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WSJ's Mossberg Calls For a Tougher Broadband Plan
GovTechGuy writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg thinks the FCC's national broadband plan is long overdue, but he criticized it for being vague on the details and too focused on expanding access into rural areas. Mossberg pointed out that what passes for broadband in the US wouldn't even qualify as such in many other developed countries. He also noted that Americans pay more per unit of broadband speed than our competitors. He called on the government to devote time and resources to making sure Americans have the broadband access they need to stay competitive in the 21st century global economy."
>>>we should be leading in broadband speeds, not following.
We're not leading but we're not exactly falling behind either, when compared to other continent-spanning federations. #2 isn't a bad place to be:
Russian Federation 8.3 Mbit/s
U.S. 7.0
E.U. 6.6
Canada 5.7
Australia 5.1
China 3.0
Brazil 2.1
Mexico 1.1 Mbit/s
And if you prefer to look on a state-by-state basis of the EU, US, and Canada then you get:
1 Sweden 13 Mbit/s
2 Delaware, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12
3 Washington,Rhode Island 11
4 Massachusetts 10
5 New Jersey,Virginia,New Hampshire,New York 9
6 British Columbia,Colorado,Connecticut,Arizona, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Not sure where you'd have to live in Washington to get 11 megabits - when I lived in Seattle (Queen Anne) the only two providers were Comcast and Qwest - and with Qwest it was DSL 3 megabits (and a slow DSL at that - I never saw that kind of performance).
Now that I live in Oregon - 3 megabits is par for the course unless you want to spent a lot more money :( - and again - it rarely ever goes that fast.
However when my parents were living in Scotland (South Gyle Wynd to be specfic) they got 30 megabits/cable tv/phone for about 100 dollars a month - and it was very fast.
Yeah everywhere I've been to visit and stay with friends (mostly Europe) they have it much much better and are paying far less for more service.
I've been looking at internet rates because I'm planning to move very soon. Where I'm moving (Irvine, CA) there is only ONE internet provider (Cox).
It's $32/mo. for 3 mbps, $47 for 12.5 (10 with a 2.5 boost) or $62 for 25 (20 with a 5 boost)
Compare that to France's 28 mbps for ~$38 US, 50 mpbs for ~$65 or even 2.5 down/1.2 up gbps in Paris for ~$90
or how about Germany: 6 mbps for ~$26 or 32 mbps for ~$38.
Why are we paying nearly double the cost as other countries? Irvine is in Orange Country ("The OC") and is less than an hour from Los Angeles, so there shouldn't be any complaints that it is too rural for fast, affordable internet.
This list seems like cherry-picking. How do you define a "continent-spanning federation"? Not to mention, the United States is a much more coherent entity than the EU. Breaking out the individual US states in the second list is somewhat reasonable since there's obviously a good bit of regional variation, but you're leaving Asia out of the comparison there.
I wasn't trying to say (above) that US speeds suck, but for a nation that I thought prided itself on technical leadership, it should strive to do better.
The term "member state" when used in the context of the EU refers to so-called "nation states" as opposed to US states. There are serious cultural differences between the different nations that make up the EU, not to mention that most countries have their own language and a long history of fighting with each other (not like US states who, with a few notable exceptions, have a history of pissing contests over random border lakes and the like).
Yes, there are forces in the EU who want to turn it into a country like the US but it's going kind of slow since even among politicians this is opposed by a lot of people.
Also, the population density of Delaware (top US state in that list) is 170.87/km^2, the population density of Sweden is on average 20.6/km^2 (the region I live in has a population density of 2.2/km^2). Sure, a large number of swedes live in the south but I personally live in the northern half of the country, I have a beautiful view of the mountains and a lake from my living room window and I have a 100/100 Mbps FTTH connection. The vast majority of swedes have access to faster connections than 13 Mbps, it's just that the "average joe" of the older generation generally goes with a dirt-cheap low-speed connection in the 1-8 Mbps range.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
This will probably surprise you (it did me), but Japan's broadband network is almost nothing but DSL. It's because their phone lines are extremely short that they can offer 100 Mbit/s DSL plans. So I say we should just mimic what Japan did.
The reason it won't work for the rural US is because you can go for miles between homes, so it doesn't make sense to slap those DSLAMs (or whatever they're called) in for one or two homes. Just run fiber and be done with it - you can still go to copper just outside the house and save money there. Investing in fiber now is just like investing in electrification in the early 20th Century. If you don't have a fiber network in 2050, you're not going to have an economy worth speaking of either.
See Lawrence Lessig on why we failed in broadband compared to other highly developed nations:
http://lessig.blip.tv/file/3485790/
It's not that we over or under-regulated, it's that we got the regulation wrong.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Not really. The poorest US states have per capita GDP 2-3 times that of most new EU members For example, Mississippi(the poorest Us state): $30K. Slovakia $15K, Poland $12K, Romania $7K.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Odds are this is just another giant telco scam to steal more money from
the American ppl like they did in the $200 Billion Broadband scandal.
http://www.tispa.org/node/14
The telco's took the money and screwed it off and used it to pay
stock dividends.
When you count the hideous rural connect speeds that have to go
thru analog loops giving them a max connection speed of 26.4 kbps
then we rank as 16th in the world.
It is pathetic, and if they had spent HALF of the $200 billion on upgrading
the network it would be fine.
When you look at present dark fiber in the ground it is over 90% dark in some areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#Dark_fibre_overcapacity
As I have said on other forums, we have an idiocy problem, not a money problem.
The pirates are looking to plunder our wallets again in their real life game of monopoly.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Actually in most of Europe Internet access is not subsidized by taxes.
What's different from the US and the reason why Internet access is cheaper/faster in most of Europe is that in here we usually have laws in place forcing the telcos that own the last mile to open up access to any ISPs at competitive rates. Before those laws came to be, Internet access in all of Europe was slow and expensive.
All that is needed are laws that create an open competitive market on top of a natural monopoly.