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Increased US Broadband Adoption Could Create 2.4 Million Jobs
Ward D points out a story about a recent study that predicts significant economic growth through increased broadband adoption in the U.S. The study is based on a program in Kentucky that has, through the increased use of broadband, "saved an average of more than $200 per person per year" on health-care services, and decreased the average amount of time residents spent driving by 100 hours per month. From Computerworld:
"The Connected Nation model ... focuses more on broadband adoption and local needs than huge, government-funded programs. Several Kentucky businesses have benefited from the increased access, according to Connected Nation. Geek Squad, the Best Buy subsidiary, moved its headquarters to Bullitt County, Kentucky, in late 2006 because of the broadband availability."
That explains a lot.
"Bring out the Geek."
"The Geek's not online."
"I guess you'll have to page him, then."
A few lucky economic development wins doesn't constitute rapid job growth. I'm glad people shop online and glad they save fuel. But so far, no one has shown direct, only indirect benefits..... not job creation (save for nebulous 'tech' jobs) or anything else than infrastructure maintenance positions (truck rollers, moles, linemen, and so forth). It would be nice if there could be an easier quid pro quo data set that motivated communities (and not to get in bed with telcos without titanium strings attached to the deals). Look at the problems with muni-wifi, the failures of WiMAX, and the sheer dominance of the telcos. Community networking is in a sad state, and this study, sadly, doesn't help.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Besides the concept of the "service based economy" is falling flat on its face with capital moving away from pixel pushers and paper shufflers to people who actually produce tangible goods/services.
And, I bet that free wireless will create even more! Better broadband is great, but most of our "surfing" isn't really useful, whereas searches on mobile devices likely tend towards needs. As with the iPhone and Google searches, and I can attest to it, making it available makes it happen. Quick, easy, and slow...
How much more gets done with 1gps versus 128k? Not much IMHO.
2.4 million jobs.
And what jobs are those? TFA doesn't say. Sure some temporary jobs would be created to build the infrastructure and a few more permanent jobs will be created to maintain it but what other jobs will be created? /.'s title is a bad one as TFA is more about money saved not jobs created.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"decreased the average amount of time residents spent driving by 100 hours per month"
Huh? The average resident now drives 3 hours less per day? Is everyone in KY a truck driver or something?
Some might think 'what's done is done, it's in the past, it was done a decade ago'. Surely someone is keeping this issue alive because, even with all the time that has since past, there is still a huge public interest that needs to be served by ripping that money back, by whatever means necessary, to send the message that: 'for all of our belief in contractual agreements, and for all of our corrupt, lazy and intimidated politicians and government; no-one so vastly screws with our hard-earned money and future prosperity and gets away with it, regardless of whether it was committed a year ago, ten years ago, or whether the contract set performance penalties or not' I want to see the looks on the executives and senators faces who, long thinking they had got away with it, all-of-a-sudden get the f**k charged out of them. Someone needs to keep this issue alive.
These studies are such a crock and use very dodgy extrapolations. Of course I didn't RTFA, but they're generally along the lines of: Give a company 56k dialup and they become 20% more profitable. Therefore is we give them 2Mbits they will become 20% * 2M/56k = 700%. Or: a survey shows a correlation between company size and bandwidth. Larger companies tend to have more bandwidth than smaller companies. Therefore we will give all the small companies broadband and they will all turn into big companies thus creating more jobs and money!
These studies very seldom take a holistic view either. Less driving might mean more hours worked, but it is just as likely to mean more time doing something useless. It also means less wear and tear on cars and roads (therefore less auto mechanic jobs and less road contruction/repair jobs).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Its very hard to run an online business on dial up.
Ah but what businesses, and jobs, will be created? TFA says 2.4 million jobs will be created but it does not name 1 job. All it is really about is money saved and not jobs created. Then again the study itself does not say what jobs wll be created.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is a tech related jobs article which seems to have been accidentally truncated.
Increased US Broadband Adoption Could Create 2.4 Million Jobs in India
fixed
Whenever some one proposes a great govt. undertaking that will "create jobs"*, ask yourself what the opportunity cost is - in other words, what use would the money have been put to had it not been taken away and invested somewhere else.
*The challenge is not to create jobs, but to create wealth. If the govt.just wants to create jobs, they can hire a million goons to destroy stuff and hire another million people to rebuild stuff - boom, 2 million jobs created.
I've always wondered why a group of people that bite off heads of chickens for the amusement of others would organize themselves into a squad. Knowing their location, it all makes sense now.
The sheer dominance of telcos is what is causing the problem with increased broadband deployment, when you include cable operators in that group. Very little is being done among that group to GROW their business. I know that Verizon is doing FTTH and that is good, and T-Mobile is doing the WiFi hand off phones which is good. The trouble is that this is a day late and a dollar short.
FTTH is not helping improve overall broadband deployment - it is there to compete with incumbent cable players. The T-Mobile WiFi hand off phones do not improve coverage, rather it offloads traffic from their wireless network to cable operator's networks.
As long as North America is plagued with companies that don't want to invest (or can't) despite the tax incentives they've been given and their incredibly draconian billing practices (well sort of draconian). Like AT&T and Comcast et al wanting to shape traffic so there are no bandwidth hogs making a bad day for ordinary users. They believe ordinary users are those that pay for 6Mbps but only use an average of 56kbps. This whole broadband game in North America is rigged, and rigged in favor of the Telcos and cable companies. If they had ample bandwidth there would be too much competition. Right now they have the markets all carved up by region, and only compete with each other if they stand to make millions off of a win.
To stay on topic, home based Internet businesses, and cost savings due to broadband use will only come when all those people are willing to pay through the nose for access. If the telcos are not reeled in on their anticompetitive practices, you will only be able to use your ISP's VoIP solution, and probably will have to pay extra to have a VPN connection to your office.
Again, THE only real block to greater broadband deployment and use is the ISPs themselves. They are clinging to their quickly-becoming-outdated business model in nearly the same way that the **AA has... dumb fuckers
Why, yes, I do have ideas on how they should and could do this, but there is not much room here and shareholders don't really want to see flat profits for 6-8 quarters.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I live very near a major Comcast technology center and they are constantly hiring programmers, systems and network engineers, software testers, etc. They generally want quite a lot of experience, especially Cisco. And it's good to know how to quietly throttle certain packets...
Create 2.4 Million jobs? I really really doubt this...How many times have we seen hyperboles such as this which ended up, when actually researched, to be grossly overstated. I know it is trying make a statment, but I would believe perhaps a million jobs. Anyone feel that way?
From their document, this looks like a front for the cable industry and the telcos who are peddling what they call broadband. Their "broadband" is really at dumbed down legacy speeds compared to what other countries in the world are doing.
Real broadband is gigabit speed, bi-directional, to homes and small businesses. It allows every subscriber to become a content provider. The cable industry sees itself as being part of the entertainment industry, and the telcos would like to join the broadband-as-entertainment model. Real broadband scares the entertainment industry because they see it as a challenge to their business model.
The economic impact of real broadband would be immense. I like to analogize the comparison of legacy broadband to real broadband as the difference between animal power and engine power. If one horsepower is a fundamental limit, innovators will try to work out ways of getting two horses to work together. If power comes from engines, innovation goes to a much higher level. Innovators in countries with with real broadband can conceive ideas that American innovators can't even imagine.
The sponsors of this report are pushing legislation. I would urge people to examine the legislation to see how it defines broadband. If it doesn't talk about gigabit to the home, it is part of the trend in which the US is becoming a third world telecommunications country to protect entertainment business models.
don't forget that new hardware is going to be necessary to allow access to this newfound wealth of broadband. Think of the construction jobs... Somebody has to lay the cable, build the datacenters, etc. Is this not where most new jobs will com from?
"The reason why your super-mega fast connection is behaving like a 300 baud modem is that you downloaded an illegal MP3 with some naughty bits. Next time, please download a legitimate MP3 file with no naughty bits from one of our approved sponsors if you want to maintain faster service."
Infrastructure reduces costs. Reduced costs increase consumption, which increases jobs. The question is not whether the infrastructure is beneficial (it is), but whether it is the best use of money given the risks. Of course AT&T thinks the government paying for their broadband network is good for the world.
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100 hours a month less driving is a tremendous amount, over 3 hours a day. Assuming they are driving mostly in the city with lots of stop lights and averaging 15 MPH, that is 1500 miles/month or 18000 miles/year. If they are driving a lot on the highway, it is even more miles. I know that some people drive that much, but to say that they reduced their driving by this much is a really amazing statistic that is hard to believe. Some of the people with tech jobs might be able to telecommute with the broadband, but the fraction of people who can do this can't really be all that high, and even that does not seem to account for the amount of driving saved.
And I suppose I am expected to believe that they all started using grocery delivery services, Amazon and other online shopping, Netflix, and started downloading all their music instead of driving to local stores to do these things? Well, I can believe this about the music. But if the people aren't shopping their local stores, isn't that going to destroy a lot of jobs rather than creating them? I suppose it creates jobs for the delivery services, which makes the reduction in driving by the broadband users a rather pointless statistic.
I firmly believe we are at a point where ISP's need to stop offering dial up access by itself and give it away free to its existing broadband customers as a backup or for traveling purposes. There is no reason why dial up should be offered as a primary means of getting online. With lite DSL access at $24 a month and dial up speeds so slow it's practically unusable I see no other reason to offer the service. The internet is no longer geared towards dial up users and modern web pages are full of multimedia content. It's like going to a car lot and seeing a couple of horse drawn wagons for people who don't want to spend the extra money on a car.
So, to summarize I think that ISP's need to replace dial up as primary access with an affordable, basic, low spead (maybe 512k) broadband connection plan and offer dial up as part of all broadband plans as a secondary means of connection for backup/travel. For people who simply live to far out, they can subscribe to the basic plan and just use the dialup connection.
It should be a forced thing like the coming abandonment of analog TV.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
It explains nothing.
This is spot-on. The lack of long-term investment in communications infrastructure is slowing down progress. Fix that and everything will take off.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Having a political party come into office that is dedicated to taking an engineer's eye to fixing the legal code of the entire state. The last figure I saw for the cost to businesses to comply with federal income tax requirements was $289B. Just going to a flat tax would be an automatic release of $289B worth of labor! There are so many messed up statutes and regulations that a savvy political party wouldn't even need to do much in the way of cutting taxes. All it would have to do is start repealing old laws left and right when they no longer make sense, and find ways to optimize the existing regulations that are still needed.
By definition, any job whose primary enabling factor is broadband, can be done from anywhere in the world, cheaper. IF any jobs AT ALL are created, it won't take long to ship 'em overseas.
Try again.
Maybe "green" technology could stimulate the economy, with the right policy decisions, and the right breakthroughs.
From the report:
The error is in the Computerworld article which misstates:
Top jobs created by broadband adoption:
1) Comcast traffic filterer
2) MPAA P2P network monitor
3) DMCA takedown notices writer
4) RIAA fake torrent uploader
5) Botnet senior manager
6) Senior wiretap installer
For all the trillions of dollars pouring into alternative fuels, hybrid cars, & transportation taxes, all it would take to solve most of this problem is willingness to let workers telecommute.
It's like living in a parallel universe where we sit in traffic 10 hours a week & spend half our income getting to work with all these unused internet cables sitting just a few feet away.
This seems to me to be the flip side of the "Broken window fallacy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window Any jobs wont be created in the US
afer how many "hallo, my coffee cup holder on the computer is broken" are you gonna drop some nades (take a dump)
Dont Judge The situation by the Misfortunate. Goga.
The "creating 2.4 million jobs" bit is just butter to help grease this idea into the proper ears. That's state-government speak for "This is a good thing".
Allow me to translate this into plain english: This is a good thing. Broadband, even the cheap 512kbit stuff, is enabling refined efficiency across the board for all sorts of services. Anything that brings pertinent, timely information to great numbers of people causes ripple effects throughout society. It helps humankind inch forward as a lubric, progressive society. If a few public voices want to give that inch a push, they're effectively accelerating progress.
Twenty years ago, we got all our information from books, periodicals and TV - biased, slow-moving media. I think it's safe to say that people 20 years ago possessed less useful information, on average, than people today. I know it's not a quantifiable asset, but you can't deny the casual benefits brought forth by the web and instant messaging.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
1) Comcast traffic filterer
2) MPAA P2P network monitor
3) DMCA takedown notices writer
4) RIAA fake torrent uploader
5) Botnet senior manager
6) Senior wiretap installer
7. Bandwidth usage tax adjuster.
Moved to the USA 2 years ago. Bought a 3mbps dsl from verizon for $30 bucks/mo which at the time seemed like a great deal compared to Greece's like 80euros for 1.5mbps. 2 years later still in the US and im paying $30 for the same dsl when 24mbps in Greece costs 35euros and u get unlimited local and long distance calls. Where the hell do you see broadband adoption?
Broadband adoption in the US will really take off only when Hollywood celebrities begin adopting a lot of broadband from Africa. Then it will be all the rage.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
"The economic impact of real broadband would be immense. I like to analogize the comparison of legacy broadband to real broadband as the difference between animal power and engine power. If one horsepower is a fundamental limit, innovators will try to work out ways of getting two horses to work together. If power comes from engines, innovation goes to a much higher level. Innovators in countries with with real broadband can conceive ideas that American innovators can't even imagine."
Well none of those innovators will be getting ideas from this forum. Real broadband and all you all can come up with is to do the same thing only faster. The instant gratification this countries been on for decades will spike but that doesn't translate into anything this country can use. Also all these countries that have had "real broadband" really haven't done anything any greater than we have. Simply made the "I want it yesterday...the day before that...as soon as the director thinks of it...entertain me" industry very happy. Yes I've heard of things like telemedicine and a faster pipe between my doctor and the hospital. Nice but that doesn't translate into "real broadband" for me and even less indicating that I need "real broadband".
"From their document, this looks like a front for the cable industry and the telcos who are peddling what they call broadband. Their "broadband" is really at dumbed down legacy speeds compared to what other countries in the world are doing."
Sounds more like a front for penis envy. Look at what we have now and all people are doing with it presently. Some innovation. Thinking more is like thinking more women will make a baby come faster. Show me this widespread over there innovation that's not confined to academia and we'll talk.
"The sponsors of this report are pushing legislation. I would urge people to examine the legislation to see how it defines broadband. If it doesn't talk about gigabit to the home, it is part of the trend in which the US is becoming a third world telecommunications country to protect entertainment business models."
What a load of agenda pushing BS. Like the rest of "over there" somehow is bustin out all over with their "new and improved" business model which consists solely of a faster pipe to piratebay.
And just what percentage of US jobs lend themselves to telecommuting and why haven't they been outsourced already? And the follow up question what percentage of those need "real broadband" like some poster said above? And last why do slashdotters think everyone's like them?
"For all the trillions of dollars pouring into alternative fuels, hybrid cars, & transportation taxes, all it would take to solve most of this problem is willingness to let workers telecommute."
No, what would go much farther is not having a society that's built up around "cars being king". From acres of parking lots to urban design that's jobs over here, and housing waaay over there. But that horse left long ago and there's no "non-car" utopia that "real broadband" will bring about. Now get off my lawn, you're blocking my ability to SSH in and mow.
"The "study" is bogus. Its an attempt from the telcos to get more "incentives" from the government."
Or geeks trying to get their piratebay fix but lets pretend that big business is the only group with an agenda. Oh right, you all don't have any kind of pull, economic or political. That's what makes slashdot such fun reading with my morning coffee.
Seriously, at least where I live you have a choice between 1 crap ass broadband company and dsl. The city / town does said contract with cable provider and your locked in. As an example, I'm suppose to get 5mb down and 512K up, but for the past month I've been anywhere from 0.20% (faster than dialup at 56K) to 1.5MB. Beg's to differ the WTF factor. My ISP is, Charter. Their tech support sucks, and is out of India. (script reading dumb ass that has not a clue.. at least to the ones I've spoke to) Seriously, I can pay my bill in town, speak to someone that talks english to order new services, but yet the tech support side goes out to India? WTF? Don't think so.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
That's what's needed in America today.
Deleted
7) Geek Squad pr0n manager
"If a particular skill becomes obsolete or subject to significantly less demand, the burden lies on the individual to find another way to make himself economically valuable."
Yup. After knowledge worker went the way of the dodo. The cycle starts all over again with "would you like fries with that?".
I'm a little lost... what $200 Billion? Ten years ago, I was thirteen and not very aware of politics. :) Are you talking about last mile infrastructure?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
to fill those jobs that they can't export, and at half the hourly rate American workers would take.
After all, the lawyers have video seminars training employers on exactly how to avoid hiring expensive American workers and get only HB1 folks. Meanwhile, Gates and the other greedy multi-nationals will continue to spout the smoke screen about how it is impossible to find American workers who have "the necessary skills" as the bribe their congressional sock puppets to pass more bills to continue to allow such practices.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
i've thought of a job no one else seems to realize would increase if broadband were to increase: webcam whore. without broadband, the ho is far too pixelated.
The most important number mentioned in the article was not emphasized nearly enough. The amount of fuel that could be saved if more people telecommuted is the most important thing in this day of $3+ /gallon gas. Not everyone can telecommute but many can and keeping these people off the roads would do a lot for the traffic, energy and pollution problems that only get worse everyday. Ensuring that affordable broadband is available to everyone and providing tax benefits to companies that encourage telecommuting would be a much better use of tax payers money than the current economic solution our leader have come up with.
1) One of the worst educational systems in the country. It was so bad, it was declared unconstitutional in 1989 and has been in reform ever since.
2) More smokers per capita than any other state
3 Fewest teeth per capita than any other state
Go ahead and look it up, it's all true.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
It doesn't take "days" to download the latest Linux distro. For comparison, dialup is about 1/10th as fast (down) and 1/3 as fast (up) as my DSL account. It's quite useable:
- last night I downloaded the latest Acrobat Reader using my telephone line - 1/2 hour
- then I visited ebay and bid on several items
- then amazon where I bought a new antenna
- and ended the evening by listening to BBC radio (downloaded via Utorrent)
Just because someone is on dialup does not mean they are unable to use the internet & visit various online businesses.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
"Share" a theatrical movie in five minutes or less. Students can be really disappointed when they move into the real world.
As long as any buildout requires an imposed moratorium on offshoring(on all jobs) for at least 20-30 years, requires strong checks on citizenship, and has an (not passable to anyone else) early termination fee/violation fee determined by the taxation on all foreign held assets taxed at a >100% rate, sure. Repeat requirements in a large enough region to prevent needless state-state warfare.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
"The study is based on a program in Kentucky that has, through the increased use of broadband...decreased the average amount of time residents spent driving by 100 hours per month."
100 hours a month? I have a 60-mile round trip to work and back and even if _I_ telecommuted I would only save 25-30 hours a month. Unless everyone in rural Kentucky is a long haul trucker, and the Interwebs just enabled them to teleport their cargo, there's no friggin way anyone is gonna save 100 hours of driving a month just by going to webMD and Amazon and ebay.
I'd check their math... just a thought
Is madness a syptom of genius or vice-versa?
Geek squad didn't move there because of the broadband internet. It was to be closer to the Knob Creek gun range so they could get decent seats for the machine gun shoots. :)
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I had a friend whose macbook refused to boot and when she called apple's support line, you guessed it India again.
All I'd call Apple for is to schedule an appointment for the Genius Bar. I didn't even do that the one tyme I had trouble, I just went down the an Apple store and talked to a genius. He said they were busy there all day but looked online to see if other locations had an open slot. Another store had a slot open a coupe of hours later and he reserved it for me.
FalconShould there be a Law?