President Bush Releases US Broadband Policy

Ars Technica is reporting that while most people wouldn't know we have a national broadband policy in place, the president claims that not only do we have a plan, it's working spectacularly well. "That's the main conclusion of the just-released 'Network Nation: Broadband in America 2007' [PDF] report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). What's shocking about the report isn't what it covers [...], but what it leaves out: it doesn't contain a single extended discussion of the fact that the US has been slipping in a worldwide broadband rankings throughout the decade."

Comments

Misleading Rankings

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I've seen some rankings that put Australia ahead of the U.S. in terms of broadband conenctivity, purely because of advertised speeds. As an Australian, I find this highly amusing.

For example, you can readily get a 30mbit cable connection here. Telstra Bigpond's cheapest full-speed cable offering is $39.95 a month... And includes 200 megabytes of data. After which you pay 15 cents for each additional megabyte. (And they charge for uploads as well as downloads.)

Yes, you can get fast, reasonably-priced internet access here. And if you use it, you'll hit your monthly quota in one minute.

The smaller ISPs mostly don't engage in such blatant theft, but all of them have download limits, often quite small. Which would you prefer: 6mbit speed with no limit, or 24mbit and 5GB a month?

How much coverage?

[a_nonamiss]

Looking at the map of High Speed Providers by Zip Code, it would in fact appear that we as a nation are in pretty good shape. Problem is, the pictures people are using to educate our leaders reflect some fictional, non-existent universe. I live in Central Ohio. Looking at that map, it appears that I have PLENTY of choices for broadband coverage. It would also appear that there is no place in my state that isn't covered by at least 4-6 providers. I'd like some of whatever that map-maker was smoking, because it must be some good stuff. As an IT consultant, I can say assuredly that MOST places in the state have, at most, a single provider. Where I live, it's Insight (RoadRunner) or nothing. My parents have another, single, provider. Where I work, I have only one option. I have a client who lives about a 22 miles from me who has no broadband options at all.

I think the fallacy here is that they're probably counting technologies as "broadband" that shouldn't really be considered. ISDN is not broadband. Counting Satellite as broadband is a mistake, too. If you've ever used it, you know what I'm talking about. You can't count the cellular 144k as broadband, because in practice, it's not really faster than dial-up, and you can't count a $1000/month leased line as broadband, because most people aren't going to pay 30% of their income to cover their broadband connection.

We can't delude ourselves with fake numbers and expect to know what's really going on. We're holding on to our past glory not even realizing that we're becoming less and less relevant every day. Sure, we built a nuclear bomb and put a man on the moon, but do you know of anyone in today's workforce that was part of either of those projects? Our highway system, built in the 50's, is great, but there's a heavily travelled bridge down the street from me that's been out for 2 years. The World Trade Center got knocked down over 6 years ago, and there's still a giant smoldering hole in South Manhattan because we can't see past our greed and get our crap together. We have a president that thinks scientific advancement is sinful, and an aging, over-extended military that can't even defeat a bunch of disorganized rebels in two third-world countries.

I hope and pray that we soon get our stuff together. I don't think it's too late yet, but it's getting pretty close.