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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
I'll bet that if MY DSL were 100 times faster than my current DSL, I would have gotten first post.
More importantly: How can we, as consumers, change this in America?
Free American broadband!
In France, you can get super-fast DSL, unlimited phone service and 100 TV channels for a mere $38 a month. Why does the same thing cost so much more in the U.S.?
By S. Derek Turner
Oct. 18, 2005 | Next time you sit down to pay your cable-modem or DSL bill, consider this: Most Japanese consumers can get an Internet connection that's 16 times faster than the typical American DSL line for a mere $22 per month.
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.
How did this happen? Why has the U.S. fallen so far behind the rest of its economic peers? The answer is simple. These nations all have something the U.S. lacks: a national broadband policy, one that actively encourages competition among providers, leading to lower consumer prices and better service.
Instead, the U.S. has a handful of unelected and unaccountable corporate giants that control our vital telecommunications infrastructure. This has led not only to a digital divide between the U.S. and the rest of the advanced world but to one inside the U.S. itself. Currently, broadband services in America remain unavailable for many living in rural and poorer urban areas, and remain slow and expensive for those who do have access.
For instance, when farmers gathered at this year's Iowa State Fair to discuss their policy concerns with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, the topic on the minds of many was broadband. And for good reason. Twenty-five percent of Iowa's rural communities have no access to high-speed Internet service, and over half of the remaining rural communities are serviced by only one provider. Those lucky enough to live in areas served by Iowa Telecom can pay as much as $170 per month for a DSL line.
President Bush has called for "universal, affordable access to broadband technology by the year 2007," and Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin recently declared broadband deployment to be his "highest priority." Martin recently took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to tout "the dramatic growth in broadband services." In his editorial he boasts of "fierce competition" among broadband providers and tells us we're "well on our way to accomplishing the President's goal."
The facts tell a different story. Today, major cable companies and DSL providers control almost 98 percent of the residential and small-business broadband market. This trend is the direct result of FCC policies that fail to encourage real competition among broadband providers, giving free rein over the market to the cable and DSL giants. The corporate giants are also vigorously fighting to stop cities and towns from building "Community Internet" systems -- affordable, high-speed broadband services funded in part by community groups and municipalities -- even in places where the cable and DSL companies themselves don't offer service. Yet, like rural electrification projects in the early 20th century, today's Community Internet projects offer the best hope of achieving universal broadband service.
Like so many other challenges faced by the Bush administration, the response to the growing digital divide has been to redefine success and prematurely declare victory.
In the 1996 Telecommunications Act, Congress directed the FCC to oversee the timely deployment of Internet services that "enable users to originate and receive high quality voice, data, g
With FITL, it's fiber optic cable from the central office to a "lightspeed box" in your neighborhood, where it gets converted to copper wires to go to your home. If you're lucky enough to be in a FITL neighborhood, the best you can get is IDSL (aka ISDN). The Megababy Bells insist on putting the DSLAMs in the central office, when they could put it out in the lightspeed boxes, thus creating IFITL (Integrated Fiber in the Loop). By pushing the DSLAM out to the neighborhoods, a vast majority of people could get broadband... but that means opening up the lines to competition, which I know Verizon doesn't want to do... thus the concept of FIOS... which takes advantage of a loophole in the law, allowing them to maintain total control/access of those fiber lines because they've put brand new ones out there from the central office to your home.
Since nobody other than your local power company, local cable company, and local phone company can put lines up on the phone poles (or in the conduits, if you have underground lines), they're going to kill off the broadband companies.
OCO is Loco
Is it too hard to fathom that Canada exceeds the US in something?
We've had 10 mbit up/down no caps since the 90's, 24 mbit for several years and you can also get 100 mbit connections (both up and down, no limitations or caps) for a mere $30 / month in some places. I myself live in a very small town of 3000 people in the middle of the woods, and almost all of us have 8 mbit, or at least 2 mbit. It's even better in the universities.
Canada has long been a telecommunications leader. It's 50%+ the site for the world's first trans-atlantic wireless communication on Signal Hill in Newfoundland. It's had a transcontienent microwave network for phone and TV communication since at least the 1960s [and possibly longer I don't recall], and it's the home of Nortel Networks, and Research In Motion [makers of the Blackberry email device PDA].
Even lowly Saskatchewan has had broadband in smaller markets [compared to US markets of similar size], since the late 1990s.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
What are you talking about????
Let me see the countries that were mentioned in the article: Japan, France, Finland, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong... control over telecom? owns telecom?
You're almost right in one respect, but I don't think it's how you intended it to be. The reason why many of these places are successful are NOT because the government owns the telecoms but because the government regulation is better. The reason why we've failed here is because if big money interests that have bought lobbyists and support in the FCC. It's not that they own the networks, it's that they have better regulation.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
All the states listed are pretty socialist, compared to the US anyway. I wonder if France and Canada and so-forth have subsidised internet from the government. I'm not certain I want my tax dollars (and tax increases) going towards discounting broadband for everyone.
But what if you gained more in the amount saved than you paid in taxes? Or what if you didn't actually have to pay anything extra in taxes, and the funds were just reallocated from, say, defense spending? Other countries have proved its possible, and that it works better for more people than the way America does it. Will you really be so foolish as to let ideology stand in opposition to demonstrated proof of benefit to your own person?
Taboo to say round these parts, I know, but socialism works pretty well. Taxes are the cost we pay for a civilized society.
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.
You would rather see your tax dollars go to fight neverending wars against terrorism then? Or perhaps you'd prefer that our money go to rebuild city after city as natural disaster strike although building below sealevel is obviously a "bad idea". Or perhaps you'd prefer that our money goes to build a feasible long-term network infrastructure for the future of this country? ... Nevermind you probably voted for Bush.
So why do the more densely populated areas of the US not have access to good broadband either? By the logic of your Canadian comparison, The Eastern seaboard, the Mississippi River cities, CA, FL and the coastal PacNW should all have fast broadband access.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Canada, the largest country in the world, has much better internet access even in remote communities -- communities that would make what Americans consider remote seem down right cosmopolitan.
...and they brazenly go along with it because that's what the market dictates to be the best value for their campaign war chest...
I moved from a job in NW Ontario where I provided service for the Hudson Basin -- towns that were hundreds of miles from roads, hours by plane -- these towns had better broadband access than most of rural Wisconsin.
The average household in NWO has better access than the average household in Chicago... but of course, they had broadband available many years before most people in Chicago. The difference is the politicians, both local and national, see the value of providing their citizens with connectivity.
Finland had a much higher percentage of landline-less communities a little over a decade ago. They responded by building one of the best cellular networks in the world. Additionally, they saw the value of broadband and integrated that into their infrastructure too, despite very low population densities and long, cold distances.
Whereas in the US, politicians seem to find it better to leave it to the "freemarket", as dictated to them by the deep pocketed telecoms and media conglomerates who tell the elected official what is best
In the US the Telcoms own or have significant control over the government! Damn, when did we become a Soviet Russia joke?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
With the exception of Canada, the countries mentioned have a tremendous advanage regarding broadband penetration, and that is relative population density.
As has been pointed out many times before, Canada is actually more "urban" than the US. Something like 3/4 of Canadians live in cities whereas about 2/3 of Americans do, or something like that. Yes, queue jokes about huddling together for warmth, etc., but the facts are there. It helps that only 20% of Canadian land is "habitable" (meaning you can grow crops on it), which is the type of land typically settled on hundreds of years ago. So, Canada has an easier time hitting more of its population with broadband due to population density.
Also, Canada has certain government initiatives to get broadband access to the more remote parts of Canada, such as the far north. Canada has always been on the leading edge of communications technology, and is actively trying to stay that way. The first commercial communications satellite was Canadian owned, as was the first national coast to coast microwave telephone network. This is all because the politicians realized from the start that the only thing stopping the small relatively isolated colonies that became Canada from being absorbed by the US was to overcome the vast communication and transportation obstacles that separated them. Those ideas continue today.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
"Last I heard, most of these countries have per minute phone service, and bandwidth usuage caps as low as 6G per month. Also, in the US, High speed internet is considered a luxury. Of course, I also know of people who spend $100(US)+ but the extra $25-30 for Internet is too much."
*Gasp*
Here in France, we have unlimited phone service, unlimited 20Mbits bandwidth usage, 100+ TV channels.. ALL for 30 Euros / Month.
No extra charges.
Oh, and the modem is given for free, and is a wifi access point.
Alexis 'jeriqo' BRET
I just came back from a vacation in france, at my parent's house, in a lost "village" in the middle of the alps. There are maybe 4 farms on a square kilometer. What do you know, over there I had 20meg dsl line with wireless hotspots. Their cost: 12 euro a month (around 15 bucks).
Why do I pay 40 bucks in LA for a crappy connection ? The US has guaranteed local monopolies to corporations who have zero interest in investing anything in infrastructure when they can bring it insane profits on obsolete products. Telcos in the US function like energy and healthcare companies. They are not a public service like in most european countries, it's a racket that gets blank support from politicians to milk a captive market as much as they can.
Sure... lots more area to cover, though
France 2004 gdp: ~1.7T
USA 2004 gdp: ~11T
France sq miles: 211k
USA sq miles: 3537k
France gdp/sq mi: $8M
USA gdp/sq mi: $3M
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?
And if socialism works so well, why isn't Johnson's "Great Society" a reality today? The democrats had decades to implement plans to eliminate poverty, racism and social injustice from the federal level... so why isn't poverty eliminated?
Because the goal was to reduce it, not eliminate it. Poverty can (probably) never be eliminated, and outside of political speeches no serious student of public policy would ever make such a claim. This sounds suspiciously close to a straman.
Be that as it may the results of the Great Society are still alive and well, thank you. AFDC, WIC, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, etc. These have all been successes. Between 1963 and 1970 America saw a full 10% decrease in the number of Americans living below the poverty line; this was the most dramatic decrease in the nation's history.
This is where most liberals miss one of the key points of federalism. If you want to live in the Great Society, do it from a state or local level.
But you said it yourself: the economy of scale means that the federal government can do it more efficiently than the states can.
Fundamentally this is an ideological issue. Libertarianism works in theory, socialism works in practice. For evidence you need look no further than the world at large. And whereas it is nice to believe that we have fully earned every penny of our paychecks, the simple fact is that we owe our personal successes not only to our own hard work but also to the society as a whole and the government which set up the support structures, from educational systems to laws on corporate governance to SEC regulations and fair hiring regulations.
So to sum it all up, it's not just a cost/benefit issue. It's also a political, moral and "freedom" issue. Even if the cost/benefit analysis looks good your solution (for me at least) fails on the other issues.
So like the OP, you are willing to sacrifice personal (and even social) gain for the sake of ideological purity. You would reject something that works better for no reason other than the adjective attached to it.
Pardon me if I think that is... silly. What is the justification for a belief system if not the underlying belief that it works better?
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.
I think you missed the article's point...that legislation in other countries allows for ISPs to provide cheaper and better services. Rather than doling out monopolies for corporate kickbacks, they force communication networks to be rented out at wholesale prices so any ISP can compete for the consumers Euro, Yen, what have you. They see it as a public utility to some extent, feeling that the entire economy benefits when the general populace has access to fast, always on, broadband connections. Increased education and all that. Note, that most other countries define broadband as being in the Mbps and not Kbps like the FCC does.
Oh, and if you think that population densities are a real factor, which they are to come extent, they are not impossible to overcome. Case in point, Canada, with lower population densities than the US has better service for less, because their legislation keeps monopolies out.
Like the example from the article where a small town with zero broadband ISPs which started to have companies leave for that reason decided to do somethin about it. They asked the ISPs if they could serve the community, but they refused citing the small amount of profit they'd make there not being worth their time. So the community started a public community internet project to offer WiFi throughout the town. The ISP's reaction? Trying to convince the state to pass a law to make that illegal.
That's the kind of mentality we as a nation have, and it's hurting us. We should stop being so high on ourselves, admit our faults, look to others which do it better than we, and fix it!
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.