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Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift
In today's NYTimes (registration required), Paul Krugman's op-ed piece lays out in simple terms the statistical power shift in the online economy among Europe, Japan, and the US. This shift has been discussed here for some time, but it's good to see it coming to the attention of a wider audience. Quoting: "As recently as 2001, the percentage of the population with high-speed access in Japan and Germany was only half that in the United States. In France it was less than a quarter. By the end of 2006, however, all three countries had more broadband subscribers per 100 people than we did... [W]hen the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the FCC, the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there's little competition in U.S. broadband — if you're lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go."
The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go.
How about Europe or Japan?The question is whether these statistics play out within concentrated geographic areas. What about the state of California, or of New York, or of Massachusetts or Washington?
At times, I wonder if the "spread out America" card gets played a bit too much. Most Americans live in fairly concentrated regions. How much of the difference between US, European and Japanese broadband adoption is really about density?
Interesting point, so I pulled a few numbers off of wikipedia...
_ population_density
In the entire 50 states of the US, the population density is: 31 per square kilometer (172nd in the world).
California is 83.85 per square kilometer.
New York (state) is 155.18 per square kilometer.
Massachusetts is 312.68 per square kilometer.
Washington State is 34.20 per square kilometer.
By contrast, Montana is 2.39 per square kilometer.
Japan is 337/km per square kilometer.
Germany is 230.9/km per square kilometer.
What I can't find quickly (and what would be useful) would be to see what percentage of Americans live in or near cities versus their European counterparts. I can't say for certain, but my guess based on the above would be that the number would be significantly less in the United States...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
That seems like a reasonable arguement but if that were the case then with the massive housing boom we have been in for the past 10 years we should have a significant number of homes with the latest fiber optic last mile technology, but guess what, we dont.
I've watched thousands of houses go up and hundreds of new neighborhoods, and whats going in the ground you ask, the same coax and twisted pair copper they've been using for the past 30+ years.
And when people get fed up and try to band together to build there own fiber optic network because the digital robber barons refuse to invest in the latest technology do we finally get the latest technology, no we get lawyers and lobbying to turn citizens into criminals and outlaws.
And now with our pathetic outdated infrastructure that provides limited broadband at high prices what are the robber barons trying to do, drop their requirements for network neutrality and charge us and content providers even more for what we've already paid for.
Its not distance or age, its plain and simple greed and governmental complicity with illegal monpolization of markets. This country is getting passed by in the name of capitalism for the few and screw the other half.
This is proof it's possible if those in charge have foresight, plan well, do it right, and don't give in to the pressure of the industry giants who'll try to stop them. Perhaps we should expect more from our
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Here you go, enjoy. And enjoy the coming take-down notice, /.!
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There was a time when everyone thought that the Europeans and the Japanese were better at business than we were. In the early 1990s airport bookstores were full of volumes with samurai warriors on their covers, promising to teach you the secrets of Japanese business success. Lester Thurow's 1992 book, ''Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America,'' which spent more than six months on the Times best-seller list, predicted that Europe would win.
Then it all changed, and American despondency turned into triumphalism. Partly this was because the Clinton boom contrasted so sharply with Europe's slow growth and Japan's decade-long slump. Above all, however, our new confidence reflected the rise of the Internet. Jacques Chirac complained that the Internet was an ''Anglo-Saxon network,'' and he had a point -- France, like most of Europe except Scandinavia, lagged far behind the U.S. when it came to getting online.
What most Americans probably don't know is that over the last few years the situation has totally reversed. As the Internet has evolved -- in particular, as dial-up has given way to broadband connections using DSL, cable and other high-speed links -- it's the United States that has fallen behind.
The numbers are startling. As recently as 2001, the percentage of the population with high-speed access in Japan and Germany was only half that in the United States. In France it was less than a quarter. By the end of 2006, however, all three countries had more broadband subscribers per 100 people than we did.
Even more striking is the fact that our ''high speed'' connections are painfully slow by other countries' standards. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, French broadband connections are, on average, more than three times as fast as ours. Japanese connections are a dozen times faster. Oh, and access is much cheaper in both countries than it is here.
As a result, we're lagging in new applications of the Internet that depend on high speed. France leads the world in the number of subscribers to Internet TV; the United States isn't even in the top 10.
What happened to America's Internet lead? Bad policy. Specifically, the United States made the same mistake in Internet policy that California made in energy policy: it forgot -- or was persuaded by special interests to ignore -- the reality that sometimes you can't have effective market competition without effective regulation.
You see, the world may look flat once you're in cyberspace -- but to get there you need to go through a narrow passageway, down your phone line or down your TV cable. And if the companies controlling these passageways can behave like the robber barons of yore, levying whatever tolls they like on those who pass by, commerce suffers.
America's Internet flourished in the dial-up era because federal regulators didn't let that happen -- they forced local phone companies to act as common carriers, allowing competing service providers to use their lines. Clinton administration officials, including Al Gore and Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, tried to ensure that this open competition would continue -- but the telecommunications giants sabotaged their efforts, while The Wall Street Journal's editorial page ridiculed them as people with the minds of French bureaucrats.
And when the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the F.C.C., the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there's little competition in U.S. broadband -- if you're lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go.
Meanwhile, as a recent article in Business Week explains, the real French bureaucrats used judicious regulation to promote competiti