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US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's For 101 Years
An anonymous reader writes "Internet speeds of users nationwide shows that the United States has not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year, and if the average US Internet speed continues to improve only at the same rate it did from 2007 to 2008, the country won't catch up with Japan's current download speed for another 100 years, according to findings released by the Communications Workers of America's (CWA's) Speed Matters campaign." With enough statistical mangling, nearly anything can be presented as plausible, but that's not enough to cover up my envy of Asian broadband speeds.
It is a GOOD thing that the US is not moronic enough to wire our large, open country to the same extent that a small, island country can.
And what about your major cities? Does it strike you as odd that the supposed hub of all technology, in California, has shitty internet access?
I lived in Japan for three years, and when I got there in 2002, the *basic* package offered by Yahoo! Japan was 12Mbps DSL for an intro rate of ¥2000 a month (about US $20), bumping up to ¥3500 a month later on. By the time I left in 2005, the *basic* package cost the same, but the *lowest* speed available was 18Mbps -- something that still doesn't even *exist* at the consumer level anywhere in the US (that I'm aware of) in 2008.
The US broadband market is suffocating under the rank hypocrisy and greed of the telcos, and the bald corruption and bribeability of the congress. Somehow the Japanese broadband market has a heck of a lot more internal competition, yet the companies there can still make a profit offering much higher speeds for relatively lower rates.
Frustratedly,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
ofcourse, it's linear! Also Japan is the same size as the United States.
From the report the article cites:
"One explanation of why, in most instances, broadband penetration and a range of available geographic variables show little or no correlation is that large countries tend to have extensive coverage of DSL and cable networks. In fact, the total landmass of a country has a very low correlation with broadband penetration per 100 inhabitants across the OECD (see Figure 1.7). For example, Canada has the highest penetration rate among the G7 countries â" which are all smaller."
Canada has a higher broadband penetration rate than Japan, the UK, France, Germany -- in fact, Japan and the USA have similar broadband penetration rates.
It's not dispersion either (how clumped-together people are), Japan, the US and Canada have similar dispersions.
They are interesting numbers considering the phenomenon of karoshi, which, AFAIK, is unique to Japan.
There is also a study about the growth of mental health problems in the workplace and the increased use of prolonged employee leaves.
So maybe it's not just the hours, but how intense those hours are.
It would also be interesting to know how the numbers were calculated and if they measure work times based on tools like Blackberry usage and VPNs, two things that "help" me work more hours than just those when I'm in the office. I couldn't find the report gaebler referenced. Quick googling didn't show it and the search function at JPC-SED is broken.
Finland is third? I have 512/512 because that's all I can afford, and I live in a city. 20 mbps sure as fuck isn't the average speed over here.
Yet everyone in the US has a phone and do you think LA's fibre optics and NY's fibre optics travel through some ratty little copper cable when it runs through the middle of the US?
These companies have no problem running their fibre through some farmer's land but they don't want to give him any of the benefits.
I know it's not that simple but the fact is the US lagging behind has nothing to do with how but the US is. It's because companies don't want to service certain areas. As someone who lived in rural Pennsylvania, I know what kind of contempt Verizion has for people in the country.
Despite the fact where I used to live isn't that far from the nearest broadband and it's an upcoming area with a lot of rich people moving in I don't think they offer any sort of broadband even now. In fact I know there are people there that don't even have decent dialup because of the line noise but Verizion's policy is basically as long as you can tell someone else is on the other end they don't give a fuck how noisy your line is. Businesses are exceptionally tight and the only way the US will ever catch up to anyone else is either force companies to roll it out or the government lays its own broadband.