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2008 International Broadband Rankings
itif writes to let us know about a major new report, released yesterday by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, showing how the US and other countries compare in terms of broadband access, speed, and price. The rankings (PDF) place the US 15th, this country having fallen every year since 2001. Here's the full report (PDF). According to the report's executive summary: "The US broadband policy environment is characterized on the one hand by market fundamentalists who see little or no role for government, and see government as the problem; and on the other by digital populists who favor a vastly expanded role for government (including government ownership of networks and strict and comprehensive regulation, including mandatory unbundling of incumbent networks and strict net neutrality regulations) and who see big corporations providing broadband as a problem. Given the policy advocacy and advice they are getting, it is no wonder that Congress and the Administration have done so little."
Because I trust the people about bandwidth that can only upload at 1.3kb/s
I for one do not want the US government providing my broadband access. Consider that this administration has had to go out of its way to perform warrentless wiretapping, and this resulted in an open loop that was able to be leaked to the public. Can you imagine if the US government was in full control of all telecommunications? I doubt we would have even known about the wiretapping because there would be no middle man.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
How many countries subsidize telcos with tax dollars to create their infrastructure? I'm curious.
I know we are a spread-out nation here in the US, but there is no reason why cities with people living on top of each other (LA, Boston, New York, etc) can't easily have the infrastructure that the rest of the world has.
I'd buy the spread-out excuse, except our big cities had poor broadband, and our rural areas are still on dial-up. In that regard, we are very much behind other nations.
That's your tax dollars at work!
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Slashdotted already?
Yay, I'm 19th. take that you Americans!!!
But seriously, its not that your falling. But that other countries are rising faster than you.
You have two choices: you either force telecoms providers to supply broadband to even rural sites and force them to allow competing providers to install equipment at the local exchange - as has been done in the United Kingdom, for example - or you don't. If you don't, since telecoms provision is a natural monopoly, you're going to get crappy service if you keep it privatised and unregulated.
So, executive summary: in an unregulated market, the situation will appear best in countries where almost everyone lives in high rise blocks, and worst in precisely the opposite geography - the USA. In more regulated markets, few will have particularly brilliant access, but almost everyone will have something better than dial-up.
Socialism vs capitalism, round 16,398.
In this case, he is Chairman Brian Roberts. In other words, because there is almost none to zero competitors in most of the markets Comcast serves, they can get away with continually raising prices. That is why the U.S. continues to lag the world in broadband.
Yes, there is the whole issue of running fiber and cable long distances in the U.S. compared to other countries like South Korea and Japan, but when you look at places such as New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc, you see the same pattern. Only one, or if you're lucky maybe two, providers from which to choose your broadband service.
In my area, we have two choices; Comcast or Verizon. I can pay $100/month for Comcast's triple-play or I can pay $100/month for Verizon's triple-play. But I can't pay $33/month for just the broadband access or $33/month for just the cable subscription (I currently pay $53.31/month for the combined Basic and Standard cable service).
This is the overwhelming reason broadband penetration in the U.S. continues, and will continue, to lag behind the rest of the world. The only solution is, unfortunately, government interference. Force the providers to offer their lines to others based on the logic that it was taxpayers who helped to subsidize the laying of all the cable and fiber through tax breaks and such. Either the companies open their lines and allow competition or they have to pay back all the subsidies they got when they originally promised to bring broadband to the U.S. Ten years ago.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's quite obvius that ITIF does not have broadband, I'm downloading the PDF-file at 1.5 Kbps.....
You can't compare a country, say as Korea, to a country, say as the US in terms of broadband deployment. The physical size of Korea, which would fit in the state of California? If the land mass of the USA were the size of Japan, then yes, broadband would penetrate better.
Can you imagine if the US government was in full control of all telecommunications?
They learned long ago they don't need "full control" They learned where the choke points are and gather information there.
Legislators do nothing simply because it's not a high enough priority for the telcos. Right now the telcos are preparing to decimate cable/satellite and rid themselves of their public obligations (POTS) altogether.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The sharp dichotomy presented in the executive summary is just plain wrong. Sure, the two extremes exist, but I think most supporters of net neutrality regulation don't actually want the government to take over networks. The summary is as accurate as "All people in the U.S. are either knuckle-dragging Bushtards or communists."
The point of net neutrality is not to change who is running networks, it's to prevent network operators from effectively blocking or slowing down connections based on who or what the user is trying to connect to.
For example Time Warner pays 15% of their net revenue back to the city of Cary, NC as an 'access fee'. This can only be described as a kickback, a bribe in exchange for monopoly access. And it's legal.
Here's the ranking:
Score on Specific Broadband Measures
Household Price5
penetration3 (Lowest monthly
Ranking2 (Subscribers Speed4 price per Mbps)
per (Average download (US $ purchasing Composite Score6
Nation household) speed in Mbps) power parity)
1 South Korea 0.93 49.5 0.37 15.92
2 Japan 0.55 63.6 0.13 15.05
3 Finland 0.61 21.7 0.42 12.20
4 Netherlands 0.77 8.8 1.90 11.77
5 France 0.54 17.6 0.33 11.59
6 Sweden 0.54 16.8 0.35 11.53
7 Denmark 0.76 4.6 1.65 11.44
8 Iceland 0.83 6.1 4.93 11.20
9 Norway 0.68 7.7 2.74 11.05
10 Switzerland 0.74 2.3 3.40 10.78
11 Canada 0.65 7.6 3.81 10.61
12 Australia
Why is this surprising to anyone? I know a lot of people will post responses regarding net neutrality, the roles of government, policies, politics, etc.
What about just the SIZE of the US? When some new fiber cable comes out that can dramatically increase the speed, or some other sort of technology, it takes a HECK of a lot longer to deploy in the US. If Japan, South Korea, Norway, Sweden, etc. did not catch up to us AND then start passing us, I would think there would be something wrong with them.
The fact we fell to 15th is of no surprise and was to be expected. Just the timetables and costs of deployment are radically different at our scale versus the scale of a country like Japan or South Korea. Does any of those top 5 countries have to deploy fiber runs as FAR as the US does? I don't think so. Is anyone surprised that our bandwidth costs more when the costs of deploying said bandwidth are considerably higher and the total number of customers serviced for a given segment of fiber is much lower?
People complaining about how the US is falling behind in bandwidth is getting old really fast. Let's stop complaining about the speed of our networks relative to small countries who have an infinitesimal fraction of deployment costs, and rather the intelligence being applied to the policies governing it's use now.
I am a little more concerned about censorship, throttling, deliberately dropped packets, premeditated "denial of service" attacks, monitoring, and just general BULLSHIT by our Telcoms and ISP's than I am that Japanese men get 100 Mb/s download speeds in their homes and I don't.
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In most urban areas, the cable companies have to purchase a franchise from the city to be allowed pole rights and access to rights of way to build their infrastructure.
For cable, at least, this subsidizing you speak of doesn't seem to actually exit! The FLC charge (which has gone away, mostly) was charged by telephone companies to help subsidize million dollar build to bum-fuqed egypt in the middle of no-where land to service 5 farmers and their dogs.
Although I don't deal with broadband carriers, I happen to be in the business of building fiber based network services for people. Given the rate at which technology grows, you can't realistically put fiber builds on a 20 year return on investment, because you have to replace gear ever 3 or 4 years, due to demand going up at an incredible rate!
Our company uses a 3 year rate of return model for our business customers. It prices us out of the market for somethings, but we aren't going to go bankrupt competing with people who are trying to give away the network either. We will also be able to easily justify upgrading our systems as customer demand warrants, because they are PAYING us to do it.
The current broadband model HAS to be based on over subscription to drive the price down, but at the same time, your demanding you get every kbps of bandwidth you possible can, and how DARE those EVIL COMPANIES try and oversubscribe their service!
Some quick math: How long will it take a neighborhood of 500 homes to 'break even' on a 3 million dollar fiber extension, if you don't have to spend any other money on upgrading infrastructure for higher speeds, or even answer service calls, for that matter?
On a 3 year plan, that would be roughly $166 per month, per home JUST TO BREAK EVEN ON THE CONSTRUCTION COSTS. ($100 a month on a five year plan) That doesn't include internet support, voice support, broadcast support, truck rolls, and everything else involved.
I use a 3 or 5 year number, because they are going to have to start upgrading the equipment in the can then to keep up with the growing demand for bandwidth, as well as spend even more to upgrade their backbone links and transit provider links.
The vast majority of 'broadband subsidies' have vanished into the 'quick fix' folks who are promoting muni wifi as the 'cheap and easy' answer to affordable high speed service.
There is plenty of blame to go around, all I ask is that you put it on the right people.
I find it sad that the country that invented the Internet can't place higher then 15th.
If you really look at it, the big three as far as broadband access in this country are Verizon, Cox, and Comcast...of the three, only Verizon has FIOS and offers speeds faster than Cox and Comcast's 12mb/s fastest package...if you have the bucks, Verizon can give you 30mb/s, twice the speed of what Cox and Comcast can give...but Comcast and Cox will tell you they are "blazingly fast"...on top of that you have companies like AT&T saying they have really fast Internet, but all they have is DSL, and anyone with an ounce of computing knowledge knows DSL isn't worth shit if you're a hard core gamer. So bottom line is it's all about the money. We can very easily have the infrastructure to have Internet speeds that rival other countries, but the bottom line is as long as we can sucker the consumer to pay $40 a month for 500kbps speeds and convince them that they are cutting edge, we won't get out of the information super tar pit.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
Anyone know of a mirror?
happened to our automotive, electronic or spam industry, errr wait...
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Anyone else beginning to smell a scam? Seems every time these reports are released, it's bawling for more money from the public purse.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Cause they sure have bad bandwidth.
regarding the recent so-called "suicide" by a madam in the news: if youre a dumb American (typical majority) who thinks parroting your views is freedom, while you pay taxes which fund the war and other things you may disagree with like the immoral war on drugs, you are milked for your taxes while you continue to fund big oil, and you are overlooked. Those who have (A) real information, or (B) a voice to be heard by the people and for the people, are quickly swept away The days of the lone gunman tactic are fading, its too easy for conspiracy theorists (logical intellectuals vs. coincidence theorists) to tie up loose ends. Most popular today is: 1. Suicide (forced or the result of psyop attacks) 2. Overdose of medication/recreational drugs 3. Heart attacks (induced by chemical(s) commonly used by black ops) 4. Vanishing (where did they go? Maybe Hoffa knows?) and so on Your country is tightly controlled and your freedom lost long ago. All that remains is the illusion of freedom. Be sure to google about the guy who will likely soon be extridited from Canada to the U.S. and serve 10 years to life for selling SEEDS! When nature is illegal, youre the blue dress. Freedom of speech is never offtopic!
Isn't there anyone who realizes that the problem is in the monopoly rights the government continually grants the big corporations? If they were exposed to actual free market conditions, none of them would be able to sustain their business models for a minute.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
The report is now available to download from SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1128203
I find it interesting that the report encourages looking to other countries to see how they do it and specifically mentions several countries that are politically and/or geographically nothing like the U.S. instead of noting that Canada is ranked 11th despite being politically, economically, and geographically very similar. In fact, I would venture Canada has had to beat the odds to succeed since we have a smaller economy and many of our best and brightest get recruited to work in the U.S. (I moved to the U.S. 8 years ago).
When I left Canada my dad lived on an acerage in the middle of nowhere and had spotty dial-up access. He now has a fiber optic junction box sitting on his property and can pay for as much bandwidth as he wants and the entire area has high-speed wireless and/or cable available.
I think it's great that Canada has done so well and I think it would make sense for the U.S. policy-makers to ask their neighbors up North what the secret is.
We get one of these stories every month, sometimes more often. There are always the same explanations, some of which are debunked and some of which are not. There's always the same bashing of US ISPs and the US government, and we are told how "great" things supposedly are in countries where people can get "100mbps" internet connectivity.
I don't care anymore.
Yeah, I would like to see more competition in the US. It's coming. Qwest is finally rolling out FTTN and ADSL2+, which will put more pressure on Comcast. Out in Verizon territory, FiOS is doing the same.
But, you know, of all the problems that the US has, the fact that I have to deal with 8mbps Comcast isn't exactly pressing.
They're going to destroy 10% of cables and satellites? Wow.
Is it just me or are the statistics for canada wrong? First they list the average high speed account to be 7.6Mbps... I know some companies offer 7Mbps and there are a few wich have very expencive plans whihc are more than that. Most i would say are only 5Mbps especialy at peak hours. Aswell there are all those "light" accounts which are only about 1Mbps. I find it very hard to beleive that the average is higher than what I have LOL. Next is there $/Mbps. They quote $3.81/Mbps Average. One of the cheapest companies i know of are teksavvy (www.teksavvy.com) which charges $29 for a 5Mbps account. Thats $5.8/Mbps and i'd say thats on the cheap side. So... where did they get there canadian statistics... and can they point me in the direction of their "average" canadian ISP? David
... that the United States Interet sucks because of big buisness (especially Comcast) who care more for $ than expanding and speeding up the Internet...
That, plus the damn website, which was most likely hosted in the United States, has such poor bandwidth......
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Interesting to note that Singapore is not listed - with 100 mbps cable service widely available (at a decent rate as well).
Not to mention rates of 8mbps to 25 mbps being offered even cheaper as well.
Last I heard there is sizable internet usage here, with most government services available online thru the "Singpass" system.
I guess they only rated a few countries. (am sure at the very least Czech / Slovak Republics got worst connectivity compared to here.
The "price" column is misleading especially for Australia. For instance if you compare the LOWEST monthly price this is a capped download limit plan which allows you to download 500meg. Sure this is the lowest cost, however most people can't survive on it, and it doesn't account for anyone else.
For instance, me and my friends are all nerds with reasonably heavy usage habits. This means we use 80gb per month, which is basically the largest limits you can get.
These plans cost $100+ AUD and we on average get 5mbit. This means our price column there would be 20 and the highest value possible on this chart.
Taking the average download limit of 20gb per month for $55 (on my ISP) and 5mbit means I would get a score of 11, which is still above average since most people don't have or don't get 5mbit. If we take their average of 1.7mbit we get a score of 32.35 which is more accurate.
The reason why most of our country is on 1.5mbit, is that you can download more than your cap on 1.5mbit so you usually don't need more. Also, the infrastructure wasn't there till this past year.
Anyhow, at least with Australia, our score needs to be a lot lower.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I recall a clue here I followed here on Slashdot to an interesting story. It happens that in the 90's there was literally no interest in building out broadband to rural areas of the state because of the enormous cost of wiring sparsely populated areas. Three state power districts (PUDs) had embarrassing surplus funds from their overbuilt hydro installations they needed to get rid of. They got permission to pilot broadband over fiber to the home (FTTH) to dissipate some of the excess. After some time building out their networks (circa 2000) Farmer John on his tractor can reap the grain and enjoy VOIP and streaming hi-def video to his laptop because his household network has a symmetrical 100mbps with ridiculously low latency. This costs him $40 a month and installation is $100 or free. Unfortunately charging these rates is enormously profitable even though most homes are miles apart. You can imagine the economic disaster this was. The PUDs are government agencies and are not supposed to be earning the absurd profits they're making on this transaction.
The economic impacts kept getting worse. Major server farms and hosting companies are building out huge factory style hosting plants where once nothing grew but grass. This gained huge new tax revenues, and of course highly paid server room techs and managers need places to live so property values increased tenfold (with the accompanying dizzying increase in property taxes of course). This of course drew attention to the unspoiled natural beauty of the land, which began to draw tourism. Now they have no idea what they're going to do with this excess money and are considering some sort of negative income tax or dividend fund similar to Alaska.
Recently it was proposed that the ability to offer this service to the residents of the other public utility districts in some sort of Senate Bill. Fortunately it may have drawn the attention of public minded lobbyists because it was sent to die quietly in committee unread and the crisis was averted.
I wish I could remember where I found that clue. I think it was in a sig.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This sounded way better than any offer I've seen. So I did some digging in to their methodology.
FTA: Our methodology for calculating broadband speed in the ITIF Broadband Rankings involves averaging the speeds of the incumbent DSL, cable and fiber offerings provided in the OECDâ(TM)s April 2006 âoeMultiple Play,â report...
Looking at their study "MULTIPLE PLAY: PRICING AND POLICY TRENDS", 2006.
In this report they look at only providers of "multiple play". So that would be providers that provide TV, Phone, and Internet. Of these providers they look at only 3. Incumbent ADSL (Bell Canada), Cable Provider (Cogeco), and Alternative DSL (Aliant). They say that Bell Canada provides internet @ 5Mbps. Aliant provides access @ 5Mbps. Cogeco provides access @ 10Mbs. There are hundreds of ISPs in Canada, so this is not a representative sample at all. Most are resellers of Bell's lines. Rogers Cable is the major Cable ISP at least in Ontario. Fiber to the home is essentially non-existent in Canada. (Please someone prove me wrong if that's the case; I'd love the option)
From the report mentioned in the article they say that 52% of the Canadian Broadband users use Cable and 48% use DSL.
To get their magic 7.6Mbps number they do (5Mbps)*0.48 + (10Mbps)*0.52 = 7.6Mbps.
I live in the heart of Canada's technology triangle and I can't get Cogeco cable. Of that 52%, Cogeco has a *very* small portion I'm sure.
Bell Canada now offers a 6Mbps service, their resellers offer 5Mbps. Just because you pay for 6Mbps service doesn't mean your line can support it, so you're often downgraded to a speed your line can handle. Average ADSL speed I would estimate being 3Mbps. Average cable speed I would estimate being 4Mbps.
The average download speed in Canada is no where near 7.6Mbps. To get the 3-4Mbps speeds I mentioned most people are paying $40-60 per month.
I wouldn't be surprised if their methodology for getting their other metrics were equally flawed.
What kind of idiot thinks that the highway between producers of goods and their markets, between the markets and consumers, are in the domain of government responsibility?
Oh... wait... never mind.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Don't believe the major information providers. The boom of the 90's was all about the information infrastructure and the insanely huge margins available in delivering bandwidth at monopoly prices. They cook the books to make it look like it's a loss-making enterprise and then lobby aggressively for every advantage they can get.
Remember $1.10 a minute to the town just across the county line when calls to the far side of the country were $.10/min or less? What do you suppose that was about?
Rural areas of my state get symmetrical 100mbps broadband for $40/month from their public utility and the utility makes money at this. No joke. Low latency Fiber To The Premises. In the urban counties we are protected by Qwest and Comcast from this government abuse so we pay twice as much for 1% as much uplink with over 500 times the population density.
Yeah, it's not about the density.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"Hamas, I guess, has done so much for the freedom and stability of Gaza?"
/rant
Not that I am supporting the actions of Hamas, nor the Israelies for that matter, but Hamas were elected by the Palestinian people in what was judged by international observers from the democratic world as a "free and fair" election. Hamas won 70% of the popular vote, obstensibly because of their habit of providing material aid to their own people and their refusal to "bow their knee" to Israel.
One major reason Hamas are ineffective for their people (of course there are other reasons of their own making), is that the rest of the so called democratic world deliberately ignored thier landslide victory and their (one sided) year long cease-fire against Israel that immediately followed the election.
The democratic world effectively side-lined Hamas in favour of their PLO sock-puppet to the detriment of all those now living in Gazza. Not to mention the US giving the nod to a massive arms shipment to Abbas in the hope of inciting (and winning) a Palestinian civil war while the rest of the world was watching the fireworks in Lebannon. (To Abbas' credit he did not comply).
Now maybe you can argue that because Abbas won the position of president in the same election and is therfore entitled to control arms in Palestine. And it's all well and good for the democratic world to argue that position as they have done for a good number of years. However if that is the democratic world's rationale then why did the same democratic world push the exact opposite argument when Arrafat was the (elected) president, Abbas was the (elected) PM, and both were members of the PLO?
"Making them [governments] accountable to the people is a prerequisite to "fixing your government".
Indeed, but the weak are no match for the machevellian actions of the democratic world or any other large power block for that matter. So therefore another (and I would argue more fundemental), prerequisite to "fixing your government" is to insure that it's free from hostile interferance by external powers.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I feel so good that Australia is beating the USA in overall score.
Thank god for our affordable 250MiB 24Mib/S plans!
Anyone want to move from to Australia, we have good internet here!
I live on the other side of the planet yet 'amazingly' I managed to deduce that Gore never meant his words to be construde as a technical contribution to the internet and that the "Gore invented the net" meme is in fact nothing more than spin from his political opponents. Gore's own spin is that he claims that without his funding efforts the internet would not have been invented.
As for the quality of the posts - The US people deserve the politicians they vote for, the rest of the world just want you to keep a muzzle on them.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's not a comparison, fool. The point is judging people based on their behavior over an arbitrary time period rather than in its entiredy is stupid and disingenuous.
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