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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."
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 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.
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.