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The NYT Compares Broadband Upgrade Costs in US, Japan
zxjio writes with this excerpt from a New York Times article about just how much networking infrastructure costs vary between the US and Japan: "Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Here's how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed. ... Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. ... The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and they would still make as much money."
This has nothing to do with digging up the roads, the article talks about the US basing their high speed lines around FiOS installs, where as Japan are simply upgrading their cable lines to use DOCSIS 3 instead of 1.
In the UK atm, the main (pretty much only) cable provider is doing the same, they are upgrading half of their network to run off DOCSIS 3 and are offering 50Mbit, but leaving the rest of the network still on DOCSIS 1 that'll run speeds of less than 20Mbit.
All it takes is for the ISP to replace the hardware in their buildings and send the customer a new cable modem that supports version 3.
Literally, no spade is involved at all in the process.
THe cost on this is actually pretty simple. I have been living in Japan for 10 years and yes we do enjoy some really incredible bandwidth here. Most of the population lives in very condensed areas. Greater Tokyo has about 30 million people in an area the size of LA... so rolling out the latest technology in one of the most wealthy and densely populated cities in the world is well... nearly easy if you can say that. Cell phones are the same way. Docomo, Softbank, AU etc.. rolled 3g out YEARS... before the US, simple put because logistically they can. Japan is 2/3 the size of California with 45% of the population of the entire US. 80% of the country is mountainous (ie.. nobody lives there) and half the countries population is centered in 4 or 5 cities. Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo.. Heaven for Technology fans. In a nutshell, you can roll out new technology fast and cheap because the distances between hubs are short, and the overall physical breadth and width of the network is small.
I bought a modem off eBay for my mom a few years ago after I moved out. It seemed fairly recent, not as new as mine but it worked.
I got a call about 3-4 weeks ago from her. Cox Cable upgraded the modem for free to the latest model, I assume the old one didn't support DOCSIS 3. That was pretty nice of them.
What the article is saying is that you don't need fiber to the curb for the cable companies to get 100mbps service to the home. What Japan and other countries are doing is using the existing cabling with newer hardware. Verizon is running all new lines to their FIOS neighborhoods so of course its more expensive, its like comparing riding the bus to school and digging your own trench.
Additionally, I would prefer to trench through yards compared to running wiring in an older giant apartment complex that wasn't designed for rerunning cable throughout.
J:Com's costs were substantially reduced because they rolled out DOCSIS 3.0 on their existing copper infrastructure.
Verizon is laying new infrastructure in the form of fiber-optic cable.
Ah the New York Times, where Journalism meets Technology like a retard smacking his head into a brick wall.
They're using the existing cable network, and sending their customers upgraded modems ($60 a pop) that can handle up to 160mpbs. No digging, no rewiring.
I question that. Here in Sweden I know of at least one company (bredband2) connecting private consumers at 1 gbit.
I currently have the 50mbit connection and finally, they have returned to their previous level of quality. I've managed to get 45Mbits out of it off peak, and consistently get 3.5MBytes/sec at peak times. I'm very happy right now, I have not even noticed the bandwidth constricting cap come in to play (which was a big problem on the 20Mbit/sec DOCSIS1)
Warhammer forums
I've got EuroDocsis 3.0 with 110 Mbits. A Helsinki based cable operator is selling the service for less than 60 euros.
I live in Denmark and I have a 25 / 25 MB fiber connection with true unlimited bandwidth usage, no port restriction and static IP address for USD 45 per month. I paid 200 USD in a onetime fee for equipments and installation.
I have the option to upgrade to a 100 / 100 MB connection for 180 USD per month.
Sweden (our next door neighbor) is a lot cheaper.
If it cost Verizon 1500 USD per customer they are doing something very wrong.
A state-protected oligo-/monopoly is hardly capitalism, let alone Hyper-Capitalism.
Having The State and The Authorities protect a certain market sector from the activities of all but one trusted supplier is called Feudalism. Has been for centuries.
The King giveth and the King taketh away a limited monopoly to one corporation which in turn pays a large recurring premium for this right. The East-India corporation springs to mind, but the Italians and the French had similar models, back in the 17th century.
Quote Wikipedia on this: "Every man was the vassal, or servant, of his lord. The man swore fealty to his lord, and in return the lord promised to protect him and to see that he received justice."
First of all, that isn't the definition of feudalism. Feudalism is a system where a monarchy grants rights to use of the (agrarian) means of production in exchange for military service. The crown retains ownership. The East-India model is not feudal, it is mercantile. The government granted rights to exploit specific markets, but the company owned the means of production. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production regardless of how markets are structured or regulated. Popularly, people often use capitalism to mean free market capitalism, but that is only one type. Ownership and markets are separate phenomena. You can have government owned companies (socialist) competing in free markets and privately owned ones (capitalist) in government sanctioned monopolies and oligopolies (like cable companies).
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Having spent time in Asia I've come to find that Americans wouldn't recognize a free market if it bit them on the ass. And yet they rant and rant that capitalism is screwing us. No, improper regulation is. All this regulation has stifled competition and made it exceedingly difficult for anyone new to enter the market and be competitive.
These issues could be easily addressed, but with the government heading towards even more regulation things are only going to get worse.
Rather, Verizon is rolling out FiOS, because it has no other option. VDSL technology over old twisted-pair phone line has peaked, it has no choice but to roll out FiOS if it wants to keep up with cable.
Your comparison (and the articles) is therefore very foolish. The real question I have is why Comcast is not rolling out DOCSIS 3 - wait, actually I don't have that question, because they are already.
Man I hate misinformed articles and postings... I am not even an American and I know about this.
Sure, but in Australia approximately half the population is centered in 2 cities: Sydney and Melbourne. Why isn't there decent service in those two locations?
meh
Running lines and installing equipment has got to be easier in a much higher density area like Japan.
I seriously doubt population density has anything to do with the US lagging other countries in broadband. From The State of Broadband Internet Access "Clearly Iceland, Finland, and Canada have low population densities, but better access to broadband than countries such as the United States - Birthplace of the Internet, Australia, Japan, etc."
Also see this post of mine about how after being asked to install broadband in a city in Minnesota and refusing to do so a cable company tried to sue the city for doing it itself.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You know, a state-protected oligopoly is hardly "hyper-capitalism".
Of course it is. Capitalism is an ownership model, not a market model.
Read Adam Smith's, the father of capitalism, "The Wealth of Nations" sometime. Capitalism is both an ownership and a market model. It calls for voluntary exchanges between people, which is what a free market is.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?