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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.
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
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.
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.
Perhaps, but what percentage of their populations live in northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Canada? It could be that the population density of those countries varies enough that the few very rural people without broadband can't bring down percentage, compared with the very large number of people in places with high population density and broadband.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
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.
Of course, that completely ignores population density density. There's two there for a reason. I bet Alaska has really nice broadband penetration, despite its rather incredible size, simply because a huge percentage of the population lives in cities. Iceland works like that too; 190,000 people live in/around Reykjavik, at a density in excess of 1000 people/square mile, compared to a total population of about 300,000 living at a density of less than 10 people per square mile for the entire country. Serve one modest city and you serve 2/3 of the country.
It would be much more relevant to consider serviceable population vs. infrastructure costs. If you integrated the part of the graph with positive slope, you could even find out how many people in a country were worth servicing at all.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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
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?"