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Why Broadband In North America Is Not That Slow

Posted by Soulskill on from the aside-from-the-throttling dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Globe & Mail has an article written in response to a recent study done by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard about how far behind the rest of the world the US and Canada are with regard to broadband internet. The refutation basically tears apart Harvard's analysis and shows why the US and Canada are actually far ahead of most European countries. 'Canada has a true broadband penetration rate of close to 70 per cent of households. And North Americans use the Internet somewhat more intensively than do Europeans, according to Cisco Systems data on Internet traffic. Further, business Internet traffic in North America appears to be at levels substantially higher than elsewhere in the world. Sadly, there is little systematic effort by international agencies to measure the intensity of Internet usage. Instead, we see comparisons of advertised speeds and "price per advertised megabit," which are especially misleading. Advertised broadband speeds vary from actual speeds. In North America, this is largely a result of "network overhead," and is quite modest. In Europe, however, the variation is often dramatic.'"

21 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Right by sopssa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Checklist:

    [ ] Can I get 1 Gb/s to home in Canada? (I can in my home town Stockholm)
    [ ] Is the true broadbrand penetration 98+% like in most of the Europe?
    [ ] Is the quality of line actually such that you get angry when the line goes down for a few minutes once per every 1-3 years?

    Seeing all the complaints here on slashdot too, I really don't think it's the same. Often times I am even surprised how you put up with it.

    Hell, even in the beginning of 2000 the competition was so bad that features that usually only came with business lines were offered to tech-savvy home users. Needed static ip's or a block of 32 or larger ip's? Ask for it and they gave.

    I also seriously doubt North Americans using Internet more intensively. Even if I personally dislike it, P2P is pretty damn rampant and that takes a lot of bandwidth. Also everyone uses YouTube and other high bandwidth sites (which obviously have local datacenters because of the demand)

    What comes to business lines, I think they are quite equivalent to each other. Premium, fail-proof lines cost in both NA and EU. But as the home-lines in EU are reliable and theres no bullshit terms to deny such, a lot of businesses who directly aren't working on the Internet use those.

    1. Re:Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ha - even paying big $$$, "fail-proof" is a relative term here in the US. I've been chasing Speakeasy for three months to fix the office T1, which regularly drops 10% of outgoing packets and spikes from 50ms latency to 3000ms every 10-15 seconds. They claim it's caused by "line utilization", but don't have an answer as to why it continues even when using a machine plugged directly into the interface with no other clients. Ugh.

    2. Re:Right by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm leaving AT&T to go to cable based solutions for a dozen users in an office. I know the reliability will be only 99%, but my 99.99% SLA is useless, as they go down all the time (and compensating me, which is a joke since I need the service, not $50 credits). Moving from ATT's service of 12 phone lines and two bonded T1s to cable phone lines and two 5/1.5 internet circuits will save me over $30,000 per year and have me at a FIXED PRICE, unlimited LD. In the current economy, this means three people won't have to get their hours cut to 50% time during the slow half the year. Since the level of service that I actually get will be the same, I would rather give the money to the employees who would otherwise be cut back, rather than AT&T who has failed on every level since they bought out Bell South.

      For the servers that need better than 99% uptime (credit applications, etc.), we rented a box on Server Beach, their special unmetered 10mb connection for less than $150 a month. As a side note, Bell South was actually good in service and product before AT&T bought them out. The other day AT&T wouldn't issue a trouble ticket and told us that they would have someone there 24 hours later, at 5pm the next day, in spite of our 4 hour SLA. I get better service from Time Warner for my $100 home internet/tv than I do from AT&T under contract for several thousand per month.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    3. Re:Right by mikael_j · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, where I live (Östersund, northern part of Sweden, population ~40k) the choices are FTTH through the citynet which has five different ISPs offering everything from 1/1 Mbps to 100/100 Mbps with the most expensive 100/100 service costing SEK 459 ($65) per month, ADSL through a multitude of ISPs offering their services through DSLAMs and networks owned by TDC, Telia or Telenor and finally cable (DOCSIS) through ComHem who offer speeds from 5 Mbps to 25 Mbps (although Comhem are being booted out by the landlord since the citynet is a much better solution and not tied to any one ISP like Comhem's network).

      Also, as you said, downtime even with DSL is generally quite low (at least if you live in an apartment building, if you live in some shack in the woods and the copper runs as overhead cables then you'll probably have some issues but that's like expecting to be able to drive your new Ferrari at 200 km/h on a dirt road that hasn't been maintained since the 1920s...). Total downtime due to DSL outages for me has definitely been less than two or three hours in the last year.

      As for caps, they seem very common in the US and I don't know of a single ISP where I live that has any caps except for when it comes to 3/3.5/4G connections.

      /Mikael

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    4. Re:Right by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Caps are very UN common in the US. That's why you hear so much screaming when some ISP proposes instituting them.

      Anywhere where I live in Central NJ we have Verizon FIOS which is FTTH, Cablevison DOCSIS3 which also gives you metro WiFi, and a variety of DSL options. Speeds are up to 100Mbps. None of them are capped. In reality it doesn't sound any different from what you experience in Sweden.

    5. Re:Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Caps are not plentiful in the US, from what I know. Comcast might throttle after a while (200+ GB?) but Verizon doesn't at all, and they have the best speeds.

      Luckily I live in an area with 2 choices of providers, with many tiers. 25Mbps symmetrical for $70 a month, and that is actual speeds from what I've heard and personally experienced. On the other hand, Verizon Fios might be the exception in the US, but it's making it to more and more places in the US.

    6. Re:Right by BikeHelmet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm in Canada. I like my ISP - 3mbit/640kbit with 200GB cap for $27/mo. Quite affordable!

      There aren't a lot of options cheaper than that, which don't sacrifice in some way. I could get 10mbit cable for a bit more, but then my cap goes down. I already use close to 100GB/mo, so that isn't really an option.

  2. Raw speed is realtive by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Especially if you are penalized by your ISP if you use it..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  3. Does anyone really care anymore? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The numbers for broadband penetration with active internet users in north america are 95+%, and for businesses are over 98%. That basically means everyone who actually uses the internet is on broadband.

    At that point is there really much to discuss? Everyone who actually uses the internet in any significant fashion is on broadband.

  4. BS by Tiro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Advertised broadband speeds vary from actual speeds. In North America, this is largely a result of "network overhead," and is quite modest. In Europe, however, the variation is often dramatic.

    I live in San Francisco, where Comcast advertises 8Mbps. We actually get 1Mbps down. If you want the full 6Mbps, you have to live some place like San Mateo County, where they don't have insane oversubscription.

    The Comcast drone I chatted with online asked me: "Would you like to avail the Comcast?" I don't even know what the F that means.

  5. This is just a reminder. by FooAtWFU · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The area of Sweden is about 450,000 square kilometers. The area of the state of California is about 425,000 square kilometers. The number of illegal immigrants alone, in the US, is estimated at around 10-15 million, depending who you ask. The population of Sweden is about 9 million.

    You can throw out all these comparisons of broadband, but when you get down to it, it turns out that things are radically different over on this continent. Just want to point that out before we start saying that one or the other is morally superior.

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    1. Re:This is just a reminder. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      But what are you going to do when you're stuck inside during the long, cold Scandinavian winter?

      Two words.

      unisex sauna.

    2. Re:This is just a reminder. by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, what I want to know is why the center of Silicon Valley seems to have the same quality of service as Carson City, Scaguay. If we extend this argument to similar surfaces, I'd expect densely populated areas in the US to have a similar internet infrastructure as densely populated areas in Europe. As far as I can tell, that's not the case.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    3. Re:This is just a reminder. by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At the same time, I live in NYC and can't get DSL, let alone FIOS. Yes, there are metro ethernet providers, if you want to spend several hundred dollars a month for 10Mbps, and that's only available maybe sort-of in some places, if you're lucky. The *only* option is cable, which... yes, it's true, if you want to lock yourself into a 3 year contract at $100/month, you can get 50Mbps down and 5Mbps up.

      Yeah, I know, lots of people in the US would give their left arm for a $100/month 50Mbps download pipe, but still, I'm not impressed. It's one of the largest, richest, most influential cities in the world, and if I want an upload faster than 5Mbps, I have to spend at least $1,500/month. Also, that $1,500/month connection will take at least 3-4 months from the order date until it gets turned on. Seriously.

      Oh, and also that $100/month 50Mbps connection drops at least once a day, often enough requiring you to reboot the cable modem. Yay!

  6. Let's follow the money... by divisionbyzero · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Usually when a study comes to such dramatically different conclusions from a fairly respectable institution my alarm bells start ringing. It usually smells like media manipulation. So, let's see. The Globe and Mail is owned by CTVGlobemedia which in turn is owned by among others Bell Canada. Bell Canada (as well as the other former Bells) were excoriated by the Harvard report for being anti-competitive and providing poor value. Hrm... Nothing definitive but fairly fishy.

  7. It may suck now... by masdog · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The state of broadband in North America may suck now, but it doesn't have to stay that way.

    The Obama stimulus bill provided billions of dollars for broadband development in rural areas. I don't know if any of that money is still available. If it is, then we (collectively) should start forming Co-ops like the East Vermont Fiber Project that was featured on Slashdot a while back and start building out our own infrastructure.

    --
    My Sysadmin Blog
  8. Re:Ever-more proof that Europe is a Potemkin Villa by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The total cost of the bail-out, past and going forward over the next decade, is now estimated at being in the area of 20 trillion to the US. That's a quarter-million per family of 4. This is, on a per capita basis, more than 4x the Iceland "Icesave" bailout that is threatening to bankkrupt Iceland.

    It won't make the US lose it's AAA credit rating - the ratings companies will come up with an AAAA rating for some of the other countries instead, and AAA will become the new "A with negative outlook".

  9. Furthermore by DaMattster · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you RTFM and look at the comments, a blogger notes that Bell Canada has a significant ownership stake in The Globe & Mail which immediately takes any shred of impartiality out of the article.

  10. Re:Density is what matters, not size by afabbro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You are assuming an even distribution of people. You can toss out the north 80% of Canada's land area and only loose 5% of their population.

    Is "loose" the Canadian spelling for "lose"?

    --
    Advice: on VPS providers
  11. Re:Well... by IICV · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's funny - whenever someone on Slashdot says "yeah well I live in America and I have this really great plan through $ISP", $ISP is never Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, TWC or one of the other major providers (actually I'm not even sure there's a major provider I haven't listed here - Ma Bell is reconstituting herself). It's always some small provider like Roadrunner or Brighthouse out in the middle of nowhere.

    In California, for instance, Brighthouse does offer some plans - if you live in Bakersfield. And all you can get is 7 Mbit/s down for $90 a month, bundled with a TV plan. Why? Because the big network providers have a stranglehold on California.

  12. Re:Density is what matters, not size by Idiomatick · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Macao should have the best internet ever! 48,000ppl/mi^2.

    Seriously though, to illustrate your point:
    Lithuania: 15.3Mb/s || 51ppl/km^2
    Latvia: 17.4Mb/s || 35pp/km^2
    USA: 7.7Mb/s || 32ppl/km^2
    Kyrgistan: 5.6Mb/s || 27ppl/km^2
    Sweden: 14.8Mb/s || 20ppl/km^2
    Norway: 8.1Mb/s || 13ppl/km^2
    Canada: 6.5Mb/s || 3ppl/km^2

    The US generally seems to do about as well as undeveloped countries when looking at similar population densities. BUT it isn't the only 1st world nation on that boat. Plenty of other places that should be doing better (looking just at wealth and density) aren't. re: Italy, Thailand. Which leads me to believe there is a missing element. For example, Bulgaria is 10th worldwide though it isn't very dense or rich.

    http://www.speedtest.net/global.php#0
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density