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China to Top U.S. in Broadband Subscribers
An anonymous reader writes "China already is rapidly approaching the United States as the country with the largest number of broadband subscribers, according to the El Segundo, Calif.-based firm, and by the end of the year, China is expected to have 34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States. By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow."
considering they have 4x as many people than us in an are that is a bit more densely populated
It's a lot easier to have more subscribers/anything when you have almost 4 times the population.
This isn't very interesting news at all.
Next on slashdot: China Tops US in rice consumption.
High speed access to everything the government wants them to see.
Look at a population map of china. Now look at one of the US. Half of china has a population density of less than 2.5 people per square mile, and the other half has more than 500. Getting a large section of the country wired very quickly is pretty easy. The US population, on the other hand, is spread really thin. So it's not surprising that China could overtake the US quickly.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
So what if more people in China have broadband... most of the content of the Internet is monitored and filtered by the Chinese government.
Score one for the rest of the free world.
I had to help my sister figure out some computer related things at work this morning. They had AOL dial-up internet. I didn't even know they made that anymore.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
China has 1,298,847,624 and USA has 293,027,571
So China has about 4% and USA has 18%.
Now they can fail to find information about democracy, Falun Gong, Christianity or encryption software at blazing 2 megabit speeds! Hooray for broadband!
In other news, reports indicate that the China has far surpassed the US in terms of the number of households that contain "lungs." These "lungs" are being used by the Chinese to breathe "air," and it is widely fear that the Chinese may very well breath more "air" than any other civilized nation on earth, followed closely by India.
A big chunk of the Internet is denied to people behind the Great Firewall of China.
Good or bad our 54 million broadband subscribers get the WHOLE Internet, even the crazy North Korean bits
Now when is China going to beat that?
Of course for China, that's 2.9% while for the US, it's 13.5%.
Check for yourself: http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wp02/tabA-04.pdf
Hooray for manipulating statistics!
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Nah, I hear they have a great firewall.
Canada is higher than the US, per capita (which is what counts) I mean hell, our country is made up of lots of ice, mountains, and trees, and even our eskimos have a fat pipe!
And 18% is nothing to brag about, really. At least, not when compared to other countries.
Other news by 2007 every Indian can be Subscribers of Broadband
h nologyNews&storyID=8386370
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=tec
I bet they would trade their broadband for US' democracy.
Is that the same democracy that has a US president and Congress making laws that apply to single individuals?
Is that the same democracy that holds people indefinitely without charge and without representation in cuba?
Is that the same democracy that give governments the right to spy on you without court orders and without your knowledge?
Is that the same democracy that executes juvenile offenders and the mentally impaired?
Is that the same democracy that has Congress enacting laws which give ridiculous amounts of power to big corporations. (e.g. DMCA, copyright extensions, Broadcast flag )
Hmmm,
Keep your democracy. The rest of the world is better off without it.
I believe some people are missing the point, and aren't looking at the underlying issue. The relative disparity between economic growth, 'market' (I use the term loosely) functionality and political stability over the past 50 years has meant that while the US has enjoyed sustained and profitable economic growth, China has only turned around a number of its economic policies in the last decade or so; it is thus only recently beginning to develop technologically.
The essence of a comparison is that while the US has proved a hegemonic economic superpower for half a century, a late starter such as China (with a small GDP per capita nowadays, compared to the US, and one which was even smaller 10 years ago) is still able to outstrip the number of broadband connections (clearly indicia of technological advancement and economic modernity).
In one sense, people here are decrying this report as comparing apples and oranges (gross number of connections as opposed to percentages), while simultaneously expounding a similar methodology (comparing countries with gross disparities between GDP and economic histories).
Just something to keep in mind.
18% isn't bad considering the logistics. The US is nearly 100x larger in area than South Korea...
s html
South Korea - http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/skorea.html
Population 48m
Area 38k sq. miles (about the size of Indiana or Kentucky)
US - http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.
Population 293m
Area 3.5m sq. miles (2.9m continental)
I wonder what the percentage would be if we only accounted for metro areas like Seattle, New York, LA... while I'm sure it's nowhere near 73%, I bet it's well above 18%.
China's middle class is quickly rising and is currently approximately twice the entire U.S. population
Yep, and our middle-class is on the floor after getting it's nuts kicked repeatedly over the last 5 years.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Within a decade, China's going to be "it." Not the USA. I know it's blasphemy to most Americans to say so, but it's a plain and simple fact.
At least when that happens, maybe we can get our manufacturing jobs back. Maybe we won't have to live in this stagnant consumer culture and it'll be fashionable to NOT be up to your earlobes in debt. Maybe sunshine will burst out of our asses.
I, for one, welcome our new Sino-Overlords.
With THAT many people on high speed connections, how does Big Brother intend to censor them from that evil word, *democracy*? I imagine they could use their Great Wall of China as a hardware firewall if push comes to shove!
No. It's the democracy that did us a favor and won this war. I'm not even american, but I know when to respect a country.
Go forth and multiply?
Where did I leave my pocket calculator?
This sig is intentionally blank
Not surprising really, since most 'broadband' sharing type setups are very socialist in nature. I wonder just how 'broad' that band really is.
I mean, I've heard Cuba touted as having the 'best' healthcare system in the world (honestly!)... , but I don't think you'd have easy access to a CAT scan unless your name was Fidel. It might be the most 'even' perhaps in that almost everyone has the same lack of access.
Any bandwidth figures?
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
that is nice coming from a non US citizen who called us the US of Asshole's in a previous post.
Actually, I _am_ a US citizen living in Atlanta, GA. Born and raised US, white, middle-class, etc. And I meant what I said in that post.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
And that was with ONE Linksys wireless router, strategically placed in Bejing.
"I'd rather win in an ugly car than lose in a pretty car" - Jari Lahdenpera
More broadband, more people, booming economy, bigger army.
When the US going to wake up and realise that China is big and powerful and growing?
A quick trip around some of the major Chinese cities and and you can see a booming economy, new cars, lots of construction, retail and manufacturing. The Chinese are catching up quick. And I dont think most Chinese are too worried about censorship so long as they can make money.
Meanwhile the US is mucking about in Iraq, and lecturing other people on how to run their own countries. (Something that doesnt go down too well.)
It is only a matter of time before the Chinese economy catches up with the US, and I dont think they will be too well inclined towards the US. Then perhaps we will be wishing we paid a little more attention and were a little less arrogant.
Broadband is only one of many indicators that the USA's economic dominance might be shortlived.
In 1955, most people wouldn't have had any notion what "Broadband Internet Access" was. But if you could make them understand that it was a key technology of the 21st century, and that it would be more available in China than in the U.S....
An American would have reported you to the FBI for spreading commie propaganda. And a Chinese would have shaken his head at your obvious dementia. The U.S. has lost its edge, and this is another sign of it.
America is pretty good at consuming goods/services but with the population advantage China has theye's no doubt they'll have more broadband, doctors, sell more Big Macs, and have bigger political problems...
All the torrents you could want.
Correction: "The USA is turning into a technological backwater because the regime in power would rather focus on their monopolist corporate contributors' profits instead of leveling the high tech "playing field" through uniform improvements to infrastructure and access."
I think the more important aspect of there being more Chinese with broadband than Americans has a lot less to do with what Chinese citizens can find on Google. Broadband is a catalyst for business and information services. It's even a catalyst for change in culture. Look at the other asian countries that have spent millions on broadband spending. If South Korean teens consider online gaming to be as everyday as more 'conventional' sports like soccer, how much will making computers and the internet a common understanding change the way they do business? The last thing I want to see is the US falling behind in IT growth in areas like broadband.
Too bad it already is. What the hell is the FCC thinking?
I find it interesting that so many will try to argue the record deficits are low when expressed relative to GDP, without looking at the data. Here is one
And this one includes Federal spending as a percentage of GDP.
In both cases, the GWB spending is not only record on total, but nearing as a percentage of GDP. In fact, only during WWII (when we had a manufactuering base) and Regans first term has it been higher.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Of course the webs content would only increase and diversify, not change into chinese, so I don't think there will be THAT kind of problems. But I wouldn't wonder if all the pop-ups and the ads in slashdot would one day be full of characters that are alien to me advertising something I could only guess at.
Whatever measurement allows the grandparent to chant, "USA! USA! USA! Number One! Best country in the history of history!"
Seriously, the contortions some people will go to rather than think about whether they ought to be concerned about the state of their nation.
Broadband is good because virtually nothing is blocked the way you believe it is blocked. I sit here in Shanghai, read my daily /., download all the porn I could ever want, read articles on Tibet, human rights, etc., and it all go through. There's no fucking difference from surfing in the West.
If I one day would come across something that is blocked, I would of course go to virtualbrowser.com or use a proxy from proxy4free.com, both of which are totally unblocked in China (as is 99.9999% of the web, including Slashdot, goatse porn, news and protest sites about Tibet -- I could mail you screen shots if you don't believe me).
People continue to believe in this myth that the Chinese are blocked from surfing the web. There IS blocking of web sites, but it is so limited that it has no effect whatsoever. If a site doesn't work, just google up another similar site or a mirror. Or use a proxy.
There is no way you could effectively block content on such a thing as tah Intarweb... the whole thing seems to be a domestic political farse to make it look like the authorities are doing something to curb the Western influence.
I am pleased with the service from China Telecom. They give me broadband for 80 yuan per month, including a perfectly working Huawei modem. I have no complaints.
Oh, the irony...