US Does Surprisingly Well in Internet Survey

Herman's hermit writes "A new report from the World Economic Forum ranks the US number four when it comes to 'network readiness,' despite the fact that the same report has the US 17th broadband subscribers and 19th in bandwidth. 'While good news overall for the US, which is poised to take full advantage of information technology gains, the report probably won't change many minds when it comes to talking specifically about US broadband deployment.'"

Comments

1st US post?

[Anonymous Coward]

Using broadband.

Re:1st US post?

[calebt3]

Dial-up would be funnier.

Large

[webmaster404]

I think the main point in broadband that people just don't get is that the US is huge while many smaller countries are the size of one of the US's states, its is expensive to get broadband.

Re:Large

[BountyX]

Not to mention the ISPs in some countries (the police state, UK especially) will try to limit service by machine with mac address (forcing you to use mac spoofing to allow a router).

Re:Large

[Anonymous Coward]

But we've got 50 of them. Maybe it's tougher to wire up the more rural states, but doesn't the lack of clusters of high-quality inexpensive broadband in our urban areas (comparable to, say, the level of service you might find in the Netherlands) suggest more issues than geography comprise the bandwidth problem?

Re:Large

[DigiShaman]

Some DSL providers in the early years have done this as well in the US. I'm not sure if it still goes on, but there's a reason why routers still offer the ability to "clone" a mac address.

It's also worth mentioning that most cable modem arn't pre-programmed to accept only one mac address. Very often, they will read and cache that mac address in the modem itself. The only way to flush it out is to disconnect from it for a minute or less. Then, just power it on, and apply power to your router (in that order).

Re:Large

[webmaster404]

Well, to that we can blame the government-funded monopolies that control 75% of all major broadband, but still, geography comes into play when there are just some places that so far can't even get broadband even if someone was willing.

Re:Large

[tindur]

Does this count as a Slashdot meme already? Every time there is a story on Slashdot about how the net is somehow better somewhere else than in the US the result is "But the US is so big" and then we get "There is a country that is even less densely populated than the US that has better net connections.

Re:Large

[Ecuador]

I don't understand your point. A country that is huge, but has few people or a very low GDP per capita would logically have a problem getting everyone on broadband connections.
The US does not have a low population density and most certainly its population is not poor.
And I did not say it is easy to give broadband to every rural area. We can start from cities.
I live in NYC. In the middle of Manhattan the best you can do is 3/768 or 5/384 connections. I mean, really.
The same at my previous house in Queens (Long Island City) and Brooklyn. I was excited when I heard speakeasy was finally installing ADSL2+ connections (up to 10Mb/s in my area), only to find out they wanted $180/month without voice (yes, it is static, but I don't need it, and they don't have a dynamic option). At the same time I hear of much poorer countries where 24Mbit ADSL2+ connections are $50 or less.
So, who is not getting what? I guess the reason for having nothing done for years is that a lot of people share your mentality. Hey, we are a big country, it is expensive... Like ONE FRIGGIN CITIZEN has to pay for the whole thing???

Re:Large

[MidnightBrewer]

Except that US deployment typically works on the state level, not the national level, they certainly have the population and consumer demand to cover the price, and the government has paid them once already to take care of it. It is the telcos' fault that the US doesn't have broadband, not geography.

I live in Japan, which suffers from way too much geography (the vertical kind), not to mention earthquakes, volcanic activity, and a much higher cost of living in general. And yet I have a 100MB/s fiber connection to my apartment for less than half of what a US subscriber pays. I guess this is where government regulation trumps the free market system, where the only thing free seems to be how the companies view their access to my wallet.

Re:Large

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot "but service in densely populated parts of the US sucks too!" followed by "but cities like New York are old and hard to rewire!" followed by "City X in Europe has been there for a thousand years, still has the original roads, and has great broadband!"

Or "Nobody needs that kind of bandwidth" followed by "Well, if comcast had that kind of bandwidth, they wouldn't have to compress the hell out of their HD channels, and they could (yeah right) quit complaining about people downloading a file interfering with the TV."

Or my favorite, "Quit whining and buy a 155mbps OC3 already oh wait you can't afford it lol!" when talking about consumer broadband in Tokyo or Seoul.

It's not a meme, it's just the exact same stupid bullshit that gets trotted out Every. Single. Time. And every single time they get trotted out, they're debunked. Again. Nobody cares what kind of speed Billy Bob is getting out there on his tractor, most of us live in cities, some of which are very large cities. I don't care that some guy on the wrong side of a mountain has to use dial up, if I cared I'd go live on the side of a fucking mountain.

Re:Large

[leothar]

Yep, I have a pretty common 100 Mbit down/10 Mbit up for about $50 per month. In a medium Swedish city with a population of 150 000. :p

Re:Large

[EaglemanBSA]

The US does not have a low population density
The U.S. has roughly one tenth the population density of many western European countries at 80 people per square mile.

and most certainly its population is not poor.
Clearly you've never been to Appalachia. Or southern Louisiana. Or rural Mississippi...the list goes on. Some people along the Ohio River live in tar-paper homes.

Re:Large

[MightyYar]

US telecom policy (along with other utilities) has long been to subsidize rural areas at the expense of urban areas.

You are indeed right that government regulation is responsible. Whether it is a good or bad thing is up for debate.

Re:Large

[Anonymous Coward]

That might be a believable argument if the denser parts of the U.S. had internet access on par with that of Europe.

Re:Large

[Ecuador]

The AVERAGE US citizen is not poor (that is why I mentioned GDP per capita, which is in the world's Top-10). Most countries have very poor citizens, what is your point? We can start by giving broadband access to the AVERAGE citizen.
Also, I didn't phrase the "low population density" correctly. There are vast sparsely populated areas, however those only account for a small percentage of the overall population. Deploy fiber (or just faster DSL if you want to go cheap) to the 90% of the population (didn't look up the statistic, an example number here) that does not live in rural areas, and then we can take care of the rest.
Which is why I mentioned NYC. Not rural, not poor, no bandwidth.

Re:Large

[JohnBailey]

Not to mention the ISPs in some countries (the police state, UK especially) will try to limit service by machine with mac address (forcing you to use mac spoofing to allow a router). While others in the same police state will supply a wireless router as part of the subscription and couldn't care less how many computers are hooked up. Personally I have two desktops, an N800 and a Wii all happily accessing the Internet over here in Airstrip one through an iSP provided router, and not a word of complaint from my ISP. So long as I pay my bill and don't max out my bandwidth all the time, they couldn't care less.

If you really need to go so far as that to get more than one computer to share your connection.. Change your ISP to someone with sane terms as soon as possible!

Re:Large

[xaxa]

24Mb/s ADSL2+ is £18-£24 in the UK (not available outside large settlements yet AFAIK). I'm really surprised you don't have that in New York yet (I'm sure it's been available in London for at least three years now, maybe more). What stops it? In the UK, it was the ex-state-monopoly (BT) that had to be told to allow competition over the last-mile of copper and the equipment in the exchange: the competition installed the required equipment in the exchange to support ADSL2+.

I thought this was one of those "let's bash the Americans whilst ignoring the facts" topics that regularly surfaces, but ouch. I convinced my 50-year-old parents to upgrade to 16Mb/s broadband last week, and she lives on the edge of a village of 2000 people in the countryside somewhere.

Re:Large

[MichaelSmith]

I think the main point in broadband that people just don't get is that the US is huge while many smaller countries are the size of one of the US's states, its is expensive to get broadband.

Here in Australia with one tenth the population density the situation is almost exactly the same as in the USA. That doesn't sound right to me. I think the service should be better in the US.

Re:Large

[Ecuador]

:)
The nickname is a long story, has nothing to do with the actual country and a lot to do with Sambuca (plus a song called "Ecuador").
I don't even speak Spanish... which is a shame since I always use the nick and get a lot of emails/pms in Spanish...

The 5Mbit cable that we have in NYC has a 384 upload so it is basically useless. And, again, my example is NYC. I am sure you don't have less people per wire mile than the Scandinavian countries!

Re:Large

[xaxa]

Granted, there are regions of the USA that have very few people.

But the parent poster said the best he can get in New York is 768kbits/second broadband. The best sensible price broadband in most cities in the UK is 24Mbits/s, and it's higher in many other countries (I doubt the UK is that high on the list of good broadband countries). New York City has a comparable density to London. What's wrong?

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

I don't understand:

Why do these surveys keep comparing a 2500-mile wide continental nation to tiny little states? There's a huge difference between wiring metropolitan France and the cornfields of America. Apples and oranges.

A proper comparison would do one Federation versus another federation:
- U.S. v. E.U. v. Canadian Confederation v. Australia v. China.
Those are comparable territories with similar challenges to overcome (lots of empty space).

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

Which "densely populated regions" have slow internet? Every major city I have examined in my area (Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, D.C.) is getting wired with 20 megabit cable or FiOs. I wouldn't call that slow.

Living in rural Greece with only 56k... that's slow (comparable to living in Wyoming).

Which if the point: When you compare ALL of europe, to ALL of the states, they are essentially equal (on average). Which is what you would expect for two closely-tied 1st world economies.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

>>>"The US does not have a low population density"

Oh really? I challenge you to drive from NYC to California on I-80, and then repeat that statement. You won't be able to, because then you'll come to realize what I have realized from my cross-country journeys:

- The U.S. is one large cornfield, sprinkled with a few cities here and there.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

They do. I've got 50 megabit fiber running outside my house.

My state average is comparable to France or the U.K.

Re:Large

[LWATCDR]

Well maybe he only wants DSL? Or maybe his apartment building has a deal with one provider.
I live in a smallish city in Florida and I have better than 3 MBs from my cable modem in tests.
I really doubt his options in NYC are as limited as he says.
In fact here is a map of FIOS availability. http://www.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios
Looks to me that it is all over NY. Maybe not in his area but there seems like there is a lot of it.

The US doesn't have regions that have a low population density. We have VAST areas with low population density.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

>>>"fiber connection to my apartment for less than half of what a US subscriber pays"

Yep and the Japanese government charges you $10,000 more taxes per year for the privilege! Personally I'd rather pay $10 per month to my ISP, than 10 thousand more in taxes.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

Australia does have faster service than either the U.S. or the E.U.

I have no idea why.

Re:Large

[icebike]

> If you really need to go so far as that to get
> more than one computer to share your connection..
> Change your ISP to someone with sane terms as
> soon as possible!

Changing ISPs is more of a problem than you might think, especially with all the triple-play providers in large US metro areas.

Typically these ISPs have entire neighborhoods if not entire cities tied up and you have a choice of provider X or Dialup (which is often Provider X again).

In most of these areas people use cheap routers to hang more machines on their connection.

My prior ISP allowed 8 connections (the max mac address slots they had in the modem). After a move I'm in an area where I get precisely one.

Re:Large

[icebike]

> but doesn't the lack of clusters of high-quality
> inexpensive broadband in our urban areas

Lack of clusters? What does that mean?

Typically US neighborhoods have either coax or fiber or adsl, and only rarely are there more than one choice in any given area.

Someone has a franchise on any given cable plant. If you are in a comcast neighborhood thats what you use.

This again goes back to size.

You simply can not afford to wire entire cities with multiple independent cable plants.

The only why this works is in countries where there were state owned telcos which owned the cable plants. They can rent bandwidth to multiple providers, and risk the tragedy of the commons.

I fail to see how this is different than the "clusters" you mention, or how the "clusters" supply rural areas.

Re:Large

[budgenator]

It is pretty cool to get drunk in a bar older than your country.

Re:Large

[maglor_83]

Because almost 90% of the population live in urban areas. And the owner of the wires is forced to let competitors install DSLAMs and such in the exchanges.

Re:Large

[MightyYar]

You replied to the wrong guy I think?

I pretty much agree - though there is a pretty strong argument on the other side. That is, leaving your rural areas to the free market may not be the greatest idea.

Re:Large

[slashtivus]

My Comcast modem (new 6 months ago) does the single MAC thing. My router and the modem refuse to communicate with one another so I had to plug directly into my computer NIC to be allowed to get an IP address from the modem, then enter the MAC address + IP information into my router. Thankfully, the dynamic IP address hasn't changed. Comcast tech-support was not very "supportive".

Re:Large

[billcopc]

GDP don't mean shit when all the money is being blown up in a fake war on foreign soil.

America has misleading numbers, because they have the most creative accountants. If only the government had a clue how to run its country, it could again be a superpower. Right now it's a joke, and you have those lovely republicans to blame for it all.

Re:Large

[krazytekn0]

Not just cornfields, How about the mountains where pop density is about 1:100 sq.miles. My parents house got phone service for the first time in 1995, (it was built in the 70's).

Re:Large

[menace3society]

There's a problem with that, though. In Australia and Canada, the vast sections of empty space really are empty. If you look at population density maps, you see that Canada is densely populated around the borders to the US, and the rest is COMPLETELY empty. And Australia is basically a big desert island with some settlements along the coasts. I'm exaggerating, but only a little bit.

The US, on the other hand, has its two largest distributions of population on the two coasts, which sound good. But, you have to realize, the middle of the United States is not nearly as empty as the middle of Australia. There are a whole bunch of cities in between the Appalachians and Rockies, like Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Austin, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Denver, etc etc etc. The only part of the country that's really empty is Alaska, and even that has a couple of major cities inland, like Fairbanks. China is the only country has is in a similar situation vis-a-vis population density, and it's possible that even China has more uninhabited open space than the U.S.

This, incidentally, is the major reason for the success of the U.S. in the last century or so. It has the geographic mass of a large country, but it has rates of resource use, land exploitation, and economic production of a smaller country, like England or Germany. In fact, had civilization arose in American before Europe, it's likely that the territory we now call the United States would be a fragmented group of states the way Europe is now (Canada would be Russia, of course).

Re:Large

[saleenS281]

Yes, it's expensive. It turns out that the US absolutely DWARFS those *smaller countries* in GDP as well. It might be more expensive... but we have the money.

Re:Large

[Ecuador]

I am not sure what part of my post was not clear. In most parts of NYC you can have 5Mbit Cable, which is almost unusable with just 384kbps upstream, or Verizon DSL up to 3Mbit/768. Fios is available at A FEW BUILDINGS in Manhattan, great for those lucky few. You will not find an area based Fios availability map. The best you can do is some data points, which for NYC are very sparse. I know that they have started digging in parts of Brooklyn and Queens, but - come on - this is 2008 and there are still WAY few homes with Fiber in the largest US city.
Then, as I said Speakeasy recently started ADSL2+ which they claim goes up to 10-12Mbit (I don't know why not 24Mbit which is the ADSL2+ norm in Europe), but they want $180/month + extra for voice! It would be a great price for 10 years ago I guess...
Since you talked about about Florida, my friend lives in Miami (ZIP 33124), and the best he could do was a lousy 3/384 that has no stability (his ssh connections live for around 10 mins) and he is paying over $50 for it!
As for the population density comment, I already explained what I meant on my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=517216&cid=23019022 .

Re:Large

[sconeu]

Los Angeles. Specifically, the San Fernando Valley.

Re:Large

[perlchild]

I live in a 400+ yr old city in North America, 3.5 million greater metropolitan area, 8 million or so people in the province. We have multiple cable, single phone(that includes dsl). The phone came from a monopoly, since disbanded.

Just what part of can't afford did the local cable cos in your argument miss? One of them just busted a million subscribers(I won't go into how many households of the total it gets, I'm biased, I worked for them at one time.)

Can't afford is the disguise/excuse for "well we can't overcharge if we're going to compete with all these others".

They didn't get to hide behind that excuse not to compete, why do you let your cable co do it?

Re:Large

[Fluffy Bunnies]

Is this where someone should point out that many of the countries at the very top of the list have lower population densities than the US?

Re:Large

[damburger]

Simply not true. I've had UK broadband continuously since 2002 and I have never been prevented from a router. In fact, most ADSL contracts come with a wireless router now anyway.

Re:Large

[jiushao]

Millionth time this little fact gets brought up in this type of discussion but:

The second-place winner is Sweden, which has a population density of 52 people per mile square, as compared to the US' 80 people per mile square.

Re:Large

[witherstaff]

Even comparing metro areas to metro areas, the US is slower than many other countries. I would think at least the area around silicon valley should be wired as well as similiar areas of South Korea or Japan.

Doesn't this argument come up everytime something like this is on /.? Besides, the US network falls behind countries with fewer people per square mile. Forget all the extra-city limit folks. Forget the millions of people who still have access to only dialup or sat for connections. Our major and minor cities are still pitifully connected.

Re:Large

[witherstaff]

And getting even more cornfields with Gov't subsidizes on ethanol ;)

Re:Large

[MichaelSmith]

But I get the impression that a lot of rural areas in the states are like outer urban areas in Australia. They have so many potential customers per square km that the infrastructure should be justified.

Re:Large

[JohnBailey]

Changing ISPs is more of a problem than you might think, especially with all the triple-play providers in large US metro areas.

Typically these ISPs have entire neighborhoods if not entire cities tied up and you have a choice of provider X or Dialup (which is often Provider X again).

In most of these areas people use cheap routers to hang more machines on their connection.

My prior ISP allowed 8 connections (the max mac address slots they had in the modem). After a move I'm in an area where I get precisely one. And why should they do anything else? You want broadband, so what are you going to do. Set up your own telecoms giant? The ISPs must be laughing at the poor schmucks who are tied into their service every time their bonuses come in. They can charge what they like, and offer whatever service they want, and nobody does anything. Market forces are working really well for them.

Re:Large

[Driin]

Yes, it's expensive. It turns out that the US absolutely DWARFS those *smaller countries* in GDP as well. It might be more expensive... but we have the money. the US is no. 9 highest country in the world on a GDP/capita and takes up spot no. 4 on the network readiness. All the countries above on the readiness list ranks higher than the US on a GDP/capita, so its not really a bad ranking. The fact that the US combined GDP dwarfs the other countries does'nt really mean anything since its also got a lot more residents (and area) to deliver bandwidth to. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita

Re:Large

[the eric conspiracy]

That is nonsense. I live in the Metro NY area and have a choice between multiple FIOS plans up to 50/20 mb and Cablevision Boost 38/5mb. My son lives in an apt building that is on Metro Ethernet at 50/50 which is included in the rent.

None of these plans have any per month use restrictions.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

According to speedtest.net, the fastest state in the America is Washington. No surprise; that's where Microsoft lives and all the surrounding support companies.

Other fast states include those along the Northeast I-95 corridor (where it's densely populated like europe).

Re:Large

[LWATCDR]

And just why is 384 kbps upstream just about unusable?
I have no problems using it. SSH works just fine. I can view streaming video just fine.
Sure it would great to have ADSL2 cheap but your claims that is unusable just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

Well that's really up to the people that live there, isn't it?

Most of the rural people I've met (farmers and small store owners) are independent-minded folk, and they really don't care if they only get 0.5 megabit connections. Same way they don't mind having only 1 TV station or analog-only cell coverage. That's their lifestyle choice & they like it that way. (Similar to how Amish-Americans are not hooked-up to electricity, except not that extreme.)

Re:Large

[cthulhu11]

It probably doesn't hurt that Microcult is in (or near -- I've never been able to find a map for this) Verizon territory - I would expect FIOS penetration on the east side of the lake to be very high. Seattle unfortunately is in Qwestland. My new place is 11000 feet from the CO, which means that even with Speakeasy the fastest I could get is 3.0/768. I'm going to try Comlast but may end up switching back to a DS1 just to get a usable up-channel.

Re:Large

[cthulhu11]

Density != Distribution

Re:Large

[MightyYar]

Again, I pretty much agree.

But the "other side" of the argument is that it is not in urban people's best interests to create a sub-class of folks out in the country.

We have, for better or worse, decided to provide rural folks with "basics" - which we apparently define as electricity and phone service.

Independent farmers are fine and all, but they are actually quite dependent on the government for things like water management. It's probably also a good idea to make sure that our farmers are well-educated so that they stay competitive. We do have some of the highest yields in the world, after all.

I don't think that broadband internet should be considered an "essential service" like electricity or phone, but unfortunately the "internet" companies are encumbered with the same government regulations since phone service is essentially a subset of internet service these days... same basic infrastructure, anyway. I think that things like FIOS will eventually put an end to this. Verizon is not required to run fiber to every home... they'll keep the old copper running out to the rural areas. Same situation you have with cable operators, who are not required to serve rural areas.

Re:Large

[Nadaka]

he speaks the truth. Hell, my parents live in a condemned trailer and can not even get voice phone service much less any kind of internet. But its the only "home" they can afford to pay rent on. I tell people i lived in the "third world county" of Stone County, MS.

Things are only getting worse for most of these people as well. Rising gas costs affect the rural poor most of all. They have farther to drive for work and basic services, can not afford new and efficient vehicles and the cost of gas and food (with a price that is rapidly rising due to transport costs) represents a much larger percentage of their gross income.

Re:Large

[bulliver]

Ooh, ooh, ooh, is it Montreal??

Re:Large

[spazdor]

640k should be enough for anyone.

Re:Large

[j_166]

"In fact, had civilization arose in American before Europe, it's likely that the territory we now call the United States would be a fragmented group of states the way Europe is now (Canada would be Russia, of course)."

You lost me here. Civilization did arise in America before Europe. Or at least at more or less the same time. But we Europeans quickly crushed them, reformatted the land, and installed our own civilization over top of theirs. This was mostly due to the fact that most of the domesticable large animals and energy intensive grains were native to Europe and the middle east/north africa, which in turn was due to Europe having the geographic fortune to be laid out East to West and thus having a more uniform climate throughout, as opposed to North and South America's North to South orientation spanning all of the Earth's climate zones.

Re:Large

[electrictroy]

The word "civil" in civilization means "city" in Latin. The first cities were built in Asia and later Europe (greece, rome). The first South American cities were not built until circa 500 A.D.

North America never had any cities prior to 1500, thus the previous comment that "had civilization arose in [North] America before Europe..." is an accurate phrase. The Europeans were the ones to introduce cities to present-day United States.

Re:Large

[p3anut]

Try driving in Australia from Brisbane, Queensland to Perth, Western Australia. 4,349km trip. Perth being the most isolated city in the world and all. You guys get off easy!! Oh wait, our internetz are worse than yours! ;-)

Re:Large

[j_166]

Wow, what a technicality. You should be a lawyer. Think of all the child molesters and murderers you could let go free.

There were plenty of *cultures* in North and South America dating back to the time before Christ. Whether they were "civilizations' or not is apparently debatable, although my guess is the Nazcas (300BC) and the Anasazi (??BC) at the very least would qualify under your very strict definition. Probably whoever evolved into the maya as well. Granted, these peoples were hunter-gathering when the greeks and Egyptians were conquering the known world, but that is beside the point. A civilization capable of crossing the atlantic and conquering Europe could not have possibly emerged, given the ingredients those peoples had to work with.

Re:Large

[menace3society]

No, he is correct in his interpretation of my words. It's not possible to exploit resources efficiently without cities and transportation frameworks. There were cultures in America, but none of them could be considered more advanced that Neolithic: sparse, subsistence agriculture; little to no metalworking (no bronze, no saws, no metal axes); no wheels; no bricks; little cultivation of animals; no sails. In 1500 AD they were behind the level of Egypt in 2000BC. They would have gotten there sooner or later, but people may have been beginning to settle around the fertile crescent when the first humans were crossing the Bering Strait, so they had a lot of catching up to do.

Re:Large

[t0rkm3]

I lived in the SFV and had 10Mb/s service to my home 4yrs ago. I lived near the intersection of Kling St and Pass Ave in Burbank/Toluca Lake.

If you live in an apartment/condo then oftentimes the restriction is on the cable plant of the complex.

Re:Large

[t0rkm3]

You'll find that most times the provider isn't causing the restriction in a large building. It's your landlord. They often don't want to rewire or have more/new equipment installed to server their customers. Usually because there is some expense involved.

I lived in an apartment in CA in which I upgraded the wiring in the telco closet for my building for cost of materials so that I could get better DSL speed.

Re:Large

[sconeu]

That was in reply to "Which "densely populated regions" have slow internet? Every major city I have examined in my area (Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, D.C.) is getting wired with 20 megabit cable or FiOs"

I don't have FIOS. I'm 18000 feet from the CO at Topanga and Vanowen, so I can't get better than 1.5Nbps (actually 768K) DSL. I could get 3-5 with Time Warner.

But... I don't know anyplace in the Valley that could get 20Mbps short of a T-whatever line.

"Network Readiness"

[ShadowMarth]

It took a fair bit of searching, but according to them, 'network readiness' means: the presence of an ICT-friendly and conducive environment, by looking at a number of features of the broad business environment, some regulatory aspects, and the soft and hard infrastructure for ICT; the level of ICT readiness and preparation to use ICT of the three main national stakeholders--individuals, the business sector, and the government; and the actual use of ICT by the above three stakeholders.

Re:"Network Readiness"

[camperslo]

Network Readiness simply reflects the emotional state of male posters to Craigslist personals.
Offers of BroadBandWith (BBW) and big pipes don't correlate as well with reality.

Re:"Network Readiness"

[eepok]

The definition sounds like a hybrid of "JD Power & Associates" BS and some corporate jargon.

What about "Network Access per Capita" (the percentage of people in certain areas that can call their provider and start a broadband account/expect it to be up and running within a week)?

Or "Network Cost as a function of bandwidth per the median income of an area" (no use in saying that it's "affordable" if it's "affordable" only to those in the area's top tax bracket.

Re:"Network Readiness"

[compro01]

i find this thing rather questionable, considering they're putting japan down at 19th.

Don't look at the ranking, look at the scores

[EmbeddedJanitor]

There's no statistical difference between the top ten or so (+- 4%) and the top 25 are all within a +- 10% band.

Given that online surveys are notoriously bad and need wide margins of error, I would not read anything into this except for the obvious: First world countries (EU, USA etc) are ahead of Chad, Zimbabwe etc.

Duh!

Definition of "broadband"

[Sloppy]

Just curious: What is the common definition of "broadband" these days, and in reports like this? Does broadband still mean communications that have been divided into many independent channels/applications (TV, phone, IP), or has it been dumbed down (and yet: become more useful) to meaning internet access faster than some threshold (e.g. 56Kbps), or what?

It also seems that whatever threshold you pick, is going to be arbitrary and not immediately obvious to whoever is reading the list. 256Kbps is still pretty fast (in my book; I'm sure others will disagree) but I can think of a lot it can't do. Diddle with the threshold, and I bet you can rearrange the order of countries on lists like this.

Re:Definition of "broadband"

[JohnVanVliet]

it is my understanding that the U.S.A.( FCC )defines it as 256Kbps BUT the rest of the world defines it as 2Mbps

Re:Definition of "broadband"

[coolsnowmen]

The Electrical Engineer in me cringes every time I here the term "bandwidth" used in place of "data rate."

Still, >200Kbs is the answer to your question.

"The term broadband commonly refers to high-speed Internet access. The FCC defines broadband service as data transmission speeds exceeding 200 kilobits per second (Kbps), or 200,000 bits per second, in at least one direction: downstream (from the Internet to the userâ(TM)s computer) or upstream (from the userâ(TM)s computer to the Internet)."
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/broadband.html

Re:Definition of "broadband"

[electrictroy]

By definition a phoneline is narrowband (0.004 megahertz wide).

Therefore a line that is megahertz wide is broadband. For cable it's 6 megahertz per channel. DSL is about 1 megahertz wide per line.

Re:Definition of "broadband"

[witherstaff]

You're right. The FCC hasn't wanted to budge on redefining broadband even though proposals have been made. Ever since Powel's kid was in charge things concerning the FCC have went downhill for the consumers - rollback of most of the '96 telco reform, allowing more single media control per market, basically very big business friendly. Not even free market friendly, just more lobbyist friendly.

Population spread a bigger issue

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I live in New Zealand. Total population 4 million or so. Cities have good broadband at very good rates. I live rurally where there is no wired broadband option and get a terrestrial wireless service instead. This costs a lot more and is a lot slower.

If you lived in the woods in USA you'd probably also only get limited broadband.

"Network readiness in 10 years" report needed

[iamacat]

It's no use having all the networks if they are going to stop working in several years, after IPV4 address space runs out. The fair question would be which countries networks can be upgraded to IPV6 with minimum effort. Full support for systems that need inbound connectivity, working NAT gateways for the rest.

That's no excuse

[Rob Simpson]

Canada has a huge lead on the US in those categories despite being even larger and more sparsely populated. (And yes, broadband has been available in rural areas for over a decade.) Unfortunately, under the Conservatives, the companies here have been evading the regulations that are supposed to control them.

Re:That's no excuse

[maxume]

Are the populated parts of Canada more sparsely populated than the populated parts of the United States? (my impression is that Canada is slightly more urbanized than the US, basically because of the Yukon)

It isn't geography, it's regulation.

Re:That's no excuse

[electrictroy]

Canada is 2 megabit/sec and 2.5 megabit/sec slower than the U.S. and E.U. averages.

I don't define that as a "Canadian lead".

Kinda off topic

[icegreentea]

...but are those Koreans playing SC2??

Re:Population "clumpiness"

[Comboman]

Canada has low density, but the population tends to clump near the US border. Australia has the population clumped on their East coast. Therefore, these countries aren't representative of the difficulty of penetration in the United States.

The US population is equally "clumpy" (see map), being "clumped" along the east and west coast and along major waterways like the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. Yes that makes it difficult to get broadband to Buttscratch Montana (population 4 1/2), but it is absolutely no excuse why so many people in major US population centers either can't get broadband at all or have no choice in providers (which drives the price up and service down).

Re:Large, I think, Zealot is a paid-rake dogmatist

[OldHawk777]

Whoever pays Zealot to rake whatever dogma shit is what a Zealot dogmatist will do ... profit before honor, spin-lies to pseudo truth. He is close to clueless on telecommunications, like most/all politicians and the FCC management.

Zealot/Z34107 is another name for a professional-troll

Re:Large, I think, Zealot is a paid-rake dogmatist

[Z34107]

Oh yea? Well, you have an e-mail from Comcast.

Who's clueless now?

Size does matter!

[G3ckoG33k]

Size does matter, but not here.

Some people just don't get how huge Europe is, about the size of the US. In some parts most people have broadband in others not. Just like in the US.

Richer, more densely populated parts tend to have more broadband. No matter the size, or the name space.

"Suprisingly"

[professorfalcon]

And surprisingly bad at teaching proper spelling, apparently.

Where did you get that?

[Rob Simpson]

All I could find in the study was:

Canada
Internet bandwidth (Mbps per 10000 inhabitants) 2006
67.34

United States
Internet bandwidth (Mbps per 10000 inhabitants) 2006
33.06

...and internet users per 100 people, which is even less useful. Source?

Pretty much dead wrong there.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Here's a global population density map: http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/mapindex/popden.html

Notice how the EU is all dark orange, except for parts of central Spain. Lots of people, more financial incentive to wire everything.

Notice how 80% of Canada is completely deserted, because it's too far north to be habitable. The Northern Yukon does an awful lot to decrease Canada's average population density, but since there's NOBODY there it doesn't affect the difficulty of wiring up broadband. Australia, same thing, except it's like 95% instead of 80% empty.

China is enough of a mix that it might make sense to compare to the US, but I'm guessing there are enough other issues with development, etc. to make it a tough comparison.

Re:Pretty much dead wrong there.

[MadnessASAP]

Ahem... It's not that its too far north to be habitable, It's that when you only have 30 million people it's kind of hard to fill up that much space. You can take any Canadian and stick him up there with nothing but a teabag and a pair of underwear and he'll be happy as fleas on a dog, we just like to be able to hang out with each other.

Re:Pretty much dead wrong there.

[electrictroy]

That pretty much supports my point about not comparing the huge U.S. versus a densely-populated E.U. state like France or Germany.

Apples v. oranges.

Re:Pretty much dead wrong there.

[Vexor]

We could send you some illegal immigrants if you're lonely up there in Cananda. The US is being overrun, we'd be happy to share.

More on topic: I think it's a skewed comparison. Total populations and land size need to be factored in. Well you might say pop density accounts for it. It doesn't, not quite. If you multiplied South Koreas land mass to equal the US they'd kick our ass in regards to "readiness" In fact I believe they're already ahead of us, but I didn't RTFA.

But which state?

[Per Abrahamsen]

The top spot, Denmark, is 2.2 million square kilometers, or approximately three times the size of Texas.

Of course, most of it is uninhabited ice, but the point stands, absolute size doesn't matter much here. Population distribution is more important, almost all the population of Denmark lives in an area only twice the size of New Jersey, with a bit more than half the population.

Sweden

[Per Abrahamsen]

And the top #2 spot, Sweden, is the size of California, with quarter of the population.

Re:Large - irrelevant

[AliasMarlowe]

I think the main point in broadband that people just don't get is that the US is huge while many smaller countries are the size of one of the US's states, its is expensive to get broadband. I live in Finland. Compared to some of the larger US states, Finland is (i) slightly larger than Arizona with a somewhat smaller population, (ii) twice the area of Florida with one third its population, or (iii) half the area of Texas with one quarter its population.

I don't live in Helsinki or any other large city; in fact, I live in the countryside outside a small city a few hundred km north of Helsinki. A 100/10Mbps fiber connection here costs 75euro per month, with NO capacity limits or throttling. That price also includes telephone and a basic TV package. Wherever a new house is built in my area, the ISP puts down fiber to it (2km fiber to reach me and 4 neighbours). They stopped putting down copper a couple of years ago, and are progressively replacing existing copper with fiber. On fiber, they give you two choices: 20/2 or 100/10 Mbps, unlimited and unthrottled.

In places with existing infrastructure (cable or decent telephone lines), I can understand ISPs preferring to "extract the value" from their assets rather than add fiber beside the existing lines. But from much commentary on /. and elsewhere, it seems that in many parts of the US the existing infrastructure is overwhelmed at the local level, lacking the capacity to support even a fraction of the bandwidth that has been sold to connected customers. The highways get repaved or widened when the circumstances demand it; communication infrastructure also needs occasional improvements.

Not quite dead wrong

[AliasMarlowe]

Notice how the EU is all dark orange, except for parts of central Spain. ...and most of Sweden and Finland, which make up a significant fraction of the EU's area.

I live in central Finland (yellow on that map), in the countryside, and have fiber to the house. 100/10 Mbps unlimited and unthrottled costs 75euro per month. That price also includes TV and telephone.

Suprisingly?

[Furmy]

I'm kind of suprised that the headline is spelled incorrectly.

Re:Population "clumpiness"

[Jerry Rivers]

Not to mention that Canada, though low density and mostly clumped near its Southern border, is 5500 kilometres wide.

The America

[spazdor]

I giggled at that.