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

Dialup

[Anonymous Coward]

I am posting on dialup. There is no competition in the local "broadband" market, so the one provider charges too much. And the phone company cannot be arsed to extend their DSL coverage the 2-3 blocks necessary to reach my house. Nothing has changes since about 1999.

Re:Dialup

[Brian Gordon]

..meanwhile the old beige box in the back of a grimy bar in south korea has a fiber optic modem with a direct line to the isp

Not shocking

[DoofusOfDeath]

What's shocking about the report isn't what it covers [...], but what it leaves out

I guess we're all tired of ranting about Bush, but... I'm not shocked that his report left out his failures. Bush doesn't admit failures. (He's only admitted one regarding his work as a President, ever: Making some cowboy-style remark like "Bring it on." regarding terrorists.)

So What's New?

[Herschel Cohen]

If you never have a policy it can't fail. Just stay the course to Victory.

Never let facts confuse the issue. Just follow Cheney and stay out of shotgun range.

Modern nations need a culture of innovation.

[Anonymous Coward]

History has always shown that the most modern of nations have a culture of innovation, discovery and advancement. This is a self-fulfilling truth: the more effort you put into bettering yourself technologically, the better off technologically you'll be. And with better technology usually comes greater efficiency and greater productivity, and with greater productivity comes a higher standard of living.

The transformation of South Korea from a war-ravaged nation to a technological powerhouse where inividual homes and apartments have affordable fiber links better than many hosting companies in the US is one such example. They embraced development and technological progress, and so they have rocketed ahead in terms of living standards and quality of life.

Meanwhile, we have the US focusing so much energy on religious issues. So much time and potential is wasted arguing over the merits (or lack thereof) of "Intelligent Design" and creationism, for example. If a small fraction of that effort was put towards technological advancement, such as the installation of fiber to all American homes, America could be doing some very great things. But as the current trends are, this seems very unlikely.

First mover disadvantage

[TheRaven64]

Deploying high technology infrastructure is problematic because it changes to rapidly. It takes at least a decade to get the current technology deployed and then it's obsolete. Part of the reason that the US is slipping in terms of broadband is that much of the infrastructure is controlled by unregulated monopolies, but a lot of it is due to the fact that the US moved first.

My first trip to the USA was in 1998, and back then I saw adverts for DSL connections costing less than I was paying for dial-up here in the UK. On my last trip (last year), the adverts were for more than I pay for a faster connection. This kind of technology comes in cycles. The first to deploy the infrastructure gets the fastest connections for a few years. For the next few years, they get incremental advances based on what you can squeeze out of the existing infrastructure and then they hit a brick wall. The countries with the fastest connections are always the ones who deployed their infrastructure most recently.

Slipping behind is not something the US should be worried about, it's a natural artefact of this kind of technology deployment. They should be worried if they don't have any plans for leapfrogging ahead again (fibre, WiMAX, and so on).

My $670 Comcast Broadband Bill

[lancejjj]

According to the report, affordable broadband is critical to the productivity of the economy.

Well guess what? I spend over $55 per month for my Internet service. And that includes $0.76 in taxes. Do I pay it? You bet. Hell, I'm an IT guy, so connectivity is important to me. But regular "non-IT" people? Is broadband worth $670 per year to them?

$670 is more than my telephone bill. It is even more than my monthly electric bill. That's right, I spend substantially more on Internet connectivity than on Telephone OR Electricity. Let me tell you, I'd give up broadband way before I gave up electricity or telephone.

So, all-mighty-report-writers, here's a clue: many American families aren't going to be able to pay that kind of price.

Re:My $670 Comcast Broadband Bill

[LaughingCoder]

here's a clue: many American families aren't going to be able to pay that kind of price.

I beg to differ. Many of those same families routinely pay $100+ cable/dish bills. And they will pay $60/month for broadband when a) they decide they need it or b) it becomes a better entertainment value to them than cable/dish TV.

And FWIW, I pay more (twice as much) each month for electric and for cell phone than I do for broadband. And don't get me started about heating costs, transportation costs, and food costs, all of which dwarf my broadband bill. In fact, having broadband allowed us to cut our cable bill (we do a lot less TV watching so we don't need lots of channels), and it allowed us to cut our landline bill (using VOIP) as well, so in the end it almost pays for itself.

Misleading Rankings

[SQL Error]

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.

Well all of them are "correct"

[SmallFurryCreature]

1. our economy is in a great state. He could have been sarcastic, oh wait, he is american.
2. Iraq has WMD.English time, Iraq has A WMD. One weapon. They probably did. The kurds did not gas themselves.
3. Iran almost has the bomb. and we are almost capable of travelling to mars. ALMOST is a nice word.
4. the deficit was never balanced when I came in, and it is almost balanced now. Well the first is most likely true, balance would mean equel spending and income, most likely their was a deficit or surplus of some kind. The second bit, well there is that word ALMOST again.
5. America has plenty of oil, and gas. We have no need for nuculear or alternative power.Plenty for what? For the next year? Probably. Since the US seems to be pretty well suplied with electricity, there is no need to look at other sources, not in the timespan politicians worry about anyway.
6. Our broadband policy is working great! Might be true, if the average slashdotters policy is to never have sex with a girl, then their policy works GREAT! Say that the broadband policy is to make the telecoms and such super rich without having to invest and avoiding making it even easier to infringe on copyrights, then US policy is working.

I am not just being pedantic, this is the problem with soundbite politics. It doesn't leave room to properly qualify statements. Take bush senior "no more taxes" or something to that effect. If you read up on it, it is just possible that he spoke the truth, as far as I can judge from europe, he just raised existing one, not created any new ones. On the other hand everyone should have known he was lying because the sentence also means he was promising the complete eradication of ALL taxes. "No more slavery" doesn't mean "no increase in the number of slaves" but the abolition of slavery entirely.

Soundbite politics, a great evil that is slowly destroying democracy.

Corruption: GWB is just a figurehead, I think.

[Futurepower(R)]

People talk as though George W. Bush is president. However, I've never heard one analytical remark he has made. I think it is impossible to be the leader of something when not mentally involved. In a childlike way, he called himself the "Decider", but it is said that he only decides from a list given to him in which the preferred decision is already given to him.

Bush is just a figurehead, a puppet to show the public. The media are full of "Bush" said this "Bush" said that, but he is only reading something someone else wrote for him to say.

Cheney and Rove and others have arranged that the powers of the U.S. government be sold to acquaintances, oil and weapons investors, and others who want corruption.

One contribution that seems to have been made by Karl Rove is not only testing that finds the weaknesses of voters and exploits them, but powerful, well-funded initiatives to prevent strong leaders of opposing parties from winning.

It is all corruption all the time. Part of that is endless war that is destroying the value of our money. Notice that prices are rising rapidly? That's because the value of the dollar is dropping. Oil and weapons investors don't care about the value of the dollar, they get paid whatever they ask.

Compared to Sweden..

[denoir]

The US broadband situation is interesting a a contrast to the one we have here in Sweden. In all cities you can basically as a private person get a fiber connection up to 100 Mbit. Up north where very few people live, you can still get decent 10-20 Mbit ADSL connections. Here in Stockholm most ISPs are talking about upgrading to 1 Gbit/s late this year or early next year. I've had broadband since 1997 (10 Mbit back then). And it's cheap. I'm currently paying roughly $10/month for a 100 Mbit connection (although it's a special deal through the homeowner association my condo belongs to - the street price is somewhat higher)

So why to we have faster and cheaper connections?

* Smaller population (9 million). Although we are do not have a high population density (20/km compared to 31/km for the US), the problem does not scale in a linear fashion.

* Über-centralization. In the US you have states, counties etc, all that have some form of local identity, laws and business. Sweden only has the national level. There are no local ISPs.

* We've paid for it. While it might seem that we are paying less for faster connections, in fact we are not. We are and have been paying it through taxes. Sweden is a very socialist country. Although our ISPs are privately owned they are given enormous subsidies to make sure that every man, woman and reindeer gets a broadband connection no matter where they live. In essence, we in Stockholm are through taxes financing the building of broadbroadband connections up north where it is not economically feasible.

So all in all it's a combination of population, geography and politics.

US Broadband Policy?

[HangingChad]

The details probably look something like this:

- Grant telephone companies retroactive immunity.

- Allow wide-ranging, warrant-less surveillance of internet traffic.

- Profit!!!!

And PS - Stop terrorists!

Hopefully they'll make whatever drug Cheney is smoking that let's him say with a straight face they've never violated anyone's civil liberties widely available. That should smooth over any remaining restlessness in the sheep.

The ultimate irony would be if the next administration started using some of these tools. Funny the right wing never thinks about that until someone is investigating them. Then they're all about civil rights. Just like Bush was all about fiscal conservatism after the Democrats got control of Congress.

Hypocrites.

Eisenhower & Interstate Highway System

[Enrique1218]

Republicans have terrible long term memory. Bush did not heed his father's caution about invading Iraq. Likewise, in forging this do-nothing policy, he forgot about another Republican- Dwight D. Eisenhower. One of Eisenhower's greatest achievements was a Interstate Highway System. The highway system was completely funded by the US government and had tremendous impact the economy that lasts till this day. Goods and workers trek across that system everyday creating the life we have the today. The things we take for granted today would not exist without those roads. A national broadband network can have similar impact for the 21st century. Instead of cybertrekking across small roads like we do todays, we can move across superhighways.

The US economy and society would benefit from this system great. Huge broadband pipes makes sending any form of data across that network practical. Advertising, entertainment, and commerce would get more opportunities. For those who don't like DRM, broadband could cut out those media companies behind the RIAA and MPAA that sit between the consumer and the artist. Scientist and student can have access to huge libraries all from their computers. Our economy grows on ides and such network would allow those ideas move efficiently.

With a recession oncoming, private businesses aren't likely to build such a system anytime soon. Banks are still licking their wounds from the housing fiasco. I can imagine that they will be too shell shock to give loans for a broadband network. The US government is the biggest spender in the world and it doesn't matter if it wastes money on a technology that would be obsolete. I believe that governmental investment is the only way to get a broadband system off the ground.