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We're Number 9! US Broadband Speeds Rise, But Slower Than Many Other Countries'
curtwoodward writes "The United States of America: The greatest country in the world, the last superpower, born of divine providence. Unless you're trying to connect to the Internet. The latest State of the Internet Report from network optimization company Akamai shows that the US has slipped in the global rankings of average connection speed, despite nearly 30 percent of yearly growth. That puts ol' Uncle Sam behind such economic powerhouses as Latvia and the Czech Republic. Oh, and we pay more, too. Is it finally time to shake up the ISP market and make Internet connections a public utility, on par with electricity and water? Or will edge projects like Google Fiber make a dent soon?" For those who favor the idea of Internet service as a government-run utility, what do you see as the best-case scenario for such a system?
The high rating is probably due to VTel's Gigabit service.
That's your best case scenario.
Is very slow because AT&T doesn't see any reason to invest. They're already getting money. Now, if Google came to town, they might see things differently. I'm only a couple blocks from the switch, but the wire is 1970s copper.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm in one of the areas that is served by both cable and FIOS, and my service is nothing like the average 8 or so.
I'm on Cablevison, which recently bumped their Boost tier to 120 Mbps down and 37 up. This tier is only $5 a month more than the base tier.
There are no caps either.
The main thing you need is to get rid of the competitive restraints. No franchises please!
No doubt offset by Shentel's blazing-fast 500kb/s DSL.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Insensitive clod!
Speed? Screw speed! I live in a relatively populated area in North Carolina. AT&T won't give me high speed. The cable company won't run lines .2 miles into my subdivision. I have a 4G verizon antenna on the side of my house that I use to pay $70 a month for a 10 GB data cap.
This is holding back growth on the net. If I had real access and real bandwidth, I would be creating and consuming a lot more Internet content, and spending money in the process.
I hope the whole "The greatest country in the world" is supposed to be sarcastic.
"For those who favor the idea of Internet service as a government-run utility, what do you see as the best-case scenario for such a system?"
I'm not sure there are too many in favor of that idea anymore (recent privacy issues, corp lobbying). There would need to be an unprecedented amount net neutrality and transparency involved; which we've been promised but received little of in other government projects.
Making it a government-controlled utility would give them a darn good excuse to spy and filter even more.
Wow, any faster and the whole state might light on fire.
The United States of America: The greatest country in the world, the last superpower, born of divine providence.
Unless you escaped from being indoctrinated with patriotism.
The problem is that the user speeds need to be throttled to something that the NSA recording can keep up with.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I wouldn't mind seeing the lines government owned and then access leased out to ISPs for a price. Private ISPs should still be an option though. I don't want a BT-like situation where the government entity can dictate policy to private companies when it's unpopular and unconstitutional (ie ban on porn).
What does peeve me, though, is when idiotic comparisons are made to countries like Latvia or Czech Republic, which are smaller than most US states and have comparatively much higher population density. There are only a few countries in the world that can really be compares to the US (Canada and Russia come to mind) because of a combination of size and total population. The internet subscription selection in the US sucks in most places and the telcos should owe the US govt about $200 billion from the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996 (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html), but the speeds are high where the population density is greater than one human per square mile.
...and you get to pay for it twice: Once in your monthly bill and secondly in your taxes to support the NSA backup service.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
See subject. Of course compact nations are going to have better connectivity than sprawling ones.
I don't often cheerlead the US, but it's impressive that they're in the top ten. Sweden only just pipped them, and it tries awesomely hard to provide its citizens with good 'net access.
As a socialism-loving liberal, I have to say that I find the idea of an ISP utility ludicrous at best.
Social services are appropriate where there is an absolute goal. We don't want houses on fire, we don't want criminals running around uncaught, and we don't want roads to decay, just because such services are unprofitable. Civilization has an absolute need for those civil services. However, we don't need fast Internet connectivity... Yes, maybe some cities will get government-built fiber downtown, but the rest of the state will be too busy fighting politics to actually improve any infrastructure. We'll mostly just be stuck with whatever minimum service the politicians find acceptable, and the infrastructure budget will go toward filling the requisite layers of bureaucrats.
On the other hand, ISPs have a clear business incentive to improve their speed and capacity (not that they've been actually doing so). By being faster, they can claim an edge over their competitor in a market. Unfortunately, we seem to have hit an impasse where the only options in a region are "crappy cable" or "crappy DSL", thanks to government-granted monopolies in communities.
So why not both? I say we void all community monopoly agreements, and require private ISPs to provide fixed-bandwidth service to a government ISP. The government ISP can be a fallback. If my community's ISP options are too slow or too expensive, I can instead pay some standard rate for government service, which would go over the ISP's lines anyway. The local ISP still has to carry my traffic, but they don't get my money. The downside is that I'm stuck with whatever basic service the government decides is suitable.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Look, I hate the local telco/cable monopoly as much as anyone. I live in the suburbs of Orlando, FL and only have one provider that can offer me truly high speed service at my house. My cable options are 20/1, 30/2, 60/5, and 90/10, all from Brighthouse Networks, and the 30/2 costs $70ish a month for just the internet connection. I wish I had more options because it would likely lead to lower prices. These guys have no real competition here. Unfortunately, Verizon stopped their FIOS buildout and have no plans to move east toward my area.
That said, I think the article is misleading. The United States is big. Some of the countries on this list are the size of some U.S. states. When you're pulling cable, size and density matter.
I'd like to see some better stats beyond a country-wide average. In areas of the US with population densities similar to those in the other countries on the list, how does the US fare? How does the service in our major cities and metro areas compare to theirs? How do our rural areas compare to theirs?
This reminds me of a phone call an Austrian comedian made to the U.S. embassy when the Snowden papers started to appear. He told them that the pictures he took from the brother's wedding two years ago got lost when the hard drive died, and he asked if the NSA can just provide him with their backup.
My phone company allows you to not have a phone, but the phone+dsl bundle is equal to just DSL. I still save money by not having to pay all the fees - 911, remote service surcharge(to to give me service, but to give service to people in the boonies), taxes, etc...
Not touching the cable company with a 10ft pole - they have download limits and charge for extra bandwidth at rates that it's cheaper for me to go with DSL despite the lower overall speeds.
I don't read AC A human right
Don't make ISPs a utility, make conduit a utility and throw out all the local government granted monopolies. Conduit should be put down any time the road is torn up, anyone should be able to lease space in the conduit to run whatever they want through it. New cable company wants to move in? They lease spot in the conduit. Google wants to install fiber to the home? They lease a spot. Alternatively the same could be done directly with fiber, the city puts it in and leases bandwidth to 3rd parties, but that doesn't seem as flexible to me.
Look at the population density, it is a lot easier to provide services like high quality broadband to a dense population. South Korea - 1,303/sq mi Japan - 873/sq mi Hong Kong - 16,876/sq mi Switzerland - 505/sq mi Netherlands - 1,287/sq mi Latvia - 80/sq mi Czech Republic - 344/sq mi Sweden - 60/sq mi United States - 89/sq mi Denmark - 337/sq mi Only Sweden and Latvia really out perform us without having several times higher population density.
Much like fuel mileage ratings on vehicles, we get a lot more benefit by getting people with the lowest numbers up to more reasonable numbers (eg., dial-up to 1Mbps DSL) than we do by giving a select few a very high speed connection to bring up the "average" speed, while many people suffer with dial-up speeds...
Perhaps it would be best to measure MEDIAN speeds, rather than AVERAGE. Or better yet, a percentage of people in the country with available speeds below XYZ.
And where does the whole EU rank? I'm sure if we broke the US down into individual states, some would come out higher than average as well, putting them ahead of most EU member nations. And there are clearly a number of EU member nations falling well behind the US average, which would bring the EU average down. The other comparable countries, like Russia, China, India, etc., all are far behind the US average. So even with these numbers, it doesn't look all that bad for the US.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I don't think a government run utility would be better than what we have today, and would likely be worse. What would be better? What should have been done in the original 1996 laws:
Force the telcos and cable companies to break up.
Really, it's as simple as that...
The main problem with the current situation is that there is near-zero competition. At best you have "competition" between two ILECs (cable and telco). In some cases they will "lease" their lines to competitors, but who wants to be in a business where you're the customer of your main competitor? That's guaranteed not to go well.
So in my "dream" solution...
Last-mile providers would be a regulated monopoly (duopoly I guess in the case where there is both twisted-pair and coax) that would just be in charge of the cabling and infrastructure between actual customers and the "central office". They would then lease the lines to "dialtone" (bandwidth?) providers at rates set by the local public utility commission, but would be barred from providing any content on those lines.
That would set up the situation such that multiple companies could compete based on the services that they could provide to customers and price.
I'm not holding my breath for such an outbreak of sanity though... ;)
Oh really?
I don't think it is as simple as that- getting the same penetration over a large area costs a lot more in the US because of our geography.
love is just extroverted narcissism
As this measures the speed to Akamai's servers, the numbers are not comparable to other numbers. I found the numbers way too low, for example here in Norway it says broadband penetration (>4Mbps) is 50%, actual figures (and the numbers for this are very good, they're very hard on you delivering agreed speeds) is about 77%. I'm guessing the difference is people who use their Internet connection for other things while connecting to Akamai, if your connection is busy with other things and you only got 3Mbps to spare for Akami you'll be counted in the "slowband" category.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Alternatively, best case could be TVA which is more or less self sufficient, well loved by most people it serves, and provided a nearly unimaginable prosperity boost to a region that was behind the times and lacked the resources to catch up.
... and it's phenomenal. If they can start penetrating more markets, they can absolutely make a dent in the status quo.
I have a perfect example: I live a half-mile from a major Internet fibre line, which AT&T owns the hardware to access, and I have a max available 3Mb DSL as the only choice for Internet. One of my neighbors would love to get on the same shitty "broadband" that I pay for, but AT&T told him "there are no more ports available" in our area, after multiple attempts to get through to someone with real answers. Same story about copper going away etc.
Taxpayers actually paid for that Internet fibre run that runs nearby, and AT&T somehow keeps anyone from accessing it with their Congress-owning money powers. Fuck those evil bastards.
Hasn't the government caused enough problems with granting monopolies to telecom companies. The whole industry needs to be totally deregulated. With deregulation comes competition and with competition comes better service and lower prices. The total over-regulation of telecom is the reason we have such lackluster service and higher costs. Telecom companies who have limited competition don't fear raising prices and don't need to improve service in order to attract new customers. Costs to business can be prohibitive. I still have clients that are still using ADSL (1.5 down and .5 up) because that's all they can get and that costs about $60/mo. Another has cable at 5/1 for $80/mo in a second office while the home office has decent cable from a different provider gets 50/4 which costs $200/mo and runs a VPN link between offices which is almost useless but at least they can get Terminal Services in the satellite office but the users complain a lot. Their only other choice is ADSL from AT&T which in a small town is only good for some light surfing and email assuming you have a lot of time.
Because governments limit the choices and regulate prices in a lot of cases we have crappy service. Can you imagine what it would be like if internet service were socialized? This country is already bankrupt. Can you imagine what a cluster f**k ObamaNet would be like? How about in Detroit?
Are you for real? Give me a break!
Remember, any government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take it all away!
Edwin
First, I will preface my comment by saying that I am not actually in favor of government regulation of the internet... but if we were to actually go down that road, I would opine that the only step necessary to dramatically improve US broadband, would be to incorporate salary caps into the C- level positions at the existing telcos. If the money can't be siphoned up the chain to the bank account of those money-hungry CEOs, then it seems to me that the most likely places for all that cash to go would be a) back into the company, (as in, both the lower level employees and the infrastructure) or b) back to the customers and stockholders.
I mean, I'm all for a free market and the capitalistic system and all that... but good grief! Salaries at the top are positively obscene!
For those who favor the idea of Internet service as a government-run utility, what do you see as the best-case scenario for such a system?
Personally, I'd favor working on some kind of split responsibility. I've said this over and over again: part of our problem is that we have these large companies who are vertically integrated. You have a company like Comcast which builds the infrastructure, acts as the ISP, provides TV and VoIP service, online TV viewing services, and is also tied into the channels and content on their TV service. This creates some obvious opportunities for conflict of interest, e.g. Comcast might not be highly motivated to provide a high level of service for their Internet customers to access Netflix, since it competes with their TV offerings.
The potential for conflicts of interest are exacerbated by the fact that ISPs are generally either a monopoly or part of a duopoly. For example, Time Warner Cable is literally my only option for broadband Internet, unless I want to spend over $1,000/month. If TWC decided to block Netflix, I wouldn't really have an other competing option to switch to.
So my opinion has long been that there should be laws to control this effect by classifying the companies who own/build/maintain the infrastructure, and barring them from providing service over that infrastructure. My reasoning is that it often won't be practical to build many competing networks to every area that needs Internet, so competition between Internet infrastructure companies is unlikely. If you want to have a free market for Internet providers, there should be a relatively open/public network infrastructure created and maintained by an uninterested party (uninterested because they're barred from providing service over their own network).
To some degree, this is already happening. If you get an internet connection from a company like Speakeasy/Megapath or XO, they are actually providing internet access over Verizon's infrastructure. However, they are also competing with Verizon, who is also competing with (and colluding with) TWC, Comcast, and other vertically integrated providers. As a result, the only people who want faster Internet speeds are customers, who have no other option, and Netflix, who the ISPs would like to see fail.
I do wonder how the metrics are gathered. Not much detail in TFA or the actual survey which is linked in TFA. (two levels of TFA deep, pretty sure the /. police are coming after me soon)
I'd wager that part of our "problem" is early adoption, combined with sheer size. I don't think many people in Prague were connected during the dial-up days. Earthlink probably doesn't have much of a foothold over there, even today. Here in the US, however, there are probably still hundreds of thousands of people connecting via phone lines which bring our average down. And so I wonder, if all of those dialup connections were hypothetically terminated would our average speed go down (56.6k is still better than 0) or would those non-connections drop off the radar, thus improving our standing?
This is compounded even further with mobile phones, explicitly not a part of this survey. If you want a mediocre internet connection these days, why even bother with dialup? Just get AT&T, or the Latvian equivalent.
This signature is false.
I'm sorry. We have a country with almost all major services well behind the western world. We have a lower practical population density than most other countries because of suburban living. We come in 9 and you are throwing a fit. That's better than our bridges, our roads, our schools, our hospitals... I'm thrilled we ranked that high.
Maybe someone here can explain this --
Considering peering, your bandwidth consumption is basically free for your ISP if you stay within their network, right? Is it technically feasible for them to give you uncapped speeds for connections which never leave their network?
While the numbers may be statistically insignificant, I suspect some folks don't have higher speeds by choice. Using my own area (Northern VA) as an example, we have choices of cable, FIOS, and satellite. My cable company offers several tiers of service. The basic home service I receive gives me ~25Mbps. There are several offerings at higher prices with more bandwidth (up to ~150). I have no need for more, and certainly don't want to pay more.
Just another day in Paradise
It's my understanding that it is a lack of competition in the broadband marketplace which is to blame for the slow pace of advancement. When so much of urban US is serviced by two (and in many places one) provider(s), there is not much incentive to improve access and service.
I also believe that if the FCC were to re-instate the line-sharing rules they scrapped years ago, it would go a long ways towards promoting competition which would lead to improvement.
Techdirt has tons of articles and stories about the subject:
http://www.techdirt.com/search-g.php?q=line+sharing
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
The difference between an "average" of 8.6 and 10.9 isn't that big of a deal.
The "bigger deal" are the very high speed countries like Japan and South Korea and the underlying reasons for the gap in the United States.
Some things we can't control or wouldn't want to if we could: Less-dense populations, the fact that many customers are satisfied with the speeds they got during the "digital cable rollouts" and "DSL rollouts" of the early 2000s and don't want to pay more, the fact that many voters don't want to heavily subsidize communication beyond "the basics" with tax money, etc.
The take-aways from charts like this are:
* What are other countries doing that we COULD do?
* SHOULD we do those things?
* Does the voting/taxpaying public WANT to do those things and if not, SHOULD we honor that or should proponents of higher speed access try to change their hearts and minds?
I for one don't want to live in a city as dense as Tokyo or Seoul or force my 300M fellow Americans to do the same just so we can have 50+% faster possibly-cheaper Internet.
--
I bet if The Vatican wanted to, it could get uber-fast Internet to all the residents and offices and jump to the top of the list very quickly assuming there was a high-speed provider in the area. But I for one don't want to live in a teeny-tiny country.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That's the government for you; An epic cluster fuck you wind up paying through the nose for. I prefer to stick with private ownership, thank you very much... it's an epic cluster fuck I wind up paying through the nose for but I have my choice on how to be screwed.
The fatal flaw of all of the libertarian nonsense is that the failure or corruption of certain governments can only be replaced with privatization. The correct answer to ineffective government is effective government. Let me provide you with a concrete example:
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity. How is that possible?
Multiple private organizations, who have an incentive to screw each other over and no incentive to work together to cover different neighborhoods, cannot provide the best plan for modern infrastructure. Even in the face of overpriced (point given: has to be relatively non-corrupt) government costs, it's still cheaper because there is no marketing department, legal department, or endless stratification of middle managers doing fuck-all in a building somewhere. Rent-seeking necessary infrastructure services don't work well with privatization, because they have the upper hand on pricing and will stuff their organization with so much bloat it would make a bureaucrat blush. When it's a government entity, there is at least some chance of oversight and cost control. When it's privatized, the inefficiency and price hikes are all but inevitable, unless there is real competition.
In modern societies the basic physical plants are installed and run by the government and funded through equitable taxation. A similar analogy is that of the road system: multiple private roads would never work, because you couldn't depend on the pricing or the availability, depending on whatever juvenile contract disputes the private corporations were engaged in at the moment. But when those costs are socialized and the infrastructure is available to all responsible parties at a low cost, you can have true competition on common infrastructure.
Let's say I want to ship something: I have an address, provided by the state, a road provided by the state that will absolutely connect me to any other address also provided by the state. So I can choose between Fedex, DHL, UPS, or even a startup like uShip. Imagine if you had a fiber connection to your home, which would cost you less in taxes than you pay for coffee every month, which was available to Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, etc. They're going to listen to customer demands, because there's actually a chance you might switch. Right now I have no choice but to deal with Comcast's endless bullshit, because I don't have any other choices available. They happen to be the provider to my location.
So, keep the libertarian fantasy going. Dog-ear that copy of Atlas Shrugged for the nth time. When you're ready to discuss solutions, consider reality.
PS: Google, Microsoft, Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T have all gladly handed over your data to the government. Being held by private corporations didn't change a damn thing, did it?
A monopoly on the physical plant make sense it's expensive to build etc etc etc. Build an all optical physical plant and you can then hand off CWDM connections. This can easily be layered upon middle men fanning out vlans over a single channel to make things even cheaper. Government can play a role as well deploying school, city, library, and baseline internet access. But in the end the point is to give a connection to anybody that asks for a defined fee. Soon you will see long haul carriers pop up connecting towns to local cities and local cities to larger ones lowering the barriers to entry. Businesses can connect remote offices and workers with high grade secure connections. Schools can embrace remote learning.
No sir I dont like it.
There aren't even 362,880 countries on Earth. How can we be 9!?
Notice that the US is the first large country on the list. It is much easier to service a small country or a country with a small population than a country with such a large spread out population like the US. In it's concentrated areas like the North East the US does very well.
I live in Kansas City where google has been steadily expanding their rollout for some time now. In response to this Time Warner has been quietly bumping up our bandwidth. They can't compete with Google Fibre speeds by a large margin, but getting fifty down is unfortunately pretty good for my part of KC, so it's nice while waiting for fiber. It's funny that the only thing that would keep me with them is my thirteen-year-old kc.rr.com address -- the thought of giving that up is painful. I would easily continue paying $20 or possibly even more just to keep that address while using google fiber. Where fibre has been rolled out, Time Warner has been proactively lowering peoples monthly bill--although I don't see how it's legal to give some people billing breaks over those areas where we are still waiting. The bottom line is, Time Warner has received the swift kick in the ass that they have needed since they started offering service here over a decade ago. It might be too late for them since google roll out will complete soon--long before Time Warner could even get started on an upgrade, but I'm overall suspicious that copper wire yet has more bandwidth to be squeezed out of it in the future. Finally, I think Time Warner vs. Google's first fiber rollout will be a wake up call to providers around the nation that they better get in gear and be ready to compete with ridiculously fast internet, tagged with a low price. Perhaps spurring everyone else was google's point with the project to begin with.
Somewhat ironically, my bandwidth has been nearly useless shit for several days now. There is no point in calling their so called 'tech support'. I accepted years ago that several days of shitty bandwidth a few times a year is simply the level of service they offer, which is low.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Since public health is considered a primary good, virtually all advanced nations have some system of medicare whereby citizens get free health care, paid for by tax dollars. If we can agree that communication is a fundamental basic human need--it's what makes us human--then why not provide Communicare as well? Especially today, in the 21st century when for the first time in history global communication has become incredibly cheap thanks to the Internet and wireless telephone technologies. If you eliminate the profit component, which in some cases is 1000 fold (e.g. for text messages), it probably would cost no more than about $100/person/year to provide free telephone and Internet service to every citizen in a country. In fact you can make a philosophical argument that it is fundamentally immoral to profit from the human need to communicate, just as it is immoral to profit from human illness. What is needed is a politician, a champion, someone like the great Tommy Douglas of Canada who brought medicare to all Canadians in the 1960s. I wonder which country will be first to wrestle communications from the relatively small number of for-profit corporations and give it to its citizens for free, or more accurately, for a tiny fraction of their tax dollars. Think how much cheaper it would be than medicare.
Seriously, factor in land mass, coverage, vs population density. And we pretty much kick butt. Every year I see this post, and every year I think DAMN, SLASHDOTTERS ARE !@#$% DUMB !@#$
Okay, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong (wait are they a country or a province now), Switzerland, etc. What do ALL of these nations have in common?
A) Small Land Mass
AND/OR
B) High Population Densities
Both have to be factored, I mean sure you can point to Canada. It has a huge land mass, and an average population density far lower than the US. But in reality, 90% of Canadians live in within a short distance from the southern Canadian/US border. 90% of Canadian population is grouped together. So the amount of cabling needed to reach 90% of Canada's population is far far less than the U.S.
The United States has one of the most spread out populations. We have cities, like most advanced nations. But then we have urban sprawl, and suburbs after suburbs. These are moderate population densities spread over tens of miles. That's a LOT of cable/fiber.
Lastly, we have massive amounts of rural areas. And amazingly, even many of those have internet be it cabled or wireless. And that's damn impressive. And if instead of using such stupid things as who has the fastest internet, or who reaches the highest percentage of their citizens with broadband. You measured who manages to reach the most backwatered, rural, and broadest amounst of land.
Who has more land area wired than the U.S. with broadband? NO ONE!!!!!
WE'RE #1
We were early to the party, rolling out broadband before most other countries. That early broadband was between 256Kb/s and 1Mb/s. By the time these other countries got on the bandwagon, 5-10 Mb/s technology was already the norm, so they naturally started at that higher speed. Here in the US, there is less motivation financially to upgrade from 1 Mb/s to 5 Mb/s, than the other countries had to go from 0 to 5.
Very often, the country that invents a new product gets stuck with version 1.0, while everybody else leapfrogs directly to 2.0.
Just look at the countries ahead of us with high bandwidth: South Korea, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Latvia. All of them are tiny compared to the US. Even the largest ones - Japan and Sweden - are only the size of American states. So it's no surprise that it would be easier to have all of their citizens on high speed internet.
Except that the US population is not spread out evenly over the entire country. Instead there are very high concentrations of people (of course!) in urban area. However, even the densely populated areas such as, Los Angeles, mid-Atlantic Washington/Baltimore/Philadelphia/New York/Boston have connection speeds that are mediocre by international standards. It's really a red herring to talk about the national population density as we're not really worried about connection speeds in, for example, rural Iowa.
"We're Number 9! US Broadband Speeds Rise,"
Well, don't raise those speeds, work on lowering the prices instead. I mean come on, I'm paying more in soCal for a 3mbps service than I'm paying in Europe for 20mbps! Really. I sometimes just feel the need to punch someone when I see US broadband prices (the same goes for net-phone-tv bundle bundle prices). So yeah, keep on improving, but not just on the bandwidth/speed front. I couldn't care less for a gazillion gbps connection if it has an outrageous pricetag...
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
You have a really skewed vision of what metropolitan areas are. The area where I live is really pretty built up. I'm 30 minutes outside downtown Charlotte. I don't live "in the sticks." AT&T offers DSL a mile and a half away from me, but not at my place. Charter runs cable down the road outside my subdivison but they won't run it .2 miles into the subdivision into my house.
The truth is that the telecoms don't want to extent out into the suburbs any further than they have. They want to wait and get us with craptastic home wireless.
A model that has worked very well is rarely found. A municipality contracts for the build-out, pulling fiber or whatever throughout the city, paid for by a bond. The municipality then contracts for operation, and recompete occurs every year or two. The operator has to charge enough to make bond payments, but beyond that, whatever combination of service and pricing that wins the annual bid is what you get. Ownership of the fiber, copper, whatever remains in the hands of the municipality. Obviously this isn't easy to do well, because you need a well-informed board with allegiance only to citizens to write specs and rules, etc. But it can work very well. It avoids putting what should be public infrastructure in private hands and it avoids putting what's managed better by private concerns in the hands of bureaucrats. Most of all, providers of poor service, maintenance, etc. can be booted out quickly without worrying so much about what happens to the infrastructure. If troubles lie in top management, then workers can be re-hired by the next management company. If troubles lie with workers, management can replace them.
Isn't already on par with other utilities like electricity, gas and water? It is where I live. It's run by a public company that has been given a monopoly, just like the electric company and gas company. In fact, there is actually some level of competition, because there is a choice between cable and DSL. Whatever the problem is, I don't think it is completely due to how the utility is organized.
Proverbs 21:19
Thank you! Someone finally gets it! When comparing countries, people often forget how FRIGGIN HUGE the United States is, and how much of that is empty space. Piping broadband into the middle of a desert or corn field is not cheap. If you compare on a state-by-state basis, I'm sure the denser northeastern states would rank much higher on the list.
The last table in TFA breaks down the top states. Vermont is the top with an avg. of 12.7 mb/s, and it only has 67 people/sq mi.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
Trying to connect to the Internet in the USA is just the beginning of you pay more for less. As these large companies & banking institutions consume each other, evolving into giant monopolies that control the law through government lobby. They effect change from within, making competition simply impossible to compete in the US market place unless it is controlled by them in one form or another. Looking ahead, it doesn't get any brighter because they now control, view, listen to, analyze, and store all the data emitted from every source. Including sources that until a few years ago were considered imposable such as any movement outside from satellite monitoring, drones, street cameras, your home computer, your car, your home appliances, your neighbors, your doctor, your taxes, all purchases, dental records, your school, the police, the courts. Who would have thought that these large companies would have complete legal access to all these areas to invade our lives? So, now since these mega companies control all information, the law, and they are strictly financially driven. The devolution begins to roll rather quickly gathering more and more momentum as their legal and monetary growth flourishes. They grow financially from inside the very heart of the government itself. The offloading of costs and expenses are easily downloaded through the government onto the tax payer, and only the cream profit is taken. Leaving in their wake anything that is deemed as unprofitable to be tossed back the puppet government to further rape the unlimited resource of tax money provided by the people. We can expect the unthinkable to become more and more the norm because this takeover is so complete. So locked in. So unreversible. So immoral, that now the quick march to things like food control, air control, even life itself, and future generations going extinct is give over to these companies to extract as much cash as they legally can, and they will whealed their power mightily, unrelenting toward more profit regardless of the consequences. Paying head only to the laws that they control, and to profit that must be gained without any other considerations what so ever. They will consume everything unrelentingly drive by greed, having no moral, you can expect mass develution of everything you once thought was good. Very dark indeed...
Paying more for less is an American tradition.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If the ranking/studies is sponsored by the telcos in my country, Canada would be ranked 1.
but I have my choice on how to be screwed
You mean... like we do when we vote?
Some say USA is just too big but that's bankrupt reason. You don't need uniform highspeed across entire country. Some municipalities seek local funded highspeed internet for their small cities (i.e. towns people vote on local ordinance of small additional to property tax fund highspeed internet). Rather than coming up with a solution to solve entire state or county, they proceed with their own city. Or a local ISP provides highspeed, they are not that big to provide service for millions but for thousands (hey, can't wait for the big boys to provide so we'll have a local business). However, some of these proposals get shot down (i.e. local municipality accused of socialism). Or if a local ISP comes up with a fantastic system only to be squelched by goons from The Big Companies. Disclaimer: I'm not a broadband expert
mfwright@batnet.com
US Taxpayers Are Gouged on Mass Transit Costs
It's the same reason we pay 1 trillion per year for our military. The same millionaires who infest congress also infest massive corporations, and their goal is to make cash and get re-elected to keep the ponzi scheme going. The latest fad answer is privatization -- despite all the evidence to the contrary -- and privately held corporations love to continue furthering that myth because it's in their own interest. There's no reason for corporate owned media to report the truth either.
The actual answer is a few millennia old:
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
-Plato
But, per the norm, America prefers solutions that are cheap, easy, and completely inefficient if you consider anything beyond the next financial quarter. We are democratically lazy, and we pay dearly for our societal incompetence, in treasure as well as blood.
The Netherlands has great roads -- contracted out. But they force the companies to warranty it for a long time, so it doesn't go to shit.
In any case, the US is huge. The "libertarianism is nonsense" guy is himself nonsense-squared. This tech doesn't exist but for a trillion dollars in private investment the past 15 years. Government can't buy it for you until someone develops it. Before that it was a government toy kept alive by cash for 20 years.
In this equation, government is like any other purchaser -- they just have the legal authority to make you pay for what they buy.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Really? Then I guess we shouldn't be worried about the NSA, since they are a government agency and obviously can't do anything right? Oh, and the Social Security Administration must be missing printing out and distributing I don't know how many truck loads of payments everyone month, since they are.... And don't forget how the US Post Office can't delivery over 99% of our mail correctly.
Every large agency, public or private, have issues and humans have a tendency to focus on issues, not successes. And a lot of public agencies have to air their mistakes in public eventually. Big government isn't pretty or perfect, but it also isn't pitiful either.
I don't see things in black and white; I see the gray. Heck, I actually see in color, which makes things more difficult
Picture this. The Federal Government buys up dark fibre, or lays new fibre, such that there is a "Tier Zero" multi-path network between significant population centres regardless of State boundaries. Tier 1 ISPs can hook into this but the Government's networking is transparent so ISPs can't charge for traffic distance. Tier 1 ISPs aren't obliged to do so, though, and in either case this would not alter any peering agreement between Tier 1 providers. All it would do is provide extra stability, extra bandwidth and extra reach (Tier 1 ISPs could, via such a Tier Zero network, form peer-to-peer agreements even when a hostile Tier 1 geographically isolated the two).
Extra stability would cut Tier 1 costs (fast maintenance costs money, this would buy time for the Tier 1 to make quality repairs rather than cheap, natty repairs) but this would require the Government to charge for "diverted traffic" in a way that would make it cost-prohibitive to simply use the Government network and ignore their own but cost-effective as a way of handling the bursts the Tier 1s can't cope with without expensive upgrades. That's not getting support, that's becoming a parasite.
State Governments would then be allocated money specifically to connect schools, colleges, universities and accredited research centers (or to boost speeds where connections exist, or to offset costs if the speed is perfectly fine), and to build metropolitan mesh networks (at the wired and wireless levels) with support for Mobile IP (since users can be expected to move from node to node). This need not affect ISPs, as most of their customers are in the suburbs/sprawls anyway and the cost of laying down or replacing high-end hardware under city roads is going to be high enough that the profits there will be eaten into very quickly. What it does do is free up ISPs to reach customers further out where access has traditionally been poor. Not that they will, but they could. Customer-level ISPs wanting to remain in cities because they can add value would obviously be able to.
Virtually everything would remain private, except for those areas where individual companies don't have the means and/or motive to do the job right.
The level of security doesn't change, since the ISPs are all pwned by the NSA, you wouldn't get coast-to-coast disconnects due to a single fibre being cut by accident, and a city-wide mesh would speed up access to local information. Government would do what it does best and industry would do what it does best. So, naturally, everyone would complain.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You don't need internet to survive, not going to argue. However, in the modern world, to be a competetive, contributing member of society, you do need internet to be on a leveled field of competetition. Most services are transitioning to a model where it is far easier and far less costly to you to gain their benefit with internet access.
For example, other utilities.
I pay my water, sewer, electricity, and gas over the internet. I don't have to, but it vastly reduces the opportunity cost in time to me. However, people without internet are not given this choice. They Must stand in line for upwards of an hour in under-staffed cattle corals to hand someone a $50 check. That is an hour they had to take off work or that they could have been spending on themselves. Multiply that by the array of gov't services which are moving to primarily internet based access, and the opportunity cost to individuals without internet is vast. And this doesn't even touch those services which are nearly, or utterly, inaccessible without internet. Those are simply lost.
The internet is a common good, like roads, which is not necessary for survival, but which should be a universal benefit to all of society
So, keep the libertarian fantasy going. Dog-ear that copy of Atlas Shrugged for the nth time. When you're ready to discuss solutions, consider reality.
Fantastic!
Years ago I read Atlas Shrugged to find out what all the hubub was about. I would read it everyday at work during lunch. I had the book at my cube and people I had never talked to before would stop by and talk about the book and how much they were influenced by it, etc; It was like I had joined some secret society...
My analysis after reading it?
Boring and annoying.
Pretty much all the time when I was reading it I was thinking, "yeah, but that isn't how the real world works".
To me the Libertarian Dream makes about as much sense and is about as likely to work as the Communist Dream.
Human Nature trumps ideology every time.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Yes, and they also have about 1/1000,000th the money that the USA has. So, no excuse there.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
"For those who favor the idea of Internet service as a government-run utility, what do you see as the best-case scenario for such a system?"
The first place to start is by voting out all republicans and tea party types, as otherwise you are never going to pass laws that permit the internet to be run as a government run utility. The modern republican party simply doesn't believe in the concept of government. They would prefer to live in a state of nihilism that reverts to a feudal system, in which the 1% rule and everyone else is a serf. In their minds the only people that count are corporate people.
As far a government utilities go, Jefferson County, WA recently took over the production of electricity, which resulted in a significant reduction in my bill. Presently, I pay Comcast about $75/month for internet, pay CableOne $50/month for my other residence in Mississippi. If both were run as public utilities, I suspect I would probably pay about half that amount for the roughly the same service, since the top management in a public utility doesn't need to pay 7 figure salaries to the CEO and other corporate officers nor to they need to waste money advertising, which would save me having to watch at least a few commercials on TV.
I agree with most of what you are saying - with a few comments:
The actual libertarian reply would revolve around "free markets" and "limited government" not the either/or fallacy of "government" or "no government." Libertarians are in favor of individual choice and not an artificial choice between "government"/"anarchy"
government has a place, but "more government" isn't always the answer (e.g. Detroit, Michigan)
We agree that if your service provider is doing a terrible job - you should have the ability to choose another provider. I'm even willing to consider "utility" status for internet access but don't pretend like it will magically materialize out of the ether with no cost and unlimited speed/usage.
to paraphrase Homer Simpson, "Government the cause of and solution to all of our problems."
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity.
The state is not a private entity. It is your neighbors. All of them. Even the ones who don't care about getting network but find their tax bills coming on a regular basis nonetheless. Or ones who want better networking and pay for it themselves, and then pay for yours too. You kind of allude to the problem -- "in areas where fiber is provided by the state" means there are areas where it is not. Do the have-nots have to pay taxes? Does Washington put "privileged access to fiber for some people" on the tax bills as a line item, so everyone can see just what it really costs for the taxpayer to fund your internet connection?
Imagine if you had a fiber connection to your home, which would cost you less in taxes than you pay for coffee every month,
I seriously doubt that. Would I get a rebate? That's the only way it could cost less than zero. But it will cost everyone else. That's why you think it is so cheap. Other people subsidize your network habits. You're welcome.
Right now I have no choice but to deal with Comcast's endless bullshit, because I don't have any other choices available. They happen to be the provider to my location.
No phone? No wireless? Well, if there is just one provider, then that really shows that the costs are higher than you think, and the only way the government can provide it is by taking money from other people to build it for you. Kind of like the old fees that subsidized rural telephones. Now you want them to subsidize rural internet. If the costs were as low as you claim, someone would have done it and be making money.
In fact, I am a libertarian socialist. I believe that needs should be regulated and the costs socialized -- food, education, healthcare, etc. At the same time, I would not prevent any private entity from forming a school or deploying an internet service without any government help. In Germany they still have a system of private insurance and hospitals, and as long as those entities aren't abusing public goods to provide their own services, good on them.
The bottom line is if a common mistake leads to huge unforeseen social costs, or if something is a basic need in a given society, it should be looked after by the most transparent government that is possible.
So, take an MP3 player: once you have satisfied the regulation that it won't blow up or steal customer data, who cares anything else about it? Worse case scenario you are out a couple hundred bucks and you have a crappy player. Ditto for the nanny state crap -- sure, if there is public healthcare and the guy won't stop doing meth, sentence him to rehab. If you're just lazy and unhealthy, that's a difficult problem to deal with, but making soda illegal probably has nothing to do with it.
With healthcare, roads, and things that are vital, they are just too important to leave in private hands. Accidents happen. People die, get sick, go crazy, or get hooked on heroin, and so on. That's just normal human behavior. The choice at that point is either to have some solid and basic resources for those individuals to get back on their feet and continue contributing to society, including job training and basic housing, or to throw them away in prisons or by bankrupting them and destroying their financial life.
The irony is that throwing people away, at least the way we do it in America, is more expensive than just helping. We pay 3x what Germany does for healthcare, fail to cover 50 million people, and have worse health outcomes across the board. It's insane.
I guess I should direct my hate at Objectivists, not libertarians who believe in limited socialism. Ayn Rand had a few genuine criticisms that were valid, but I'm not sure she understood the basic concepts of human nature or how insurance works.
I seriously doubt that. Would I get a rebate? That's the only way it could cost less than zero. But it will cost everyone else. That's why you think it is so cheap. Other people subsidize your network habits. You're welcome.
So, you believe all roads should be toll roads, and it would be cheaper for everyone? Provide one example that exists outside of your imagination.
Forgot about China, did we?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I see the same thing we currently have, paying more for less.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
"boring and annoying" sums up Atlas Shrugged very well
I like to point out that it was published in 1957 - so some stuff we take for granted in 2013 was cutting edge at the time. Parts of it aren't bad (Ayn Rand did live through the Bolshevik/Russian revolution - and saw first hand the economic results of central planning and collectivism), parts are terrible (basically the other half of the book not dealing with economics).
I don't think Rand would accept the "libertarian" designation - she was selling "objectivism" which comes across as something Karl Marx intended (a perfect society based on reason).
Meanwhile "libertarian" thought is nicely summed up by The Cato institute's web site: "Promoting an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations"
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
The fatal flaw of all of the libertarian nonsense is that the failure or corruption of certain governments can only be replaced with privatization. The correct answer to ineffective government is effective government. Let me provide you with a concrete example:
Normally, building a strawman and then huffing, and puffing, and blowing their house down is a cause for -1 on slashdot, not +5. My "Libertarian nonsense" was just an attempt at humor, but what the hell... you want a fight and I can oblige.
In Washington State, in areas where fiber is provided by the state, I can get a 100x100 connection for $59 per month. No contract. From a private entity. How is that possible?
Because Washington State removed exclusive contracts from the equation. It doesn't take a four paragraph dissertation to realize that if the government creates a natural monopoly (land access rights), then you won't have competition. And who asked for this? Private interests, in order to guarantee a return on their "expensive investment" in fiber, etc. But nevermind that... you've got a good rant going. Let us not burden it with facts.
In modern societies the basic physical plants are installed and run by the government and funded through equitable taxation. A similar analogy is
Wait... first you're all like "Privatization is good!" Then you're all like "Privatization is evil!" Well man, which is it? And for that matter, why is it that modern society does it that way? Well, I'm sure it's just more libertarian nonsense to ask such questions.
So, keep the libertarian fantasy going. Dog-ear that copy of Atlas Shrugged for the nth time. When you're ready to discuss solutions, consider reality.
Reality? Your post is shockingly devoid of it. The only story here is that one municipality out of hundreds was able to use government funds to lay fiber, because they had a fat pile of money and a relatively compact population distribution, and then decided they didn't want to administer it, so they sold off access to private companies. There's no "libertarian nonsense" here, or conservative nonsense, or any nonsense. It's just you, failing to understand basic economics.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It appears you failed to notice that whooshing sound sailing over your head.
P.S. The summary is employing irony. Perhaps you've heard of it?
So, you believe all roads should be toll roads, and it would be cheaper for everyone?
Since cars drive on toll roads, does this count as your inane /. car analogy? I don't think I said anything about toll roads. Did I? But if you can play this game, so can I. You think that your neighbors should pay for the 100Mb network line into your parent's basement so you can play MMORPG all day for free? Why yes, I expect you do. Some of the rest of us have better things to do with our money than support a government program (with paperwork and supervisors and government employee pension benefit costs) so you can have your networking for free. Like make car payments. Or buy food. Or anything else that we think we should be able to do with the money we've worked to earn.
Provide one example that exists outside of your imagination.
Example of what, a lame car analogy?
Wait... first you're all like "Privatization is good!" Then you're all like "Privatization is evil!" Well man, which is it? And for that matter, why is it that modern society does it that way? Well, I'm sure it's just more libertarian nonsense to ask such questions.
You appear to exist in a self-created world of false dichotomies.
For infrastructure that most everyone depends on, privatization is often bad. For trinkets that don't matter, privatization doesn't matter because the trinkets don't matter. That's because it's less likely that the private corporations will affect third parties when they attempt to find ways to externalize costs and compete unfairly.
If you understand how insurance works, this is not a hard concept to grasp, but it appears you'll hold on to your ideology regardless of what is true. Enjoy it.
You think that your neighbors should pay for the 100Mb network line into your parent's basement so you can play MMORPG all day for free? Why yes, I expect you do
No, I think if it's apparent that the internet is a utility, like electricity and water, it makes sense for the government to invest in spreading that utility to keep the national workforce competitive and educated. It works out well because running a line to one house, and not to the ten others right next to it costs more in the long run if you have to continually go back for installs. So if the pipe, so to speak, is there and ready to be turned on, it's a win-win for everybody: private providers have a vast amount of potential customers, customers have more choice for competition, and those who can't afford the internet can apply for a free government version at practically zero cost to everyone else.
This is very basic economics. You should spend the time to look into it.
Actually, based on nominal GDP the Czech Republic has about 1/67 (at about 1/30 population) and Latvia about 1/500 (at 1/150 population) the money that the USA has. Not exactly poor countries...
You appear to exist in a self-created world of false dichotomies.
Because I suggested that exclusive contracts impede competition, that's a false dichotomy? Those words, I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
That's because it's less likely that the private corporations will affect third parties when they attempt to find ways to externalize costs and compete unfairly.
You mean by demanding exclusive contracts from the government?
If you understand how insurance works, this is not a hard concept to grasp, but it appears you'll hold on to your ideology regardless of what is true. Enjoy it.
I wasn't aware I had an ideology, but thank you for enlightening me with your smug demeanor. I bet that translates real well into the real world.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Here's how ignorant you are on the subject of economics:
It doesn't take a four paragraph dissertation to realize that if the government creates a natural monopoly (land access rights), then you won't have competition.
"A monopoly describes a situation where a majority of sales in a market are undertaken by a single firm. A natural monopoly by contrast is a condition on the cost-technology of an industry whereby it is most efficient (involving the lowest long-run average cost) for production to be concentrated in a single firm." (WikiPedia)
If you don't understand the words, I cannot help you understand anything else. Governments do not create natural monopolies. Natural monopolies exist because of certain market conditions.
But let's look at the result of the choices in reacting to the reality of natural monopolies, in this case, broadband access costs by PPP per median mbits/sec:
21.13 Mexico
18.72 Greece
09.86 Poland
09.73 Chile
05.46 Turkey
05.42 United States
04.85 Luxembourg
04.62 Israel
04.39 Spain
04.33 Slovenia
04.08 Czech Republic
03.88 Ireland
03.82 Germany
03.82 Switzerland
03.73 Hungary
03.56 Iceland
03.29 Canada
03.27 Italy
03.24 Austria
03.21 Finland
02.92 Australia
02.77 New Zealand
02.69 Estonia
02.51 Belgium
02.05 Norway
01.84 Netherlands
01.69 Slovak Republic
01.67 Denmark
01.60 United Kingdom
01.58 Sweden
01.45 France
01.41 Japan
01.38 Portugal
00.33 Korea
Socialized or heavily regulated solutions beat our system hands down, and absolutely crush private attempts on maximum speeds (look at the data for yourself, I'm done baby sitting you.) It appears that you are flat wrong on this subject, if data and research are acceptable forms of information.
Also, there is nothing prevent competition in the delivery and quality of internet access over government owned fiber. As I have demonstrated, there is in fact more competition when the negative effects of privatization are removed from rent-seeking infrastructure, which you already know because you use the socialized road system that has a good deal to do with America's success in the modern world, and a good deal to do with how far we are behind more advanced infrastructure programs that have already starting hurting us today.
(And yes, sticking to the facts instead of my own wish thinking has served my quite well over the years. You should try it.)
Because of heat and dry conditions, I believe Texas' DSL is throttled by the government to ensure internet speeds stay cool and slow. I'm not sure what else justifies the ATT/TimeWarner blockage that we endure, maybe fear of the porns...
If you account for land area, or population density, the U.S. is at (or near) the top of the list
Naturally you have an analysis of the data to support this theory rather than just a blind assertion, right?
Meanwhile "libertarian" thought is nicely summed up by The Cato institute's web site: "Promoting an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations"
They forgot motherhood and apple pie. Who doesn't claim to promote those things?
That's why you think it is so cheap. Other people subsidize your network habits. You're welcome.
Why should I have to subsidize police? People should pay for their own police force.
Could you imaging how efficient our police and justice system would be if it was privatized?
How many other things that benefit all of society should we not socialize? Ohh, education! Then we could really have a serfdom by controlling the knowledge!
I love this privatize everything game.
So they have 1/3rd the USA's population density? How does that help?
You can't have halfway decent government when the idiot majority is enfranchised
So you prefer a government where the majority is disenfranchised? Like North Korea, or more like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Bahrain?
and when female emancipation and the destruction of patriarchal marriage means that men no longer have any incentive to invest in the future.
You can't get laid because you're a misogynist. Your defective sociapathy doesn't have much to do with the government, or with women having the choice to ignore your dumb, bigoted ass -- they're just reminded of how thankful they are to live in a relatively free country when you are around. I recommend a personality and a little bit of self introspection. It will get you further than those bizarre talking points.
By the way, how is the weather back in the 15th Century? A bit cooler, I'll bet.
No, I think if it's apparent that the internet is a utility, like electricity and water,
Which it isn't.
it makes sense for the government to invest in spreading that utility to keep the national workforce competitive and educated.
So then yes, you do think that free internet to your parent's basement is something everyone else should pay for. The MMORPG bit was irrelevant -- watching movies, surfing porn, whatever. The part about "free" is the important bit. You don't want the internet to be "a toll road", you want it free.
So if the pipe, so to speak, is there and ready to be turned on, it's a win-win for everybody:
Except those who have no interest in providing you with free internet, of course. And those, it turns out, you think should pay for their internet so you can have it at "zero cost".
and those who can't afford the internet can apply for a free government version at practically zero cost to everyone else.
Wait. So it's ok for the internet to be a toll road for some people, just as long as you get yours for "zero cost"? It isn't "zero cost" to everyone else, though.
And if it is "zero cost" for you to get it for free, why shouldn't I get it free, too? It's "zero cost".
If you're going to flame me for what you see as my desire to make all the roads toll roads, then you need to keep from wanting the internet to be a toll road for others.
This is very basic economics. You should spend the time to look into it.
You really don't have to be insulting to have an adult conversation, you know.
So then yes, you do think that free internet to your parent's basement is something everyone else should pay for. The MMORPG bit was irrelevant -- watching movies, surfing porn, whatever. The part about "free" is the important bit. You don't want the internet to be "a toll road", you want it free.
No, I want the fiber to by built and managed by one entity in as many places as possible. When someone moves into a home, they can choose to turn it one from a collection of private ISPs, just like the good old days over dialup.
Wait. So it's ok for the internet to be a toll road for some people, just as long as you get yours for "zero cost"? It isn't "zero cost" to everyone else, though.
To those who can't afford it, just like food, medicine, water, electricity, the use of roads, the protection of the military, the protection of the fire and police departments, and a basic public education. Stop pretending that you don't understand this simple concept.
You really don't have to be insulting to have an adult conversation, you know.
Stating the facts isn't an insult. Don't get upset if you don't understand something if you haven't taken the time to read anything about it.
Because our public electric grid is such a shining example of modernity, right?
Liberty in your lifetime
Ahh, I get it. I forgot not to feed the trolls.
In the future, dial it back down a bit, because no one who can read is as stupid as the persona you have created, unless you're writing from the Westboro Baptist Church.
Also what's up with the super power stuff? I assume it's just there to turn this news item into more of a story.
Personally I think China will be a super power not long from now. They are growing economically and they are many. Simple as that.
No, I want the fiber to by built and managed by one entity in as many places as possible. When someone moves into a home, they can choose to turn it one from a collection of private ISPs, just like the good old days over dialup.
If this were a workable business plan don't you think this would be how it is done today? Why are there no consumer level fiber companies that provide this service? Why hasn't someone said, "hey guys, I'll build all your fiber to the home for you, you pay me a percentage of each customer..."? Because it costs money and it isn't a universal need so there is no guarantee that everyone will get fibered just in case someday ...? You want to treat it like a utility where someone has to have the capability even if they don't want it. Where the government will say "we're putting fiber in and you're paying for it even if you never use it or you can't occupy that house." You want the costs forced onto other people to subsidize your access. I understand. It's a common character flaw in people. It's part of the reason it is called "the me generation".
And it's still having a "toll road", since you need to pay to access the "public road". Except for the special people for whom the service would be free. You made it look like I wanted all roads to be toll roads in your lame car analogy, so why are you so happy with the toll road analogy for fiber? If it is bad to have toll roads for cars, it must be bad to have toll roads for the internet, huh?
To those who can't afford it, just like food, medicine, water, electricity, the use of roads, the protection of the military, the protection of the fire and police departments, and a basic public education. Stop pretending that you don't understand this simple concept.
There is a difference between food and water and "the internet". And I'm still asking you why YOUR internet access should be free because it is "zero cost" when you expect other people to pay for theirs. If it is zero cost for some, it is zero cost for all. What you really mean is that it will be zero cost for some and the rest will foot the bill, even if they don't need or want it.
I've lived through the days when telephone service was heavily subsidized, just like you want the internet to be now. Maybe you would like to tell me I should go "read up" on the matter again?
Stating the facts isn't an insult.
The "you should look it up" comment is a direct and intentional insult. The assumption that because I disagree with you I haven't "read up" on the matter is, as well. If only we was all as smart as you, we'd all agree with you.
The US has increasingly been facing second-world problems for several decades, since Reagan. That suggests that our "superpower" is flowing through a second-world infrastructure. Good luck finding engineers to disagress with that assessment.
Most of the first-world countries are now limited to a small region of northern Europe.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
I understand. It's a common character flaw in people. It's part of the reason it is called "the me generation"
I want to address this first, because it is a prime example of why it's so frustrating to argue with people who refuse to do any basic reading. This is an excerpt from Tom Wolfe, who coined the phrase "Me Generation" back in the 70s, and is in fact from the essay entitled "The Me Generation":
Somehow you have interpreted your own assumption to what the "me" generation stands for, and it's exactly the oppose of what you thought it was, because you haven't read a goddamned thing. You are just imitating the disembodied head of your favorite fake journalist on television. (They didn't read it either.)
But let's move on to the other things you have read nothing about. Perhaps I'll write an essay entitled, "The 'I can't fucking read' Generation." It's not very catchy, but I'll work on that.
If this were a workable business plan don't you think this would be how it is done today?
Taking care of the disabled and the needy and the sick and the old has no profit motive. Defending a nation with a trained army is supposed to have no profit motive. Helping a neighbor move, or a friend clean their apartment because they're too ill to do it themselves has no profit motive. Believe it or not, there are things in this world that are worth having that are more important than money. I know it may shock you to imagine such a thing, but please try. You might surprise yourself.
Why are there no consumer level fiber companies that provide this service? Why hasn't someone said, "hey guys, I'll build all your fiber to the home for you, you pay me a percentage of each customer..."? Because it costs money and it isn't a universal need so there is no guarantee that everyone will get fibered just in case someday ...? You want to treat it like a utility where someone has to have the capability even if they don't want it. Where the government will say "we're putting fiber in and you're paying for it even if you never use it or you can't occupy that house."
Corporations don't want a shared broadband infrastructure because corporations hate competition and fair pricing. The proof is in the legal pudding:
The U.S. is also a greedy rich asshole-growing location where said rich own the businesses that provide Internet service - the whole idea is to take transport media that has so much bandwidth capability it makes your head spin and word it as if said media is SO CLOGGED (OMG OMG) that everyone has to pay tons of money for this RARE bandwidth.
G.R.E.E.D.
I'm shocked the placement number isn't increasing quarterly.
Top cost estimated cost for to the home in Australia: $3500 per residence (more spread out, should be lower than this).
30 year Municipal AAA bond rate: 4.35%
Cost per household per month: $17.42
If the Fed loaned counties money at the same rate they charge banks: 0.75%
Cost per household per month: $10.86
That doesn't take into account the economic benefits, or the idea that you just charge Comcast or AT&T a base rate of $10-15 per month to use the government fiber. The math isn't hard. The problem is that our nation is a failed state.
It’s a perplexing problem that has led some to call for Internet access to be treated as a public utility
How can anyone suggest something so un-American!
The US is far larger with a much lower average population. I would think that for the US to out pace most of them would make the cost per customer and in total, far more than these other countries. We'd have a difficult time justifying the cost per customer just for bragging rights. I'll admit having a 100 Mbs connection, although you won't see near that during prime time. I ran a test and made 60 Mbs download and only 2.3 Mbs upload at roughly 10:30 PM local. I think, but will have to test to be sure that it's considerably slower around 8:00 or 9:00 PM. The government already has too much of a view of the citizens. Them running the net would be worse than the cloud and with the cloud they claim any information you put on servers other than your own the govt says they have free access to it.