Slashdot Mirror
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.
I'm still downloading that Pam and Tommy Lee video that i started years ago....
I would have got it but this connection is SO DAMN SLOW!
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
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.
I live just south of the border so I get to see how two different countries do it on a regular basis. In Canada internet access seems to be treated like any other public utility, broadband is easy to access, and it is priced affordably.
Compare to this part of the US where companies charge around $50 per month for broadband and act like they are doing us a major favor by only charging double what I pay for phone service or water and sewage on a monthly basis.
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.
While much of Canada's population does lie within 100 miles of the US border, that says nothing about why Canada's broadband infrastructure has been ahead of the States in recent years.
Where I'm from (Halifax, Nova Scotia), we've had residential broadband access in some form or another since as far back as 1995 or 1996. Much of rural Nova Scotia and PEI have broadband access. The greatest thing about it all is that the prices are relatively reasonable, around $40CAN per month, with varying degrees of speed/accessibility
On the other hand, there isn't a whole lot of "wasteland" to fill between towns, meaning that setting up so many additional connections will always yield a decent increase in subscriber base.
This kind of article shows up every now and then, doesn't it? Oh well. It's not Canada's fault that there's just SO MUCH MORE UNITED STATES to cover.
the majority of Canadia's population is settled within 100 miles or so of the US border
Every time the topic of poor broadband availability in the US comes up, this fallacy is repeated. Yes, the majority of the Canadian population is near the US border, but broadband penetration goes much further. I live roughly 500 miles north of the US border, and a 5 hour drive from the nearest city of over 50,000 people -- yet I have my choice of broadband internet providers -- and at competitive prices. For $20/month Canadian (about $15 US), I get 170 KB down and 60 KB up (bytes not bits). The whole argument is bullocks.
Be relentless!
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.
Uh, Japan and Canada consistantly both have a higher standard of living than the United States of America: Read all about it.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
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.
Aye, but the government in Canada paid for the backbone to be put across the country. Different from the states where such things are done by corporate interests. A consortium of business, educational, and governmental interests worked on the project which brought about the world's first national optical Internet research and education network. This has blossomed into CA*net4, which is our current backbone.
.
Government interest in broadening communications abilities in Canada has always been viewed as culturally and economically important. A country laid out as we are couldn't possibly survive or thrive without such an interest. Canada paid a lot of attention to the establishment of the national telephone network, a great deal of funding is pumped into the cbc to guarantee that every community has access to it, and now
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
It's that simple. The cheapest I can get DSL in my area is roughly $45, and that's slow stuff that I wouldn't even want to try to game on. Cable is no better costing $50+ through comca$t, whom I don't trust. In many areas the choice is limited, so they charge like crazy.
What makes me the angriest is that our wonderful Pennsylvania state house voted against townships operating wireless networks. The telecoms even tried to get public support for it, bundling it with bills that would give stuff to schools, then having the audacity to make commercials urging them to call their representives to support it. They also gave verizon 6 billion to bring high speed more places. Verizon being true to their ma' bell heritage promply took the money and did nothing. So it's no wonder that Pa is 50th on the list (last time I saw it) for broadband. Our elected state leaders are so bad, they jam their voting buttons (no roll call) so they can take the day off and still get their wage, plus food and transportation costs.
Pennsylvania: First to vote with electric buttons (supposedly) yet still hasn't made it to the 21st century.
good grief
John 3:16 - The easiest way to a BETTER YOU.
This story seems to be nearly a dupe of yesterays. So I'll dupe the facts I looked up for that one:
t m
E / 2004002/tables/pdf/44_01.pdf
- d ist.html
_ 2_ sense_of_broadband.pdf
Canada, the US, and Korea are all about equally urbanized.
US, 2000 census: 79.2% urban population
Canada 2001: 79.6% (statistics canada)
Korea, 2000: 77% urban
Even better, the McKinsey quarterly uses telco stats to compute the "reach" of broadband, that is to say, the percentage of total households that can be equipped with broadband if they choose to pay for it:
Korea: 95%
US: 89%
Canada: 87%
The houses that actually purchase broadband:
Korea: 54%
US: 13%
Canada: 25%
In short, it isn't for lack of ability to provide the broadband. It's the price offered to the consumer. It's cheaper in Canada and much cheaper in Korea.
NB: Disposable income is lower in Canada and much lower in Korea. But the prices for broadband are that much lower again.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.h
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-221-XI
www.paulnoll.com/Korea/History/South-Korean-pop
http://www.dalfarra.ch/nds/zusatzdokumente/2003
Yeah. If I recall correctly, Saskatchewan is (or at least used to be) the province with the highest percentage of the population with high-speed, and is one of the provinces with the lowest population density. I mean, the population of Toronto is several times that of the entirety of Saskatchewan.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
Man....we almost closed out the week without a "USA is a technological backwater compared to all these countries with a lower standard of living with far higher population density and enormous federal pork to build their broadband connections" story. Thank God we dodged that bullet!