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Only One US City Makes "Top Ten Internet Cities Worldwide" List
An anonymous reader writes "A new report today has ranked the Top 10 'Internet Cities' around the globe, based on a set of five criteria: connection speed, availability of citywide WiFi, openness to innovation, support of public data, and security/data privacy. One might expect high-tech cities like San Francisco and Tel Aviv to appear on a list of 'Internet Cities,' but they don't. Indeed, no Middle Eastern cities appear here at all, and — due, largely, to the United States' poor Internet speeds — the only US city to make this ranking is Seattle."
Okay, that may be so, but can we get list of highest telco/cableco profit cities? I bet USA totally rocks that list.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Those countries aren't the worlds biggest economy. Those countries didn't pioneer the Internet.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Seattle's connectivity is pretty abysmal, unless you live in the tiny areas of downtown Seattle serviced by CondoInternet.net. Other than that, you're lucky if you can get Comcast (trust me, there are FAR worse ISPs than Comcast).
Those countries aren't the worlds biggest economy. Those countries didn't pioneer the Internet.
Those countries don't have the belief that they are better than everyone else. For example Sweden would not be offended by finding out it didn't rate highest in some arbitrary test.
Because they have no justification or any reason to. The USA is the richest, mightiest, most powerful and influential nation in the world. Nobody else comes close.
You be Trollin' Trollin' Trollin'
Richest - The US is so deep in debt it can't hope to ever pay it off.
Mightiest - Temporary. That will wane just like it waned for every other empire that has ever existed. Many of those previous empires controlled a far greater amount of the civilized world.
Most powerful - See above.
Influential - The US's world influence is already waning. The US moral high ground is shot to hell. The spying and warmongering have destroyed trust from the US's closest allies.
But those nice guys in Geneva invented the WWW.
I think that's because infrastructure doesn't lend itself to competition. With competition we might get 4 - 30mbps connections to each home instead of just 1 100 mbps connection. I know it's sacrilege in the U.S. to suggest that some things really should be handled by the government but infrastructure really should be. I don't need competing water mains or roads brought to my house. In the same vein, even an incompetent government can put up infrastructure cheaper than the private industry simply because a truly competitive market would require multiple infrastructures.
Consider, 4 providers, each putting up their own infrastructure. Not only are efforts duplicated, but the users are split. So each provider will only get about 1/4 of the subscribers in an area. Which means costs will be about 4 times higher. Not a very good system at all. Now, because infrastructure naturally monopolizes anyway, we wind up with a private company having a monopoly on infrastructure and we have what we have.
At least that's my humble view.
With a little help from Bush's republican administration and his policies in support of freedom and democracy, such as patriot act and guantanamo bay, the terrorists won. The U.S. has wasted uncountable billions in useless wars, money which could have been spent in infrastructure, education and social programs, and it has lost all credibility as the leader of the free world. For the last 12 years, the U.S. has been busy dismantling its foundations in the name of the war against terror. 12 years not simply wasted, but actively self-destructive, especially on moral authority.
Well, not completely self-destructive. Some corporations and contractors in the business of war and 'security' have been making very happy profits lately, I suppose.
Terrorists are trolls. The U.S. has allowed itself to be trolled to epic proportions. They could never have caused so much damage, cost so many billions, if left to their own devices.
God knows I'm not usually one to cite Jesus, but whatever happened to "turn the other cheek"? After 9/11, the World Trade Center should have been rebuilt and the muslim community in the U.S. should have been embraced and integrated. The message to terrorists and the world should have been; while extremists celebrate fear and death, we celebrate our freedom, pluralism and life.
It's amazingly hypocritical that the religious conservatives in the U.S. are often the first to favor a heavy handed, military approach to resolving conflict.