We Don't Need No Stinkin' Broadband

Ant writes "eMarketer has an article on The Yankee Group's analysis on why some Americans aren't feeling the broadband love. It was based on Ipsos Public Affairs. 45% of Americans say it's simply too expensive. 30% say that they just don't want it. 14% say they feel dial-up is adequate for their needs. Less than 10% are not able to get broadband access in their area. Five percent insist broadband is "too complicated". Another 5% aren't even sure why they don't have it..."

Comments

The inevitable killer app comment

[b0r1s]

You have to have a reason to require broadband. Websites load slowly with dialup, so that's not a convincing argument. Things like video blogs that use online recording through the browser don't work with dialup - while many people won't care about this, a new mom trying to send video of her kids to family members only to see choppy images with no audio may be convinced by such an argument. Some people won't have a killer app, won't upgrade, and - even though I make a living off of high speed networking - I can't say I blame them. Some people just don't need the newest technologies, and likely never will.

Count me in the Expen$ive camp

[ackthpt]

I'm still on dial-up, as I have been for the last 8 years (at this address.) I see offers come and go, but they still boil down to an eventual rate of about $50/mo. I only need that speed now and then and it's hard to justify.

It's about the same with me as it has been with cell phones. I've had those 3 different times and always cancelled because I was shelling $35+/month and using the phone for less than 10 minutes a month. Only when seeking a new job or apartment do they seem genuinely necessary. I've got a pay-as-you-go plan now and I used about 20 minutes a month for each of December and January, so this is much more to my liking of ~$10/month. For service.

I'd like high speed for downloading Microsoft's bloated patches (why are these things always 15 MB? for a "few" fixes?) or the latest virus scan patterns (again, why are these things 5-10 MB?) Seems there's always a hell of a lot more than seems necessary, but I suppose developers of today didn't grow up trying to maximize 8K and could care less how much shit is in things as it's not their problem. For the most part, I get by and that's all I need.

Why so expensive?

[Quirk]

Why is broadband so expensive in the U.S.?

In Canada I get broadband and +70 TV channels for 80 looney Canadian dollars a month. Posters from other countries like Korea, Japan and some European countries have posted in the past about how, relative to U.S. rates, broadband cable is cheap in their respective countries.

So what's up south of the border?

Re:The biggest danger of broadband

[bm_luethke]

My parents fought broadband for years and years even though the accessed some work related stuff through the interenet (subdivision maps, deeds, and some other documents from the local court house). The never could see why there was any reason to pay 55 dollars a month plus, because of the wiring in the house not being available, a wireless access point and card.

I told them time after time that the map that took them 15 minutes to load would be nearly instant (comcast has 8mbit down here). One day thier modem finally kicked the bucket and I needed a new wireless switch/card so I made them a deal - purchase the one I want, try broadband for a month and if you do not like it I will buy the card/switch. At the end of the first day my father ask "Why didn't we ever use this before - I saved over an hour of time in *one* day!". Of course, I had to be that smart ass son and pointed out I've said that for about two years now :) They can not stand to use dialup any more - it's amusing to hear dad telling someone to go look at some funny video he found.

For them "price" would have been listed as a reason, though mostly because telling them how much faster doesn't make sense - for most it has to be something used and internally felt. I suspect that, as you said, the largest portion of those that say they don't need it would suddenly not be able to live without once they used it some. I've never driven a Ferrari and can't really imagine how it feels, many have never used broadband and can't raelly comprehend how much faster things happen.

Re:45% say its too expensive?

[kklein]

The big difference between the US and most of the rest of the world (okay, EVERYPLACE I CAN THINK OF, but I don't want to make generalizations), is that in the US we have free local calling. That means that if you want to call your ISP downtown, you can be on 24/7 and it doesn't cost you a dime more on your phone bill.

This is not the case elsewhere.

This means that if you, for example, were living in Japan in 2000-2002 (as I was then, and as I am again now), your phone bill with dialup was $200/mo for enjoying the kind of net access you had in the US--and even then, that was disconnecting anytime you thought you'd be reading a page for a long time. When ADSL hit your area (okay, MY area), it represented a HUGE savings. Suddenly you could stay on all the time like you wanted for the low low fee of $50/mo.

So widespread broadband penetration here (Japan), and likely a lot of other places in the world, is due to the fact that it represents a HUGE cost savings over dialup. The fact that it's faster is a side benefit (and before anyone starts oohing and ahhing about my "24Mbps" connection--I get 3Mbps on a good day--it's all BS marketing, which the great NTT tech geeks to whom one can actually COMMUNICATE with about things of a technical nature, like their product, are all too ready to eye-rollingly admit).

So instead of saying "The US is behind in broadband," we probably should say "The US is WAY ahead in phone service!" Same thing with cellphones. The fact that in the US one can TALK on a cellphone and still eat every month is because Americans demand cheap voice communications and are used to getting it.