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The Problems with Broadband in America
Tenken writes "Salon has an article about the state of broadband in America. After seeing what many other countries have accomplished with their broadband markets, namely Japan, Korea, and (gasp) even Canada, the current state of affairs in the U.S. is looking pretty dismal. I'm sure I'm not the only one tired of paying $45 a month just for cable internet." From the article: "Across the globe, it's the same story. In France, DSL service that is 10 times faster than the typical United States connection; 100 TV channels and unlimited telephone service cost only $38 per month. In South Korea, super-fast connections are common for less than $30 per month. Places as diverse as Finland, Canada and Hong Kong all have much faster Internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here. In fact, since 2001, the U.S. has slipped from fourth to 16th in the world in broadband use per capita. While other countries are taking advantage of the technological, business and education opportunities of the broadband era, America remains lost in transition."
That means the existing monopoly corporation providing broadband to you would suddenly have to invest major capital into revamping their business to approach a competitive edge with this new alternative that everyone smart like you and I would switch to immediately. This would cut into profits. Businessmen like their profits, so they look for an alternative, hmmm, how not to have to revamp their networks, think think think...
So the company instead pays out campaign donations the right people in senate and congress, hires some lobbyists to naysay revamping impractical and backwards laws, say if they do change the laws the terrorists will get us over the intrawebs on their haxxor boxenz and copyrighted material will be given away on the street corners. And the people of the country that invented and played a major part in developing the internet into what it is today, lose out to nations with 1/100th of the population and GNP.
God Bless America. What would Liberty be like without a caring, guiding corporate hand to slow things down to maximize their own profits? I rarely rant on like things about this, but let's face it; American broadband users are sheer cash cows to their ISP's.
Other countries are claiming that the U.S. has mismanaged the internet. Which has led to broad speculation that the internet will splinter soon while those other countries work on their own "Internet."
If one were to judge our use (read: underuse) of the internet on the public level... well, that's just a whole new angle on our lack of efficacy in educating our own. Think about it, at $50/month for a typical broadband connection in this country it's cost-prohibitive for a large segment of the population to access the internet regulary. Sure, there's dialup, but the frustration involved in dialup could discourage an internet "newbie" from using it. Let us also not forget that many, many metro areas have horrible phone lines. Our infrastructure in the U.S. is sad when you consider the fact that we're still (for now) the largest economy in the world.
The best way to build your population up intellectually is through information. The undisputed king of information is the "Internet." Imagine all the eyes that could be opened. Mixed in, of course, with all the idiocy, smut, and exploitation...
But some locales are contemplating making wireless accessible to the general public. So there is a movement. It's just a shame that in the most mighty economy in the world the cost is still prohibitive for a good segment of its population.
Keep squeaking about it... perhaps the corporations will grease the wheel. But I doubt it. What we need is a brave provider to go for the quantity, and not the quality (I never thought I'd say that) -- in other words, make the pricing attractive for everyone.
My ZooLoo
Thats all there is too it - in a America everything is ruined by greed.
More importantly: How can we, as consumers, change this in America?
Most broadband users download content that's valued more than what they pay each month.
:)
3 seasons of DVD in DivX format via BitTorrent has a cash value of over $100 and most people pay $25-40 per month for the access, so that's $60+ profit!
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
has anyone stopped and thought about how big america is?
It's going to take awhile to replace all the old infrastructure in america...
that's why many smaller countries have already have newer systems in place.
One thing the article probably failed to mention is all. You could have the same article and swap "broadband" with "health care".
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The US has lagged lots of the "new economy" networks. Mobile phones in the US are behind the networks in Europe, and miles behind Japan. Even basic technologies like SMS are only just being adopted in the US. And now with broadband a similar picture is evolving of other markets seeing the opportunities for MASS adoption rather than trying to fleece people with a few high cost offerings.
Considering that the US is the leader of the market economies, something the French detest, its amazing to note that in many ways market economics is working more effectively for consumers in France than they are in the US.
Has the US gone too far towards corporate economics and too far from consumer economics?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
In most of those places, the government either owns or has significant control over the Telcoms industry.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
In France, DSL service that is 10 times faster than the typical United States connection; 100 TV channels and unlimited telephone service cost only $38 per month. In South Korea, super-fast connections are common for less than $30 per month. Places as diverse as Finland, Canada and Hong Kong all have much faster Internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here.
Yes, and in China you can buy a house for a couple thousand dollars. That doesn't mean that houses here are overpriced.
Not only that, but each small chunk of the country down to the city level has different regulations for laying new infrastructure.
Is it too hard to fathom that Canada exceeds the US in something?
It seems to me that this article doesn't take into account the size and disbursement of the US population. Its not as hard for Finland and France to cover their country with broadband access, and to even upgrade it to handle higher speeds, but neither country are as large as Texas, just 1 of 50 US states.
Let's play Comparison!
The USA has a population density of 17.
Japan is like 325 and Korea is #3 in the world for population density at well over 400.
So, seriously. This is an intelletual exercise? Comparing the telecom infrastructure of Asian nations like Japan and Korea, among the most heavily populated people in the world per land area, to the United States? Canada would indeed make for a better comparison, with its insanely low population density of less than four, except something like 90% of Canadian citizens are condensed to areas that are within 200km of the American border, so the overwhelming majority of their land mass is almost entirely unpopulated and probably does not have cheap Canadian fat pipe broadband access.
American broadband blows because it's hard to wire the 450,000 people in Wyoming using the same deployment strategy that wires the millions that live in Chicago.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
My thinking is that the issue is political. With the MPAA/RIAA cartels in place with their hooks buried deep within our government, who in their right minds would risk offering consumers with high enough broadband speeds, making their system efficient enough to transfer high quality content in mere seconds? Knowing our legal system, they'd probably get sued for facilitating large scale P2P file sharing of copyrighted materials.
That's not to say, of course, these services are entirely innocent of playing games with the consumer. By trickling higher bandwidths to us slowly over a period of several years "for $10 more" each upgrade, they stand to make a huge fortune off the generally ignorant population we have here.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The United States is very, very big. It has a population density nowhere NEAR Korea and Japan, the posterchildren of "supermegaultra internet to the door".
You can afford to run fiber, switchgear, etc if you get a lot of customers for your effort. Japan is 145843 square miles and 127M people; New York state is a THIRD of that alone (54471 sq miles) and has 19M people.
Let's think that through- Japan has about half the US population, yet is only about 3 times bigger than NY state.
PS:I had to post this from home via an SSH tunnel because I've been "downmodded too much". I have mod points, but I can't post from work. Funny that. Can't get more than a form-reply from "Robert Rozeboom", either...which consisted of: "You have been downmodded too many times and are in timeout for a bit."
Please help metamoderate.
Even in major cities we only get crap Internet access. I live in metro Atlanta. When I can get 10Mbps downstream and upstream for $40/month, then you can use that excuse to explain why people can't get broadband in Boonieville, North Dakota.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In japan you can download an HD movie in 5 minutes. Just because you've had it for 6 with 'no problems' doesn't mean it can't be better, as in faster and cheaper.
I bet you're paying the same or higher prices as you were all those years ago. If you rented a brand new car and paid the same price for 6 years, you'd be a fool. If you rented the same computer for 6 years for the same price, wouldn't you expect the technology to improve, or at least for the economies of scale to make it cheaper? Why not expect more from your Internet provider?
You have been successfully groomed into a consumer with low expectations.
The article fails to seriously consider the following factors accounting for the cost, speed, and availability of internet service in different regions:
* Population densities
* Area to cover
* Income levels & cost of living differences
* Government subsidies, taxes, and regulatory costs
It does, at points note that some of these are arguements against his point, but the author fails to adequately address them. (Ex: while arguing against the area factor, he uses san francisco as a counter arguement, while failing to provide any information about how SF is performing more 'poorly').
The article jumps to the conclusion that "the man" is trying to screw you. This may or may not be true. However, without accounting for the above factors the author doesn't have a logic basis in making that conclusion and is just ranting.
"extra infastructure cost"
Sure, but aren't you suppoed to have "extra money" to build it, compared to a small country like France ?
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
I don't have the figures, but maybe we need to report this as "percentage of mean national monthly income per month". We're constantly told that wage earners in some countries make less per month than US workers (hence the outsourcing we see happening) - which could mean their cost for broadband is actually more expensive for them in relative terms. If a US worker makes 54K a year, or 4500 per month, then $45 of that for broadband might be a bargain if a Korean worker makes 19K a year, or 500 a month, and pays $38 a month. 45/4500 = 1% 38/500 = 7.6% of monthly incomes Therefore the Korean worker would be allocating more of his/her pay to broadband. As I said, I don't have actual figures - I just think this should be reported in these terms. Don't know about anyone else, but the allocation of my monthly funds can mean more than the actual amount(especially when the required allocations start to exceed 100% of the income!)
Very similar complaints are raised all the time about US literacy rates, per capita health care or pharmaceutical costs, and so forth and so on. Any small and more homogenous country with a top-heavy government is going to seem "better" by these measures than the US, often, first of all, because the US is a motley collection of seriously varying communities, with a relatively weak and small central government. What works for and is valued by urban New York City twentysomething hipster stockbrokers is not the same as what works for and is valued by the 65-year-old rural Wyoming farmwife, mother of five and grandmother to twenty. Having a heterogeneous market in which all kinds of people can find their solution is expensive.
/. crowd? Is this a social justice forum or a geek forum??! I dunno about the rest of you, but I want to live in the country that's blazing trails, technology-wise, and I expect that means it will cost a little more, and there will be more of the oopsies and confusions that accompany being on the bleeding edge.
Additionally, when you expect technology innovation all the time, that also costs. You can provide any service cheaper if you surf off other people's R&D, but if you have to do it yourself -- if as a nation you expect to be living on the technology frontier -- then you've got to pay more. I think a pretty strong case can be made that most (I don't say all) innovations in networked computer technology are being made in the US. Well, that adds to the price for basic service.
Finally, why would the average or per-capita performance even be interesting to the
In other words, metaphorically speaking I don't give a damn about living in a country where Joe Average can buy a Kia Sportage for a more modest price if I can live in a country where it's possible to buy Ferraris and Lamborghinis or rocket-cars half a decade before anyone else in the world can.
The US seems to have stagnated in its own corporation architecture.
First they were the most innovative country (technologically speaking). But upon their technological advances, they built a structure conformed by companies, associations and organisms (The FCC, RIAA, MPAA, the Patent Office, and yes, even political parties). But they became more and more powerful, inhibiting the growth of additional economical resources. Sooner or later, their inner resources will exhaust. And the U.S. will be left with nothing.
In other words, the U.S. has become a corporative timebomb.
Take a look at this picture. See the problem? Compariing the US to a densly populated and wealthy small country is not valid. It might be valid to compare NY to France. But revamping the US infrastructure to support this stuff and maintain backwards compatability takes time. Plus companies have to earn back their investment in the current infrastructure. I lived in Bahrain in theearlly 90's and they were one of the first countries with cheap handheld cellular. Revamping that country's infrastructure amounded to replacing a handful of towers. Imagine what it would take for the entire US. Still, I don't see why select US cities don't push to be on the bleedign edge of comms infrastructure expecially since it would likely lead to more hightech jobs.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I would gladly pay $45 a month for a high speed connection if they WOULD JUST MAKE IT AVAILABLE TO ME!
Want the price to go down? The company needs more customers. How does the company get more customers? Make it available to more people!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
France has a population density of 284/square mile.
South Korea has 1275 people/square mile.
New Jersey has 1133 people/square mile.
New York County, which includes Manhattan, has 66950 people/square mile. No, that's not a typo.
Obviously, NYC and NJ have "a tremendous advanage regarding broadband penetration". So why don't we have cheap broadband?
Ten times faster than what? Up until the telecom collapse there were a number of CLECs deploying DSLAMs with ADSL with a max speed of 7MbpsX1Mbps. Most have cut back on speed offerings due to lack of takers. The phone company offers maybe 3Mbps with a premium price paid and you have to be on top of the CO to get it.
Cable? I get 15MbpsX2Mbps which is about the speed of the big fiber push from Verizon. I pay $65 a month and it is totally worth it to me given the speed, reliability, and price. I looked at every option and this was the best one.
Ultimately, that is what it comes downt to. The paying AVERAGE consumer and NOT the whiny "I want everything for free" brigades and they're the loudest complainers, not the ones who've already adopted and been paying for years. I have had a cable modem for years, worked in DSL installation and tech support, and cable modem installation and tech support, so I know the relative strengths. I don't own a laptop and won't until milspec ruggedized books come down in cost (my big performance vs. reliability vs. cost concern is hardware not connections).
If you want T-1 speeds with the guaranteed SLAs, fine. Pay for them. Or don't. Hundreds of thousands already do just as I pay for the modem I've got at the service level I get. It is up to the end users.
As of now, there is no financial incentive for broadband to jump in speed and fall in cost for the purveyors that they themselves don't create such as several cable providers jumping their speed ahead of schedule in areas that Verizon and company hadn't bothered pushing fiber to yet, thus cutting them off at the knees by providing it early to an already existing audience at the same speeds and nearly the same price point. The lack of need to change e-mail addresses and networking specifics is an added bonus. Why save $5/month when it would cost me weeks of downtime making the transition and changing all my network set-ups and accounting?
Again, my decision. Not whiny pontificators in magazine articles. Seems like another bs article designed to arouse and anger the same usual suspects and not a serious delving into why the broadband scene is the way it is.
The kids going on about greed and corporations should grow up already. Their hypocrisy is showing when they spend 9/10 of their Internet posts on tinfoil hat rhetoric about government censorship and interference with "their internets" but then suddenly are all hot to toss total Internet access control over to the government as long as they get taxpayer funded "free" net access. Yeah, let the same government you despise, distrust, and live in fear of control your access to the net.
When pushed, what is the theory? That what they browse won't get banned or be interferred with. Of course a similar theory was had by many during WWII regarding the Nazis and who would be come after and saying nothing until they came after that last group. Everyone is fine as long as its free, and they ain't the ones being oppressed. Well the world works thus: the nail that sticks up gets pounded down; when the only tool in your box is a hammer everything looks like a nail; the only tool of government is a hammer. Sooner or later government run Internet will screw you and you'll wish you'd paid for it in a proper economic relationship.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
The high cost and low speed are not caused by high infrastructure costs, or low population density. The telcos and cable companies have plenty of cash to lay down fiber to the home. They spend it on acquisitions of competitors and huge payouts to executives. It's not a problem of population density differences between, say, Tokyo and New York. If that were the rule, NYC would have 10 dollar a month fiber connections for everyone in Manahattan. They keep the prices high because they can.
The difference between Japan and the U.S., between France and the U.S., between Canada and the U.S. is this: they still have a liberal social policy -- the concept of the public good. They spend tax dollars and regulate providers so that the cost of high-speed telecom stays very low indeed.
The U.S., in what can only be called the era of Bushism -- he didn't invent it, but he is the shining avatar of all that it embraces -- has gone Ayn Rand, and no longer has a core concept of the public good, with perhaps the exception of highways and of course the military. We don't have an emotional understanding of why regulation of commerce is needed, or why taxes sometimes should be spent to build things that private corporations simply will not provide at a reasonable cost.
After all, if you, in your car driving from your suburban home to your job, had to pay a private corporation to build and service every inch of asphalt from your driveway to your job -- how much do you think you'd be paying? Oh baby, I'm clenching thinking about it. Protect us, O Lord, from the thieves in the broad daylight...
They'd be the cheapest crappiest roads they could get away with. They'd lobby Congress to exempt them from liability from death and damage caused by baseline maintenance. Look at what happened in Ohio -- that massive electrical blackout was caused by a conglomerate cutting powerline maintenance beneath the bone to pump up profits. Private companies SUCK at that sort of thing. All the drive for higher profits at all costs. Since the people who actually run corporations have no personal responsiblity for their actions, they have no sense of same. Elected officials at least can go to jail, lose their jobs, be exposed as lying jackasses. Companies are faceless machines which just don't care. ESPECIALLY when they are monoplies. We practically fought a civil war to disable the trusts in the early 20th century for just that reason.
Most technologically advanced countries have good public health care, fast internet, and good highways because they still adhere to the concept of the public good overriding the possiblity of someone making an immense profit. It's as simple as that.
Hmm... while we may be more clustered... why are your own clusters of population not similarly enriched with broadband... yes the average american might be more rural... but I can't see why places like California (which has a bigger population than all of Canada) with cities like LA, and SF that do not have as affordable a broadband connection as a city like Edmonton, Alberta(about 1 million people) which is like $30 CDN (about $25 US) for a 1.5Mbps connection?
Of course even while I'm living here in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories (pop. ~ 20,000) I can get a 1.5Mbps connection... (about 1500 km north of Edmonton, Alberta) so I'm unsure why it would be that difficult to wire most of rural America... maybe there's just no incentive to... where there's a will there's a way... and telcos in US seem to have no will as there is no competition based on the fact they do not need to allow "Open Access" to their networks at wholesale prices... as stated in the article.
I really feel the population density excuse ... while somewhat valid... is used too much as a crutch and excuse for why the 75% of Americans living in Urban areas (http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/h iscendata.html) are not given competitive rates for broadband. I think the article has some great ideas as to why that may be...
Bwahaha, how do you like your nice free market NOW, capitalist-boy? Just to stop you from spreading FUD, the law actually stated that companies had to lease lines to external companies at the same rate they charged internally. And in case you hadn't figured it out, we granted those cheap bastards a monopoly, gave them the public right of way in which to put their cables, they OWE us for that. If we want to regulate their sorry asses we will. If they don't like it, tough, we'll give out that monopoly to someone who'll appreciate it.
You GUESS they are subsidized, hmmmm? Based on what? Your ideology, which tells you that nothing ever works better than the American style free market? Whoo, boy! have you been hornswaggled. There is no such thing as a free market here. Politics, power and corruption have seen to that.
You missed Canada, which has better service for less than we do due to their citizenry friendly but business fair legislation. I mean business *fair*, not business gets everything they ever wanted without having to give anything really back to the community.
Country Area (sq km) Population Pop. Density (ppl/sq km)
United States of America 9 631 418 295 734 134 30.7
France 547 030 60 656 178 110.9
Korea, South 98 480 48 422 644 490.7
Canada 9 984 970 32 805 041 3.3
Canada is 1/10th the density of the US and still provides better service for less, so clearly the population density problem is surmountable with the right attitude from the legislature.
P.S. I don't know from where you got your data because you did not site it. I got mine from the CIA World Factbook which has been updated in July of 2005.
Okay, cut the US area in half to account for these 'no-people areas'. (I seriously doubt that 50% of the US doesn't need high speed infrastructure, but just for the sake of it)
France sq miles: 211k
USA sq miles: 1768.5k
France gdp/sq mi: $8M
USA gdp/sq mi: $6M
When I saw compared negativley with I expected the usual bout of trolling, defensive excuses and outright off topic criticism of those other places, but this really takes the cake. What is it, in this day and age, that makes so called educated americans who use the internet, so utterly unable to comprehend that some little thing, somewhere else on the planet might be better than in their country?
Why do they use the excuse that America is much bigger and more rural than any of those countries and simply ignore Canada sitting right next door with routine 2mbit connections in towns 400 kilometers from anywhere else in a country that is bigger than America and has a far smaller population? Why do they make up utter bullshit statements about so called socialist governments and other crap.
The simple answer would be that realising that you are in a unfavourable position is the first step to changing it. Denial, however, never helped anyone.
For the record, I live in Switzerland, which, while having one of the highest rates of broadband penetration is ridiculously expensive and the only cable company, which has a total monopoly on cable connections, has only just introduced 6mbit connections at around $60 per month. That's the best you can get here. And switzerland is ridiculously capitalist and has very little in the way of regulation, just like the USA. Just across the border in France, an hours drive from where I live, you get 20mbit access, free phone use and free wireless modems for around $20 per month. And while the telcos are all privately owned, there is market regulation.
Think about that. It has nothing to do with socialism or size of your penis. It has a lot to do with regulation keeping the market free of monopolies who can and do abuse their positions if left unchecked. If you're still unsure about what I mean, ask someone here about Microsoft.