ITIF Senior Fellow Claims "America's Broadband Networks Lead the World"

McGruber writes "In an Op-Ed published in The NY Times, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF.org) Senior Fellow Richard Bennett claims that 'America's broadband networks lead the world by many measures, and they are improving at a more rapid rate than networks in most developed countries.' Mr. Bennett also says, 'the most critical issue facing American broadband has nothing to do with the quality of our networks; it is our relatively low rates of subscribership.'"

Comments

Re: "improving at a more rapid rate"

[Anonymous Coward]

Only possible because they had further to go in the first place.

What!?

[willthiswork89]

There are nations with 50 mbps for pennies on the dollar to our cost in America, not to mention absolutely no throttling or data limits. Wake up Richard Bennett! There are far too many monopolies in Americas internet connections and THATS the problem, no competition means they can do whatever the hell they want!

Re:What!?

[operagost]

Akamai published the Q4 2012 edition of their State of the Internet report yesterday, and it's pretty much as expected: the trends that have been evident since 2010 are continuing. Globally, Internet connections are growing incrementally faster, and we see this trend in the U. S.

The U. S. has picked up one place in the "Average Peak Connection Speed" that's the best measurement of network capacity, rising from 14th to 13th as the measured peak connection speed increased from 29.6 Mbps to 31.5 Mbps.
In terms of the "Average Connection Speed," widely cited by analysts who don't know what it means, the U. S. remains in 8th place world-wide. but we're no longer tied for it as we were in the previous quarter; Sweden is right behind us on this one.
In terms of "High Speed Broadband Adoption", the proportion of IP addresses with an Average Connection Speed greater than 10 Mbps, we remain in 7th place, but now we're tied with Sweden.

http://www.hightechforum.org/u-s-broadband-speed-slightly-better-in-latest-akamai-report/

Re:What!?

[Cenan]

Yeah, this guy is totally wrong because [insert my own personal anecdote here] !!!

Yeah, this guy is totally right because [insert cherry picked data points here] !!!

Re:What!?

[jd2112]

yep, and if you read the details most of these cases are you get this speed only if you live in the center of the nation's largest city. and its not available in the entire city either

most of the people complaining in the USA about broadband live out in the exuburbs or rural areas and want the gubment to pay for the infrastructure

The gubetment already paid for the infrastructure. The telcos pocketed the cash for themselves instead.

Re:What!?

[the eric conspiracy]

The citizens already paid for the infrastructure. The telcos pocketed the cash for themselves instead.

FTFY.

Re:What!?

[Shinobi]

The fact that Bennet relies on the Akamai report is proof that he's writing a propaganda piece with only a fleeting touch of reality. The reality is, Akamai's figures for the nordic countries are grossly misleading, since Akamai's infrastructure here is appallingly bad, while it's quite extensive in north america, which skews the numbers a lot in the favour of the USA.

Compared to LLNW and other competitors, Akamai is a brake for us over here, with LLNW for example allowing transfers in excess of 90Mbit/s, even during prime time, while Akamai hosts chokes at 25Mbit/s(if you're lucky....)

Re:What!?

[Junta]

The whole article seems to be missing the fact that the developing countries are setting the pace these days.

Which is stated with a degree of surprise, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

In 'developed' countries, good enough reigns supreme. They may have state of the art infrastructure as defined by standards when the infrastructure was built. Getting tens of mbps to urban areas is 'good enough'. IPv4 is 'good enough'.

In countries that have no acceptable infrastructure, they have the opportunity to start from the correct place as it is defined now.

Re:What!?

[jedidiah]

> most of the people complaining in the USA about broadband live out in the exuburbs or rural areas and want the gubment to pay for the infrastructure

Sounds like the Rural Electrification Act.

Are you really prepared to declare that we are no longer civilized enough to make sure that no one is left behind in this country?

The infastructure you are using right now or even the city you are living in likely is the result of the sort of "gubment" handout you are trying to whine about.

Re:What!?

[NeutronCowboy]

I'll just give you one example. My parents live out in a farmland area in Basque country in France. Their internet 5 years ago was better than what I had access to living in the middle of Silicon Valley. It was also cheaper. I can't talk much about quality, but their Skype video came over just fine and dandy. Anecdote and all that, but it really drove home how shitty the broadband system was and is in the US. Yes, you can pay for really, really awesome internet connections. But those are affordable only if you have a business that actually generates profit off of the Internet connection. Otherwise, you're completely at the mercy of a local monopoly or duopoly.

Re:What!?

[wierd_w]

The really sad part, is that without the rural electrification act, the people growing food in the US in rural counties would likely *STILL* not have basic electrical and wired telephone services, and the very pundits complaining about the proposed broadband equivalent, would be the most vocal about the issue. (Specifically, spouting the same arrogant ass vapor about how if those people want electricity and telephone service, that they should just move to the city!)

How do I know this? I grew up in such a county, where 90+% of the land allotments are farmland, and the "cities" are fewer than 10k residents. The state of the power distribution system? Apalling. (If one of those precious cities these people go on about had service that interrupted power 50+ times a day, and had deleterious line noise 100% of the time that requires a line conditioner like where I grew up, they would be demanding the government "do something.") Telephone service? Laughable, and NOT maintained. Last I checked, there were still wire boxes from the 1950s, which only went in because of said act, still in active service, rusting away underneath hedgerows.

The ONLY reason that such places even *GET* such service at all, is because of that bill.

The people who bitch about "subsidizing the 'rich' lifestyles of rural people" would spout the exact same claptrap had the rural electrification act not passed, and was being discussed now, even though the 'rich' people they try to demonize would be using kerosine lanterns for light, lack any kind of climate control in their homes other than open windows and a fireplace (it takes electricity to run a furnace. Something has to power the thermostat, and the house blower.), and would be just a few shakes above 2nd or 3rd world shithole in livability.

But they would damned well expect to find produce and beef at their supermarets.

The unpleasant reality that the "people who live out in the country are rich!" Fallacy fails to address? The average pay per year for rural residents is at or below 50k. With kids. Eg "at or below poverty line" if they lived in the city that they rail about so incessantly.

Yes, I'm a bit bitter about the issue. Because it pisses me the fuck off whenever I hear "move to the city then!" As an excuse.

The real reason those fucks say that?

Because by forcing more people into the already overcrowded city, the stand to benefit by that newcomer's taxes. They may not give it the rational thought to completely arrive at that conclusion consciously, but that is basically the crux of it. "What do *I* get out of the deal?"

You get an america that isn't divided into economic disparites like fucking china, where you have people with broadband internet and moder housing in the cities, and people living in fucking mud huts on the farmland that can't even write. That's what assholes.

The reason why rural america isn't like rural china? Acts like the electrification act, and now, proposals like the broadband act. Straight up, 100%. There were people without running water or indoor toiletry in the rural US in the 1950s, when that bill passed! The forced buildout *greatly* improved america.

"Move to the city!" Indeed, assholes. I suppose you would say that to poor chineese people too, wouldn't you?

The Point

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mr. Bennett also says that'"the most critical issue facing American broadband has nothing to do with the quality of our networks; it is our relatively low rates of subscribership." .. which would not be a problem if the service was as cheaper and more reliable.

Re: The Point

[Digital Vomit]

Hail, time traveler! Welcome to the World of Tomorrow! I will give you a brief introduction on some important changes in society that have occurred since your time:

• Michael Jackson died a white woman
• New Coke turned out to be a flop
• Berlin Wall has fallen

Believe it or not, a black man is president of the United States now. We have computers so small that they fit in the palm of your hand. The top 14% of Americans own almost 75% of the wealth and have devastated the economy over the past half decade. The average income of a worker has remained about the same since your time, but the average CEO now makes 350 times the average worker. With so much wealth being sequestered among the super rich instead of being shared among the middle class where it would be used to keep the economy going, the US is on the verge of a complete financial collapse.

Welcome!

Re: The Point

[reve_etrange]

I don't have to think or believe that a lot of Americans are struggling to feed themselves and their families, because unfortunately I have the luxury of knowing it. 14.5% of US families suffer from food insecurity. SNAP (food stamps) only provides $4 / day.

Page with summary statistics
2011 USDA study

Re: The Point

[dkleinsc]

No, I made the far better choice of getting a job that pays more than minimum wage when I was 15 and still in high school. ... Maybe the reason people can't get name-brand Cheerios (I don't anyway, waste of money) is that they make really poor life choices?

Sometimes they made bad decisions. Sometimes they weren't making decisions in the same circumstances as you did, like:
1. It was legal to work at age 15 where you lived. In a lot of places in the US, it's now illegal to work before you're 16.

2. Someone was looking to hire an employee somewhere near where you lived. That's not common right now.

3. That someone was willing to employ a teenager.

4. You could get to your place of work. Maybe you had a public transit system, maybe the job was close enough to walk to, maybe somebody drove you, but somehow you were able to do that.

5. You didn't have to drop out of high school to do the work, which means about 10-15 hours a week maximum.

6. You had the parenting, educational opportunities, and equipment needed to have marketable skills, or you got above-market wages for unskilled labor. Frequently, unskilled labor gets minimum wage or close to it.

7. You could save all the money you earned for college, rather than supporting your family with it. Many teenage workers use their money to help pay the family rent or keep their siblings fed.

8. You almost definitely went to college when it was far cheaper than it is now. For example, if you worked 15 hours a week at $10 an hour for 3 years (age 15-8), you would earn about $18,000 after taxes. That's about 25% of 4-year tuition at your nearby state university.

9. You and your wife probably didn't have to deal with: (a) serious illness or accident, either of yourselves or of someone you consider yourself obligated to care for, (b) a layoff of either of you in the recent recession, (c) a serious natural disaster such as a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake, or (d) a house fire.

I'm not saying you didn't do the right things because you clearly did. What I'm saying is that you did as well as you did in part because you made the right decisions, and in part because you were lucky - you had parents, teachers, bosses, siblings, future wife, etc making decisions that gave you the chance to make the right decision.

U S A! U S A!

[Anonymous Coward]

We're number 1! We're number 1!

I suppose Mr. Bennett just disregards the 32 countries that have recently developed faster more modern networks (http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/). Make up some random metric, don't compare to all nations, disregard contradicting evidence, declare champion. Sounds like a good plan to me!

Re:Out of touch

[sstamps]

Where?

I don't even have a library within 40 miles of where I live, let alone one with a $20,000 router in it.

I pay the same universal service fees as everyone else, and I don't get anywhere NEAR the access as 99% of the rest of the country.

My ISP is shit. SHIT. They WAY overcommit their crappy low-end ADSL lines (which constantly crash/go down), and have delayed any upgrade plans for YEARS. Then they have the unmitigated gall to go whining to the state legislature to block any attempts by our local municipality to seek out a better PAID-FOR solution for us.

No, the problem with broadband in 'Murrica is all the goddamned crooks in the government-backed monopolies who pocket all the money we are forced to give them, both voluntarily, and at gunpoint, and then give us sweet-motherfuck-all in return.

I couldn't be happier at this point if all the goddamned telcos died in a fire, painfully. I sure as hell wouldn't consider even pissing on them to put them out.

Many measures but..

[cjjjer]

The cost per MB maybe...