comcast: $50+
SBC DSL: $30+
RoadRunner: $30+
Dial-up
AT&T: $11-21 (depending on your package)
AOL: $20-25
Netscape: $10
NetZero: $15

see my point? why pay 20-30 dollars extra when you can do everything the same except for downloading speed!

Remember this and vote them out

[bluGill]

There is nothing you can do about this for the next year or 3 (I'm not sure how exactly your state government works), but make sure you remember this when election time comes up. Find out where the local political parties meet (pick one), go to the meetings and propose a resolution to repeal this ban. If your party is the incumbent run for his office.

Now doing this alone isn't going to do much. However get a few friends together and you can change things. Political party meetings are often poorly attended, so just 10 people showing up per area is enough to have a majority in all the votes, and you can force things through.

Then between the meetings and elections knock on doors and tell people to not for for the incumbent to voted for this. Politicians only listen to money because it helps them get votes. When you go behind them in grass roots like this you more than negate all the money - you force them to vote your way again because you are prooven to represent enough votes to get them out of office. If you have a good personality you just might find yourself a powerful congressmen trying to decide which, if any, bribes are worth taking.

Re:US v. Canada

[Cannucklehead]

72%???

How did you manage that? I make way over the national average wage and paid less than 30% in taxes.

The highest -marginal- tax rate combining federal and provincial taxes is just under 49%.

Your 72% claim sounds a bit bogus to me...

The US has been on a 4 year-long "snow day"

[ibi]

since 9/11. Sure it sucked but eventually folks here will have to realize that the rest of the industrialized world didn't stop competing because we "discovered" terrorism.

We're a net importer of technology now. (The trade deficit in technology grew to $37 billion last year.) Think about *that* for a second.

Good government policy is a critical part of having a competitive economy. (Where do you think the Internet came from? Private industry alone? Hardly.)

The current administration couldn't care less about any of what we're taking about here - it doesn't speak to their core constituencies of the very rich (who are insulated from the public sphere by their gated communities, private schools, etc.) and the very stupid (who are convinced the Rapture is around the corner - "Econamy? Technalogy? Future? What *are* you all babbling about?".)

Unless we get rulers that actually *care* about any of this, we're just going to have to get used to slipping further behind every year.