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Poor US Infrastructure Threatens the Cloud

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-the-best dept.

snydeq writes "Thanks to state-sponsored cable/phone duopolies, U.S. broadband stays slow and expensive — and will probably impede cloud adoption, writes Andrew C. Oliver. 'As a patriotic American, I find the current political atmosphere where telecom lobbyists set the agenda to be a nightmare. All over the world, high-end fiber is being deployed while powerful monopolies in the United States work to prevent it from coming here,' Oliver writes. 'I expect that cloud adoption will closely match broadband speed, cost, and availability curves. Those companies living in countries where the broadband monopoly is protected will adopt the cloud at a slower rate than those with competitive markets and municipal fiber. There's a good chance U.S. firms will fall into that group.'"

6 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. NSA aint helping either by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lets not forget about the people that wont use a US based cloud service because of the NSA snooping.

  2. Infrastructure pretty much requires the gov't by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    you can't make enough money off it in the short term to make it a worth while investment. As in investor there's always something with better gains in your lifetime. That's why the gov't made the comm network, the railroads, the (car) roads, and just about everything going back to the fsckin' Aquaducts.

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    1. Re:Infrastructure pretty much requires the gov't by mc6809e · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's why the gov't made the comm network, the railroads, the (car) roads, and just about everything going back to the fsckin' Aquaducts.

      The government paid for a lot of of those things, but that's not the same thing as making a lot of those things. And in that respect the government is simply acting as the agent for the collective purchase of something that (hopefully) provides a collective benefit.

      That's sort of the point of democratic-republican (little 'd' and little 'r') government -- to do the collective will of the people. Sometimes that means buying stuff (and that's not socialism -- that's just normal government).

  3. wow, mixed feelings by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slow broadband adoption? Baaaad
    Slow cloud adoption (ie, not putting all your data at the mercy of someone else)? Good.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  4. Re:Size matters by jrumney · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Japan population density: 330p/sqmi.

    New Jersey: 1196p/sqmi. Rhode Island: 1018p/sqmi. Massachusetts: 839p/sqmi. Connecticut: 738p/sqmi. Maryland: 595p/sqmi. Delaware: 461p/sqmi. New York: 411p/sqmi. Florida: 351p/sqmi. US coastal counties population density: 440 p/sqmi.

    But apparently those areas can't have high speed broadband because the population density of Wyoming and Alaska makes the cost prohibitive.

  5. Re:Size matters by jrumney · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry, I made a mistake. Japan is 330p/sqkm, which places it at the same level as Massachusetts, not Florida. But still, there are definitely areas of the US that have the population density to support globally competitive infrastructure, and politicians and apologists need to stop using the vast empty space in the Midwest to build a population density excuse.