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US Lags World In Broadband Access
An anonymous reader writes "When It Comes To Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow The Leader says a story in IWeek. Their thesis is that, while broadband access in the United States rose from 60 million users in March 2005 to 84 million in March 2006, the US is well behind countries like England and China. Indeed, what you may not realize is that the U.S. ranks a surprisingly poor 12th in worldwide broadband access, a situation which could threaten its ability to maintain its technological lead. The federal government is no help: the FCC has almost no data on the rate of hi-speed adoption, or of what the speed and quality of those services are. Broadband is more expensive here than in other nations, as well, almost 10 times as expensive by some estimates. The cost and poor quality of service aren't from population density, aren't from lack of interest, and are not from lack of technical know-how. So, what is holding us back?
Most of the contry was settled with the cheap gas in mind. So a large part of the population is decentralized.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
This might have something to do with the US being such a big country. It's quite easy to put cables through a heavily concentrated Asian population. It's quite another thing to lay thousands of miles of cable across the United Staes.
There should be a "-1:Groupthink"
But you wouldn't mind having it ran as well as US interstate system, would you? For all it's troubles it's better than the roads in any country in the world (with the possible exception of Germany). And it's built by slacking unionized labor. Government sucks at building and maintaining infrastructure, but it doesn't suck at making it interoperate. Private interests are good at building and maintaining infrastructure, but they suck at interoperating with each other.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Cue the 200 "US has so much more land area than _____, so that's why" threads. I think this story has been a repeat on Slashdot for a good portion of 6 years, if not more.
You're nothing; like me.
So, what is holding us back?
One word: Comcast
$60 / month for cable internet is the worst screwing I've ever received.
Is the percentage of people on broadband a even valid benchmark of technological ability of a nation? Maybe a large amount of people don't have broadband because they don't want it? My parents live in a little town in the northern Great Plains and they recently got DSL, not because they were chomping at the bit to get broadband, but because the internal modem in their computer went bad and it would have cost them as much to get that replaced by the local computer guy as it would for the DSL installation charge. Otherwise, they would have stayed with dialup because that is sufficient for their online usage.
IMHO, the only people who harp about this are the companies trying to get a govt subsidy.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
they do most of their manufacturing and an increasing amount of their research overseas
Technological lead has nothing to do with manufacturing. And of course overseas research is increasing, you can't go lower than 0 which a lot of countries had not too long ago.
As much as the whining on slashdot would have you believe otherwise, the U.S. is a technological leader and a country that millions around the world want to come to. We have some of the best universities in the world. Have you ever noticed the number of foreign student's that come to the U.S. to study?
Technological lead, from a business perspective, means having the talent pool and the infrastructure to support research. This means having the universities (which we have), employees (which we have), high speed access (which we have, any business, pretty much in any location, can get a T1, etc.), reliable communications (there isn't a communications system in the world as reliable as the U.S. PSTN). What do we lack? People on farms and living hours outside of cities can't get broadband and can't access Youtube and Bittorrent? That doesn't prevent us from being the technological leader.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
Here's the end result- the Quarterly Report. This makes American corporations short sighted- if they can't show a profit within 4 months, then that's a project not worth doing. With competition, margins are razor-thin on broadband unless you're the very first company into a new area with sufficient potential subscribership to pay for your equipment within 4 months, you're not going to do it. Even more urban areas rarely get broadband unless existing infrastructure can support it, and small towns in the middle of nowhere aren't sufficiently populated to pay for it.
In most other nations, government services step in at that point, but not in the United States where we are afraid of government media services.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The poor? How about decent broadband for the RICH? They don't have it, either.
That's part of the point. The U.S. considers anything above ISDN "broadband", whereas in the rest of the world you can get 10 and 100 MBps access. That is almost unheard of in the U.S., rich or not.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This is pure capitalism. Thanks to all the competition in the broadband market, the US is well covered and the prices are great.
No... wait....
Most places are under a monopoly leading to high prices ($60 a month for 2mbps), bad service, late coming to the area, etc.
Let's look at me. I didn't get cable modem access until about 2001 or 2002 despite living near a HUGE development area. One of the fastest growing counties in the entire country at the time. And I'm in a rich/dense neighborhood. You'd think that would spur them.
Nope. I had to pay for ISDN at INSANE prices.
What about DSL? Still not available. "Too far out.". My guess is they just don't want to compete with the established cable. But I don't get a choice of cable so my prices are high and my service is terrible.
Signing up so that only one cable operator or local phone company can operate in an area is one of the worst decisions a municipality can make.
Please, Time Warner, come save me from Comcrud.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Katrina is a non-example. It doesn't say anything about how government handles long-term infrastructure projects. It only says something about how government handles security and emergency situations.
I disagree. A substantial amount of time and money has been spent on disaster preparedness by the Government, but they seemingly overlooked relatively minor things like communications interoperability and task force coordination, which, among other things, led to trucks with supplies sitting idle while people were going hungry and thirsty in New Orleans.
Certainly: Sweden.
A country world-renowned for its internet access, which has about 20 people/km^2 compared to the US's 30 people/km^2.
I think I've made my point.
I live in one of the most densely populated regions in the US and arguably the center of the tech industry. Yet my choice for broadband is either a single cable company, SBC or several CLECs like Speakeasy. Not only that, but in the last couple of places that I lived, I always was at the max range of the DSLAM, which meant that my connection was regularly crap.
The problem is not location. The problem is local governments being cahoots with telecom monopolies who love nothing more than charging through the roof for crap connections. Yes, other nations have telecom monopolies as well, but for some reason they're not facing the same kind of problems. I suspect that the difference is that with a state monopoly, you can vote for change. With a government sanctioned economic monopoly, you can only bend over.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I am speaking of regulations that prevent a company from laying down lines and competing with the established providers. I don't care what they charge because the more there are putting in lines, the lower the prices will be.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
IIAS (I am a Swede). Considering that the vast, vast majority of people in Sweden live in an urbanized city center or near there,you've essentially got a relatively small number of cities with a relatively large population, in contrast to the US, where you have lots of people living in the middle of nowhere, (though with the occasional densely populated city), and as such you can't really make that comparison.
The state of broadband in the US reflects its users. Lots of people in the US know very little about what occurs outside their borders. Most broadband customers feel that $50.00/mo. for a 3 Mbps/512k connection is normal. Furthermore, they think that is all they need. I've heard plenty of people sing the praises of Verizon's $20.00/mo. 768k/128k DSL....why? Because it is cheap, and faster than dial-up. In their minds, there is no reason to spend almost 3x as much for faster service.
Thanks to this type of consumer, and local monopolies, $50.00 low-speed "broadband" is the norm in areas that have access to broadband.
Remember the Tennessee Valley Authority from your history class? Why was it important?
Our government realized that electricity was so important to the growth of our nation, that it could not be left to an unregulated market. Our government knew that if left to private industry, utility service would only be made available to densely populated areas. Our government needs to realize that high-speed data service now is as important as electricity or running water. For those that doubt that statement, try to apply for a job without using the internet. Sure, you can in some cases, but high-paying jobs almost require you to apply via electronic means.
We need to vote for guys that make this a priority (not Ted Stevens).
-ted
I think the point is that there are only a couple of dozen isolated locations like that in Canada whereas there are thousands in the US. Expanding broadband to those couple dozen locations is trivial and cheap compared to doing the same thing to thousands of locations
Who is John Galt?
The counter argument to this line of reasoning is "why can't a city like New York City have fast and cheap broadband because of its high population density?"
Americans think they have capitalism and everybody else has socialism.
In reality, everybody else has capitalism and the US has state protected monopolies.