Slashdot Mirror
Lessig On McCain's Technology Platform
Agthorr writes "Lawrence Lessig has created a video analyzing John McCain's recently released technology platform (available here). Lessig's video touches on broadband penetration, competition, and network neutrality." Note that while Lessig has come out as a supporter of Barack Obama, this video is not from the Obama campaign.
Allow me to elaborate on the broadband issue. If you look at average and top speeds available in NYC, LA, Chicago, or any other major city, you'll find that they are 2-5 times slower than the average available to the whole country of Japan, South Korea, France and Sweeden.
The fastest speeds you can currently get from Verizon (via FiOS) are 50/20 (down/up), for which you'll pay $145 a month. This is below the average of what you'd get in the above countries, and I'm almost certain it costs 25-33% of the above rate.
A more reasonable 20/20 or 20/5 costs 70 or 57. The bottom line is that IF you can get the service, you'll pay 3-6 times the cost per mbps as you would in another country. One could argue that markup is to pay for further penetration, but eh... we're still well behind in internet speeds even in our metro areas.
To my knowledge Verizon offers the fastest service plans available for residential access, and I'm guessing their $/mbps is competitive as well. I'm glad that they're at least offering a 20/20 or a 50/20 package, but don't kid yourself - we're still pretty far behind in our coverage.
I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
Here's the video in mp4 format, for those who won't enable the Flash plugin for a few minutes:
ftp://definethis.org/video.mp4
It's 57.3 MB (60,102,443 bytes), straight from Google's servers.
For those complaining about dial up, here's only the sound:
ftp://definethis.org/sound.mp3 (22050, mono, 3.82 MB (4,016,064 bytes))
Links are ftp to allow for bandwidth limit in case download goes overboard.
I attempted to compare apples to apples. The population density in NYC or LA has to be greater than the population density of any of those countries outside their cities. Nowhere did I mention our average broadband speed, which even in the best of states is under 5 mbps IIRC. I didn't mention the average (under 3 mpbs), and I certainly didn't mention Alaska (under 1 mpbs)
Now an above poster mentions that a former USSR country (Romania) gets 10-15 times faster actual download speeds (20/2) than a 20/5 person in the US, and pays 1/3 as much.
As for your argument about density - Romania's average density is 236/sq mi. There are 11 US states with a density greater than that, according to wikipedia.
In my opinion (not to disparage Romania at all), but when a country that was under Communist control until 20 years ago has better internet speeds for 1/3 the price of the US, it should be entirely unacceptable.
Since you like economics, you should know duopolies (which are what most local ISPs are) and oligopolies (nationwide ISPs) don't allocate resources efficiently in many cases and reduce consumer surplus.
I'm also pretty sure U.S. telecoms have been given subsidies and/or tax breaks in return for guarantees on broadband penetration and speed. For the most part, telecoms are years behind where they promised to be if they got said subsidies.
If there's anything else you have a question about, let me know.
I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
WOW, what a bigoted anti-religious thing to say. Just because you believe that there is something out there larger than yourself does not mean you turn your brain off. Not everyone who believes in God is a racist, a bigot or a homophobe; it just seems those are the ones that get the most press coverage.
Everyone has filters that they see the world through. Which set are you using?
Besides the last poll I saw ~80% of the adult population in the US believed in God (not necessarily Jesus but a creator) so why do you find it surprising that the candidates would pander to a group that large?