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2/3 of Americans Without Broadband Don't Want It
Ant writes in with news that won't be welcomed by the incoming US administration as it tries to expand the availability of broadband Internet service. A recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates, as noted by Ars Technica, that two-thirds of Americans without broadband don't want it. "...when we look at the overall reasons why Americans don't have broadband, availability isn't the biggest barrier. Neither is price. Those two, combined, only account for one-third of Americans without broadband. Two-thirds simply don't want it. The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value."
...was in the "Two-thirds simply don't want it. The bigger issue is a lack of perceived value" camp until he started receiving many rather large pictures and short home movies (usually taken from a digital camera) of his grand kids. He was also attempting to upload pictures he'd taken to the family Gallery (it runs Gallery), but it took so long to do (he has a 7+ MP camera, so the pictures were rather large). After finally biting the bullet and getting *the cheapest* "broadband" he could find (I think it was 128k down / 64k up), within a couple weeks he had upgraded to a mid-level broadband package (somewhere around 1.5mb down/256(or more) up) and was finding himself doing so much more with it. I personally believe the final straw that made him actually upgrade his package was the ability to see/talk to his middle son (one of my two younger brothers) while he was/is deployed in Iraq (on his third tour now, I believe).
There are some people that just aren't going to want it, no matter what you show them can be done with it, but I think a large percentage of those 2/3 that "don't perceive the value" simply haven't had anyone explain/show them what value they could be getting.
bork bork bork!
I'm not opposed to paying but the problem I have is the bundle.
I get comcast interent but I don't get comcast cable tv. So they CHARGE Me $19 extra. I Could almost get cable tv for close to "free" (just $10 more for both).
Likewise for my mom whose on a fixed income but needs the comforts of phone, TV and the uncomplicated reliability of non-dailup internet, I can't find a scheme that lets me use skype.
for example, if I want to use sky I still need to have a DSL connection which means paying for basic phone service from Qwest (even though with skype we don't need that).
I want her to have a basic pay-as-you go cell phone for safety in her car, but there's no point in paying for that when, give that I'm paying Qwest for a land line, I might was well get their bundled Wireless.
And so it goes.
How come I can't just get ala carte DSL. How come I can't just get cable internet.
that is without the extra fees for not buying the bundle.
anyone know how to just buy DSL without a phone?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It doesn't look like a dupe to me. The articles that are linked to this time around concern a broadband stimulus package that the Obama administration is mulling over. They both do seem to be based on the same research though.
and what percentage of the other 2/3 simply don't know what they are missing? It's like asking the population of 1930s America if they wanted highways - many probably wouldn't have seen the need for it. Many didn't have one in their area (PA turnpike and a few others around). Eisenhower, as a young officer, took part of a cross country convoy, to assess national roads, around the early 1920s IIRC, and it took them nearly 50 days to get coast to coast, that with seeing the German Autobahn in action up close is what lead him to spearhead the interstate system as President.
Infrastructure is almost always good and pays off, like the Hoover Dam + others Depression era projects are still serving us well today. But it's really tough for people with little experience with it to imagine the uses for it. They've been confined to stuff like dial-up for so long, that the concept of the internet as a medium for only text emails, sprinkled with a few static pictures and the like is hard to break for good reason.
I have broadband (of sorts). My city provides free WiFi. Its good enough for my uses (downloading/uploading large documents and VoIP for long distance). I have a POTS line with the lowest price possible. No long distance (that's what VoIP and/or my cell phone are for). The phone line is for emergencies and as a back-up to the WiFi. I have rabbit ears for my TV sets The digital reception is great and the quality much better than what cable or satellite offers. Besides, I don't need more than a dozen channels.
Both my cable company (Comcast) and my phone company (Verizon FiOS) offer '3 in one' packages of TV/phone/broadband. But the added value just doesn't compute. The additional broadband speeds would be nice, but I don't need TV with 500 channels and phone with big feature packages. So, I figure the broadband would be economical at a price point of about $25/month. But that's not available from either provider. Worse yet, you can't get FiOS broadband only and keep your basic phone service. Verizon insists on moving its FiOS customers to the unregulated system.
So, I'm one of those 'statistics'. Its a lack of value, but if there was a suitable price, I'd buy it.
Have gnu, will travel.
While a lot of people did well with national infrastructure projects of the past, lets remember that some people did get screwed. There is always someone screwed when the government builds something, and that's why some people hate the government. This grievances are not illegitimate and you need to take the effects of them into account.
For example, let's look at how highways and hoover dam screwed some people.
First off, highways screwed cities. If you can drive anywhere, you don't need the concentration of goods that a city offers, and more so, you allow people to get to work without having to live near it. Essentially this has turned American cities into corporate islands surrounded by ghettos because nobody wants to live in cities but everyone will take the high paying jobs.
Secondly, highways screwed local stores. No national brand could exist without highways to truck goods all over the place. Everyone that bitches about the likes of Walmart, McDonalds and every other chain and laments the death of the local foods in the local store need only look at the highway to see why this took place.
Third, the highways really screwed blacks in America, because usually, in cities, all the overpasses and bridges and what not were all built in black neighborhoods, pretty much destroying the asset base of an already fragile population. New York City is a perfect example of this, and there are many black leaders that curse the name of Moses to this day - and no, not the biblical Moses.
Hoover dam screwed everyone that had local water, or needed the flow from the river downstream of the dam. You go to all this expense to get a good spot downstream and the government shuts you off. Or you go to all this expense to get your own water supply, and the government goes and doles it out to everyone else on the cheap, making your investment worthless.
This is my sig.
I only got a cell phone 3 years ago and use it less than 30 min a month, it doesn't have a camera, and the only text messages I've sent is "Wrong number" replies. I'm not signed up with myspace/facebook/twitter/whateverelseisthefadthisyear, and abandoned my blog after a few months since I had nothing interesting to say. I don't have satellite/digital cable or and do not own a single HDTV set. I still use a VCR - no TIVO/DVR. I'm satisfied with a $15/month 768kb DSL connection since anything faster would cost at least twice as much in my area. I'm a software engineer, yet by today's standards I would be considered a Luddite.
"It (the first central commercial incandescent electric generating station) provided electricity to one square mile in New York City in 1882. The first day it operated only 52 customers wanted electricity."
ref: http://library.thinkquest.org/6064/history.html
convincing vast majority about useful utility for higher quality of life is not alway about supply and demand or availability of technology.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
If I had mod points, I'd mod you -1, Insulting.
Older people are generally smarter about what they need and don't need, and able to decide for themselves. They've lived a lot longer than youngsters, seen a lot more, and figured out what's important and what isn't. They don't need flash animations or bittorrent feeds of last night's TV program to entertain themselves, and can actually read the newspaper when it is printed on paper.
I can fully believe that 2/3 of the people who don't have broadband don't want it. I can also believe that Obama thinks he knows better about what they want than they do, and will act on that belief using taxpayer dollars.