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Why Is US Broadband So Slow?
phantomfive writes "Verizon has said they will not be digging new lines any time soon. Time-Warner's cash flow goes towards paying down debt, not laying down fiber. AT&T is doing everything they can to slow deployment of Google fiber. How can the situation be improved? Mainly by expediting right-of-way access, permits, and inspections, according to Andy Kessler. That is how Google was able to afford to lay down fiber in Austin, and how VTel was able to do it in Vermont (gigabit connections for $35 a month)."
Competition... From the government, if necessary. Let's put our tax dollars to work for us for a change.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Because we aren't praying to jesus hard enough.
Praise Jebus!
Answer: corporate greed.
Comcast does everything it can to charge more for less service. Why does Comcast want to give less service when through periodic updates that it could give faster service? Well Comcast also wants to sell television packages, and people can stream movies and television on their computers easily if the rates are high enough. Comcast just successfully extorted Netflix. It doesn't do a lot, but tweet support for Google Fiber, and tell your elected representative you want it in your area.
Comcast doesn't cover all of the city, Frontier only offers service in a few tiny areas far away from the city, and CenturyLink suffers with mostly 40+ year-old wiring and equipment in most of the city, so those of us that can get 1 Mbps reliably here are better off than many. I'm right at the edge of service, so some of my neighbors down the street can't even get DSL. Dial-up is their only option. Because the city government is anti-Internet, they will not allow competition or even easy upgrade permits for even the Comcast or CenturyLink monopolies. Comcast has been blocked for years from burying new cabling on my street. As long as you have obstructionist city governments, you'll never have good Internet access. The situation was made worse recently when we elected a socialist that is very anti-Internet.
Cut down the biggest branch of our government - the lobbying industry.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
as it is now, you have to ask every hick town for permission to lay cable and allow them to extort you via yarn museums and other costs
george bush tried to pass national franchise rights but it was fought by all the hick towns who keep taxes artificially low and leech off everyone else. and when telecoms refuse to pay, people there whine how they are underserved
and contrary to populist belief, the telecoms spend billions of $$$ every year in capital expenses. and they borrow to do so. comcast is $44 billion in debt. Time warner is $25 billion in debt. AT&T is also carrying some insane debt from its idiotic shopping spree almost 15 years ago to become a cable company. back then it cost almost $100 billion. its all in the public financial statements they file. they might not have FTTH, but cable and telecoms have spent tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of $$$ over the last 20 years building out their networks and the bill is now due. meanwhile newcomers like google have no debt and lots of cash and can invest a lot of money into FTTH and other ventures.
not being evil, just a fact of life. it has happened before and it will happen again. wintel beat IBM. and now IOS/Android/ARM/Qualcomm is beating wintel. AT&T and then the baby bells built out an amazing PSTN network and the cable companies came in with unlimited local and long distance calling to steal the customers. railroads built out a national rail network and the airlines and cars came in to steal their profits as well
The reason the US seems "slow" in statistics is simple: we have a lot of users and we've had Internet for a long time. Many users are in difficult to reach areas, and many others have never bothered upgrading to faster Internet because they don't actually need it. In addition, bandwidth is a limited commodity, and people are actually using the Internet for lots of things in the US.
Small countries, countries that only recently adopted the Internet, countries in which the Internet isn't utilized much for streaming, or countries in which only a smaller fraction of the population have Internet access will look better on speed statistics, but they won't necessarily be better off.
This article is in the Wall Street journal. That's suspicious right there. Of course they'd find a way to blame government regulation and interference for the problem, rather than abuse of government power to form and support monopolies.
I'm not saying their point is completely without merit. But I tend to think other factors exert more influence over why we have such relatively slow Internet service.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Troll post much? Wasn't there a way you could work in an Apple vs. Android angle?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
It's governments that enforce the current monopolies and dualopies, what they call a "franchise".
Do you really want government "competing", keeping ie Google fiber out while they offer up government service that works as well as Congress does, with DMV style customer service, and healthcare.gov quality? The way government would "compete" would be to simply deny permits to any company offering a better service that what government bureaucrats and theirlobbyist friends throw together.
The only large-scale success of modern broadband in the US lately has been Google Fiber. They go where local governments have decided to get the heck out of the way, often after wasting huge amounts of taxpayer money on failed attempts to have an ISP run by politicians.
Didn't we give the telecoms a shitload of money during the Clinton years to build out high speed internet?
This has been covered 2-3 times in the last year already, and the answers aren't going to change.
Corporate greed is the overwhelming reason.
Lack of necessary infrastructure is the other. But then that's because there is no system upgrading being done because of -- corporate greed.
Instead of having the same discussions about the problem, a more productive discussion would be about how to solve the issue and steps people can take to actually realize those solutions.
Just curious. I'd assume it's the same rural folks who are against the high taxes that would widen pipes to their houses. I get 24/24 in suburban KC and I figure most similar communities are the same.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
there is nothing out there that needs 100mbps access. netflix is like 5-10mbps.
How many simultaneous streams fit into the 5 to 10 Mbps that you mention? Or do you live alone?
Maybe it is just me be but it was not that long ago I was dialing up with a my first 14.4 kbps modem. That was the early 90's... probably about 92-93. There was no "internet" and the phrase "Dot Com" did not yet exist. 20 years later and people are whining about broadband being too slow!!!
I live in to woods 40 miles S.E. of Seattle (I saw a post above about Seattle) and get 53.5Mbps Down and 11.5 Up.... http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3327574950
I could even get faster if I wanted to pay more.
I feel this is more about the fact that people have to pay for the service and it is expensive. Not the fact that it is slow. I see a lot of post about how the government should get involved to make it faster and cheaper. Yet I see none offering a solution to the problems with laying thousands of miles of cables (fiber, copper, coax, etc) with all the associated hardware that makes it all work and cost and manpower to maintain that equipment while also serving the customers needs at a better price than what is currently offered. It all has to be paid for......
The best way is to allow cities and counties to create municipal fiber utilities that provide uniform and universal access of its citizens to ISP's. Municipalities can require multiple ISP's to service the city providing service level and price competition. The capital outlay for the fiber infrastructure is born by the city/county and is capitalized in use fees. Cities would set SLA standards for customer service response and repair times. Penalties for non-compliance and the right to replace ISP's that don't perform.
We would get the fastest and most robust internet connections available on the planet. We would get TV and phone service bundled on one wire. We would get lower monthly bills.
It's too much freedom. That's why there's no competition, high unemployment, and a poorly performing economy. If only we had more regulation everything would be better.
The New York City web site says that's incorrect. According to the city government, they grant franchises to specific companies to serve specific parts of the city. Here's the map of authorized service areas:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/...
I'm quite happy with 15-20mbps down. What really grinds my gears is 1mbps up. What if I want to upload to youtube every day? Can't do it on many internet plans today.
You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Electricity, for example. Started by government? No, governments were fairly late entrants. The first electric utility was and Calder and Barnet, in Godalming. Several of the earliest electric networks were run by Edison.
Roads are most often built by governments these days, at a cost of about $1 million / mile. I get to see them allot, sitting in gridlock we paid millions for. Eventually I get home and turn on my lights, powered by cheap, reliable power provided by a corporation. I walk over to my computer and get on the internet. My internet is never gridlocked like the government roads are.
Of course they'd find a way to blame government regulation and interference for the problem, rather than abuse of government power to form and support monopolies.
They're two words for the same thing: government failure in the form of regulatory capture. Granting a monopoly privilege certainly qualifies as "regulation and interference".
i take my kids outside
The practicality of that depends on the weather, whether the streets between where you live and the nearest public park have sidewalks, and crime levels in your neighborhood. A lot of parents are unwilling to let their kids play outside due to stranger danger hysteria.
i like to read a lot of books. last year i read about 10,000 pages worth
The practicality of that depends on whether you happen to live within walking distance of a public library branch.
my wife only watches a few reality shows on TV
i mostly watch sports
Netflix, Amazon, and similar VOD providers specialize in scripted programming. People who primarily use TV to keep up with time-sensitive events, such as sports or game shows (your wife's so-called "reality shows"), would be better served by cable or satellite television than by Netflix.
In order to determine in which direction to take my next post, I'd like to know this: Do you consider people who play video games likewise "couch potatoes"? A game download can be several GB.
ow.
This is like someone moving from Antarctica to Tasmania and asking why it's so co
ld.
The article's assessment is mostly correct. It even correctly mentioned that the previous net neutrality rules were unconstitutional. Except the article neglected the fact that new rules forcing local municipality to open up rights of way would also be unconstitutional because Federal agency has no power over local jurisdiction.
Forget about the federal or even the state government for a moment. The problem is that most people don't even know how to keep their local government in check. They increase local sales and property tax rates and/or tax assessment at will. They are behind in repairing public roads and other infrastructures, and even so they are mostly funded by Federal grants. The teachers are paid poorly, but the local officials are paid handsomely.
This is all caused by the lack of local government oversight. All governments are pests, be it federal, state, or local, but the local government is usually overlooked. We pay too much attention to federal and state. Better show up at your local town hall meeting next time, or they will slowly erode away your rights and property.
I once had a signature.
At our office we have fiber from XO, TWTelecom, Abovenet, and a few other smaller players. Time Warner is spending ungodly sums to bring fiber down the corridor to serve ~5MM square feet of offices.
But, ATT only offers "up to 6mbit" DSL. Pricing is comparable for value, but the offering is simply not up to snuff.
When there is little or no choice, the price rises. What is so difficult about that?
Because you damn well know the answer, you're just trying to hold onto a shred of hope that it's not something so nefarious.
Money
Everyone wants improvement & no-one is willing to pay for it.
Ok. Fine.
It's so slow, because ISPs have very little incentive to upgrade infrastructure and bring very high end bandwidth to customers en masse. You can see this where Google is putting fiber. Only then, do companies actively compete. If no one is coming into threaten them, ISPs will sit on their hands until they're forced to improve things, and offer better service. By doing this, they're also milking customers for as much and as long as possible.
It isn't a race to the top. It's a race to see how long they can drag their feet before someone better threatens their local monopoly. This is a self-created problem from the FCC, and entrenched corporate ideology that greed is best.
Expedite permits for people who refuse to do work.
How about: Municipalities write up a batch of permits and leave the utilities name blank. First one to schedule the work gets the permit and everyone else can go f*ck themselves.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's all about population density. Google swoops in to a major metropolitan area and wow... they can deliver gigabit speeds for $35/month. What if you live in the other 99% of American where the population density isn't 50k per square mile? Oh, that's right, google isn't installing fiber there.
When there are six or ten different coax cables, all from different providers, at my door and I have free choice to hire one or more cable provider then prices will get sane. As long as one provider owns all the coax we are all screwed. There simply is no real cometition in the cable industry.
Google is willing to pay. Heck, some municipalities are willing to pay. This reminds me of an old joke:
A carpet-bagger and a Texas cowboy were seated on a train across from a very attractive woman. The carpet-bagger leans over and propositions the woman, offering her $10 for sex. Saying nothing, she just sits there, looking shocked. A few minutes later, the carpet-bagger offers her $25. At this point, the cowboy pulls out his revolver and shoots the man dead.
The woman gushes, "Thank you, sir. For standing up for my honor."
"It warn't that, ma'am. I jus' didn't want no northerner bidding up the price of prostitutes in Texas."
Have gnu, will travel.
These companies have a lot of money invested in what they have. A lot of is amortized out over many years to come. They want to protect that investment. Their stockholders also want that investment protected. Along comes Google with a different agenda and no existing infrastructure investments to protect... A clean slate as it were. Of course AT&T and the cable companies are resisting Google Fiber. That said, I'd love to have a way to partner with Google to bring fiber to my area. I don't have any money invested in our area's carriers. They used to be local, but anymore are faceless corporate entities from another state. I have no vested interest in them and no reason to protect them.
Yes, as with the "tradgedy of the commons" the network is by it's very nature a shared resource which means everyone wants to use it but nobody wants to pay for it. In the early 90's, many western governments (eg: UK/AU) sold their public phone networks to private investors. Here in Oz that resulted in the two major telcos rolling out two fibre (pay TV) networks covering the profitable suburbs of the major cities and nowhere else.
I had both hooked up and several months of free pay TV since they were both running at a loss to attract customers with "free trials", I also tripled the money I paid for 1000 shares in the initial government prospectus. The major telco who inherited the copper from the government was forced to split the business into wholesale and retail companies. The retail end was supposed to compete on a level playing field with other retailers, ( which going by the plethora of independent ISP's we have today is one part of the sell off that seemed to work rather well). Now we have gone full circle and are building a single publically funded fibre network under the banner "NBN" which started off as "FTTP for everyone" but has now been trimmed to "FTTN for most". The NBN basically owns and maintains the network and will charge retailers a usage fee.
In other words, after a 20yr lead, private enterprise has failed to deliver the infrastructure that the government is now attempting to build. For now most people outside the middle class suburbs (or living in a flat/unit) are on DSL over the original (government built) copper network. My hope for the next 20yrs is that they can claw back that taxpayer investment from the private companies who will profit from the new "free market" that the infrastructure will provide.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So corporations are slowing the process of the projects while a slow government bureaucracy is to blame for rising costs of the projects by slowing them down? The argument for government efficiency and due process is of course always there, but if the corporations doing the investing slow the projects intentionally there is not much an administration can do about it.
US Broadband is slow because that's the state of the infrastructure -- the infrastructure is very expensive to build out, and most of the country can't support a broadband build out.
It may surprise some, but the majority of the United States is not serviced by a cable television or internet system:
http://www.fcc.gov/maps/connect-compete-home-broadband-coverage-map
Why is an area not serviced? Because it's not cost effective to build there -- there aren't enough subscribers willing to pay enough money to make the build out financially reasonable for a private company.
So how about municipal broadband? Take the private company out of the picture and make internet a government service and it must get really cheap, right? Well, Bristol, Virginia is considered the most successful implementation of Municipal Broadband right now. This village of 17,000 people offers fiber optic connections to its residents for....roughly the same price as TWC or Comcast (for comparable speeds) and far far more expensive for 1GBps service ($320/mo) than Google offers.
http://www.bvu-optinet.com/templates/default.php?purl=internet_res_hispeed&turl=inside_3col_std_template.htm
This after using $26 million in grant money (so that's $1,541 per resident) to get the infrastructure in -- so it doesn't even have loans or bonds to service with its fees. This is the huge improvement offered by municipal broadband?
The facts are this:
1. Huge portions of the country cannot be cost effectively serviced by high speed internet access.
2. Any mandate to bring high speed internet access to those areas is going to be paid for by higher costs or higher taxes on those who do live in connected areas
3. Most large population centers do not have enough potential 1Gbps residential customers to make it cost effective to upgrade the equipment in those locations to support 1Gbps connection speeds -- businesses can already get those speeds and more but it is not inexpensive.
4. New entrants with deep pockets don't have to deal with replacing equipment that is still being used to pay for the debt taken out to install it in the first place, but they will. Verizon isn't expanding their FiOS network anymore, and everyone is trying to get an idea of whether Google is able to pull off the economics of their Fiber projects.
5. More options for internet service in a community mean lower market shares for the participants, which means lower revenue from the market, which means lower return on the installed assets required to offer service, which means either raising rates or exiting the market.
Here's an example: Lets say there are 100 people per day who want to fly from Harrisburg, PA to Scranton, PA. The smallest plane that a commercial airline can use to make this flight has seats 40 people and costs $10,000 plus $50 for each passenger to fly between the two cities.
Which is more efficient:
a. Ten airlines each offer one flight a day between these cities. On average, there are 10 passengers for each flight, so the flight costs $10,500 for each of the ten airlines. They spend a combined total of $105,000 per day and have combined capacity to serve 400 people, 4x as much as average demand. The airlines need to make a 5% profit margin on their flights, so with a cost per passenger of $1,050 ticket prices average $1,102.
b. Three airlines each offer one flight a day between these cities. On average, there are 33 passengers for each flight, so the flight costs $11,650 to operate for each of the three. They spend a combined total of $34,950 and have combined capacity to serve 120 people, 20% more than normal demand to allow for surges during holidays and such. With the same 5% profit margin on a cost per passenger of $353 ticket prices are $370.
Which of these offers the customer more choices? Which of these scenarios would you rather be in if you had to fly between these or similar cities? Which one of these is an overall more efficient use of resources, less environmentally taxing, etc?
One problem was the government giving corporations a lot of money to build fibre. Of course what happened was record bonuses for CXO's, due to record profits for corporations. Not so much fibre went into the ground. If the government wanted fibre in the ground, it should have spent the money putting fibre in the ground. Its like health care. Pay companys for health care, and record profits (there is no guarantee where the money will go). Do it yourself, and you know where the money goes: CXO's and shareholders don't vacuum half or more of the money out before anything (if at all) happens. I know the political right keeps yelping about how corporations will save us all, but no, corporations provide riches to very few, and while we can hold governments accountable for every penny (audits are mandatory) corporations are 'private' and cannot possibly be held to that standard. Worse: there are laws that mandate money gets diverted away from work getting done and into shareholders pockets (and likewise CXO). Going to corporations is almost always a bad bet because money will be diverted from work to profits (and there is no magic to management in the private sector vs management in the public sector).
VTel does not provide $35/month gigabit service because they have easy access to poles. To be sure, they own the poles -- they're the incumbent phone company, and have old copper up there which they can overlash. But more importantly, VTel got millions of dollars in federal subsidies. The whole project cost over $5000/home, but VTel itself only paid a fraction, and the federal universal service fund -- that 16% tax on your phone bill -- pays them whatever it takes to make them profitable. Their retail price is a joke. Nice though for the recipients of the cheap service, and Mr. Guite, who owns it.
I think that the problem here is that there's no differentiation between the fiber itself and the service carried by it.
If a town lies down dark fiber and then lets the end customer choose operator using that fiber, then it wouldn't be a big problem.
As for putting fibers on utility poles - that's stupid for several reasons - risk of damage is high, complex arrangements on poles means high risk of conflicting wiring and it really destroys the general view of a small town having the air filled with wires crossing all over the place.
Compare Westford, MA, USA with Kållered, Sweden.
It may be more expensive to bury the wires, but it will lower the costs in the long run.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I don't really care how "slow" my internet access is... Hulu streaming works at 500kbps, and I can't find any broadband providers that offer service speeds lower than that in the past decades. Just give me CHEAP!!!
I don't want to pay $65/mo to get bottom-tier FIOS speeds that I won't use. Yet FIOS deployment means I can't get cheap Verizon DSL anymore.
I don't want my cable company to eliminate their bottom tier, upgrading everyone to 15Mbps and doubling the monthly price. What does my mother need with 15Mbps internet access to read her e-mail? I know she'd rather have her $20/month back.
Where are all the cheap broadband packages going? I just checked due to another commenter, and see that Time Warner (not in my area) offers 2/1Mbps service for $15/mo... That would be pretty good, except they're about to get bought by Comcast, which doesn't offer anything below 3/1Mbps for $40/mo.
Screw your HighDef streaming video... Where's my entry-level internet service? When CELLULAR in cheaper, something has gone horribly wrong.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
That would work until your local county commissioner figured out he could get kick back by ignoring service complaints and anything else the ISPs wanted. As long as a for profit company is running things they will find ways to provide the least for the most cost.
GREED
The big boys are perfectly happy rolling out speed that results in max profits, 1 gig, haha, probably take another century in the U.S. Most of the infrastructure is crumbling, it's SNAFU...
Companies laying down the wires and companies offering services over those wires must be separated in order to increase competition. When Israel did this over a decade ago it caused prices to plummet.
Bundling of services is bad for the consumer. It seems like fun in the short term, but in the long term is kills competition.
The first problem with that is that it is not being done "anyway". The ISP's are not putting in new connections.
The second problem is who owns the pipes once they are installed. If a private company owns then then there is the same problem again.
If the government owns them then there can be competition.
Just as with the government putting in roads. It doesn't matter which delivery company runs on the roads. The government supplies the infrastructure (via taxes) and the competition competes on services.
So I don't really understand why utility quality doesn't seem to affect realty prices. Maybe if Zillow and Craigslist started including broadband rankings from broadbandreports.com for homes and rentals alongside listings, we'd get somewhere. Thus far, it doesn't seem to appear on the radar, somewhere far beyond "school rankings in standardized testing" and even "price of garbage collection".
Of course, then the internet availability score might start to have some impact on assessments used to determine property taxes, which could start having unintended consequences. But I'm pretty surprised thus far that more people don't really shop for residences by FTTP availability.
There are three possibilities here:
1. You are a communist.
2. You aren't buying the correct tier of service from your provider, select the "deny me any rights and take all my privacy away and then send around a representative to take me up the kyber",
3. You hate freedom.
Right now American telcos and cable companies are working very very hard to keep your money in America, to keep the Internet American and to ensure that good, wholesome, American packets stay in America where they can be consumed in the American way (leisurely, from the sofa), and to bring you, the consumer, choice: should I wait for the next packet or should I go to the fridge and get a soda?
Some people would argue that it is incredibly un-American that cable and internet provision is all but a monopoly that prevents choice or diversity in the marketplace, but those people probably aren't with timewarner or cox - if they were, they wouldn't have internet access so we wouldn't be able to know what they were arguing.
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
First, lobbying is a basic Constitutional freedom (see: 1st Amendment, the bit about the right of the people to peacably assemble and petition their government for redress)
Second, lobbying activity is tied directly to the size and reach of government. When government gets bigger and involves itself in more of our lives and the economy (purely to help us "little people", of course) it attracts more lobbyists. This is automatic. When an industry feels the initial bite of government, it looks for a solution and discovers "lobbyists" and campaign cash. When a big wealthy established company with deep pockets and already existing ties to government sees a bunch of young lean-and-mean upstarts it often decides that, rather than re-inventing itself and getting creative, the easier path is to "lobby" the government to put new taxes and/or regulations in place (to which the existing company is "grandfathered" and which the upstarts will not be able to afford). Furthermore, it is common practice now for politicians who need campaign cash to reach-out to lobbyists with "friendly warnings" that their clients might feel the bite of new taxes or regulations if they are not re-elected to block these things... so it is in the best interest of these lobbyists and their clients to come up with some campaign cash...
The only way to reduce lobbying and corruption is to reduce the size and scope of government. ANY other so-called reforms will ALWAYS be outsmarted by the rich powerful corpoations (who can afford to buy lawyers and lobbyists) and who (unlike the stupid politicians) have their own money on the line. Most people on Slashdot seem to have been brainwashed by many years of unionized-school-teacher propaganda (progressive Democrat talking points, more than actual education) and therefore seem to want big government in almost every aspect of their lives except for recreational drugs and choice of sex partners. You want that form of madness? then you are STUCK with all the bad side effects (which you have setup all the incentives for), including massive compaign finance problems, armies of lobbyists, etc. Then if you top it off with "progressive" politicians (a political philosophy spanning portions of BOTH parties, that has embraced "the ends justify the means" as a core principle for over a hundred years) .... well ... you get what you asked for (even if you deny having asked for it when the pain takes hold). People who dislike 3rd degree burns should, sooner or later, learn not to keep lighting themselves on fire.
Before you get to the argument about throttled, filtered, or variably-priced packets, the biggest challenge (and easiest solution) is to get more than one high-speed provider to each consumer. Choice breeds competition and therefore fights over prices and features; lack of choice locks-in mediocrity. If you have monopoly providers, they will ALWAYS get the rules rigged to allow them to under-service and over-price and even the politicians who are not bought-and-paid-for will likely support bad regulations on grounds that there are no alternatives or options.
As long as my only option for high-speed internet is to hook up to the (monopoly) CableTV company, I will be stuck paying too much per month for too little and "net neutrality" is just a pointless academic argument who's outcome is more-likely to benefit a kid in a dorm room hoping to start te next Facebook than to have ANY impact on my browsing Slashdot. On the day I can hook up to any of several optical fibers in a service box on the outside of my home (or even hook to multiple fibers to get the services I want from each of several vendors at the same time) THEN I will worry about "net neutrality" PROVIDED the issue is not automatically resolved by competition between the vendors
Basically the inertia of massive infrastructure across a large, non-homogeneously settled area.
The insane costs and regulatory nightmare of laying new infrastructure.
Oh yeah, and the greed and apathy of the few major providers, standing atop their government authorized monopolies.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
corporate greed
Every year it's the same crap question that's been answered a million times already.
Let it all out, nothing will change anyway and I'll see you here again next year.
You sort of see the opposite situation here in Europe. While top-tier residential service is generally slower, comparable plans here are vastly cheaper, often half the cost or less of what they are in the US, because there are many service providers. On the other hand, there are generally only a small number of mobile companies in a given country, and they create the illusion of choice by operating discount services under a variety of names - being careful, of course, to make sure their various services don't compete with each other. The end result has been similar to US broadband internet - glacial 4G rollout at exorbitant prices, while even in cities there are places that can't even get 3G connectivity. The solution in both cases is the same - authorities need to move aggressively against market entrenchment and anti-competitive behavior.
Cable companies pay a bribe, ummm I mean a fee to municipalities in exchange for exclusive access. So unless Google plans on paying tribute to your crime family, I mean, local government, then nothing will change.
20 mbps/$76mo. Steadily increases. It started out $20 for first 6 mos, then $50 something after that, 5 years later in the same apartment it's ~$76 with nothing but internet.
Any time you have a monopoly, there is a general tendency for the monopoly to extract the highest rent they can and to offer the least it can for that rent.
I think the only real answer is a municipal fiber distribution system which only provides layer 2 connectivity and sells access to service providers.
It's probably more efficient to sell IP connectivity, but that's a "service" and that's when you get into issues of government competing with private industry. And I would wager that a municipal ISP for cost reasons would be a single, NAT'd IP address type of service.
The downside would be that it would be extremely expensive to build such a network and I don't know how you would pay for it or how it would get built. Ideally the city would own it and pay someone else to build it and operate it with a fixed margin, like an electric utility.
When I was in the US last time, I was appalled. I saw phone wires and electricity wires hanging everywhere, phone distributors (I don't know the technical term in English for them, where a few wires from various households come together) that are a fire hazard, at best (that they're working was a veritable miracle), I've even seen hemp insulation.
Honestly, I thought I was somewhere in the USSR, somewhere behind the Ural, in the 60s.
Why is it in such a state? I can only assume it is, funny enough, for the same reason it was in the USSR, but for a different underlying reason: It worked. In the USSR it was not improved because of shortage. In the USA it is not improved because of profit. In either case it would have required investment that was not warranted. It's good enough for the customer. In the USSR, it was good enough for the comrade because they delivered the bare minimum of what was necessary. In the US, you get delivered the bare minimum of what is necessary to keep you paying.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Greed
FDR brought electricity to the areas that private industry saw as unprofitable. Rural Electrification Act. The government can & should step in & force competition by laying the needed infrastructure.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
Back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, US used to be the top country in the world in term of broadband competition.
According to who? I was a paying customer during that time period and most people had precisely one "broadband" option if they had any at all. (and most didn't) In a few places you might have had two options. In the late 80s only a small fraction of the population had broadband access. Maybe you lived in some small utopia where there was actual competition but for most of us the choice was dial-up or slow broadband through the local monopoly and in the late 80s and early 90s most people were still on dial up. Remember, AOL was still a thing until around 2000 or so.
There were some ill fated efforts to force the local carriers (the companies that owned the wires) to sell access to other companies at regulated rates but that went about as badly as you might expect. Verizon, AT&T (was SBC) and the rest didn't exactly bend over backwards to help competitors who were using their infrastructure. Basically if you have as much competition as you have sets of wires coming into your house. Right now my options are shitty slow service through DSL or Comcast where I live because I have one pair of wires from the local telco monopoly and a second set of wires from the local cable co monopoly. Since I've never had more than two sets of wires coming into my house I've never in my life really had more than two options for high speed internet service and usually I've only had one. If you want to call that competition fine, but I've never seen it.
I was one of the many thousands who were pulling cables in order to hook up the communities...
If you were doing that then you were wasting your time. You simply did not have the resources to make a meaningful dent in this problem outside of a very small local area. I remember people wanting to do this and the intention is good but you really need the resources of a major telco/cableco to make this happen nationwide.
Very simple answer.
Pure Greed. AT&T, Comcast,Etc... they care more about profit margins than quality of service. If you will swallow paying $60 a month for paltry speeds then that is what they deliver. Plus they work hard to keep competition out so they dont have to lower prices or increase speeds.
It's greed, The companies hate you for even wanting more.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Most broadband users are using cable broadband or their cellular broadband. Cable in most cities have very little if any competition for broadband customers. At best they have cheaper alternatives like DSL subscriber lines through phone systems which are cheap but dreadfully slow compared to cable broadband.
Not even sure how AT&T or some other DSL biggies can even call it broadband other then the FCC has failed to establish a better minimum requirement in speed to call it broadband. I think if more competition can get a foothold in broadband services. They could cause some price drops and a increase in speed.
Right now the efforts by government is to get more people on any kind of broadband. Saturation has slowed because of the vast open areas of the US. In other Countries the dense populations make it far more lucrative for broadband providers and also to increase competition.
I see visiting their site, that Time Warner is offering me their internet service "Everyday Low Price (up to 2Mbps) for $14.99/mo.
Great. $15/month for barely faster than dial-up. What a deal.
In the UK it's BT wholesale requiring per-bit pricing for backhaul and connection to it that causes UK speeds to be so tiny.
Add in that the intent is that EVERYONE will have TV and therefore want a cable package, and you have very little demand for upgrading any connection unless it gets even more telly to the home.
It's akin to a lot of decisions these days "we need better hardware" instead of fixing/optimizing our software.
There have been several corrections made in this department, but so far it's just not enough.
Jim Gettys has been leading this charge since 2012. You can find a lot of good information on his blog:
http://gettys.wordpress.com/20...
And there are a multitude of videos on the topic as well.
While running fiber everywhere with proper hardware support would be "fast", fixing the bufferbloat problem would be a gigantic leap forward (and not just for the US).
for part of the year. The local carrier - an "independent" phone co (aka monopoly) gets most of its customers from 4 to 8 Mbps down but limits the upload speed to 0.8 unless you pay extra. That would be tolerable at $40/mo (understanding the problems or rurality) except that they force their customers to also purchase landline services. Including the various taxes and tithes (have you ever looked at the fees the feds charge for dsl?) and the monthly cost is now $70 which is decidedly not acceptable as I am a voip user.
The company claims that eekonomics dictates they require the landline but I wonder how VTel is able to survive without it? Well, apparently they do not - from Ars:
Add in taxes, etc and that $48 is certain to be pushing $60. Better than what I have, yes, but no panacea.
Phantomfive may want to go back and check his premises.
I am often surprised how much internet connectivity sucks in the US.
In what I would consider a average sized neighbourhood I have often seen how poor it can be.
When I get home I have a decent 40/10 VDSL connection and we only have 120 households in our town and around the same in one 2 miles away.
We used to share a phone switching with that neighbour town but got a fiber connecting us so we now have 2 local micro/mini DSLAMs.
And I get at least 35/9 from the VDSL connection.
I always look forward to when I get home again and can get a decent internet connection.
People rarely research the true cause of these situations. Government granted monopolies like the ones you mention destroy free market and the customer loses. I think the FCC was actually created for that purpose. It would take very little research to find who pocketed the cash.
The company I work for has a few dozen branch sites in the south east US. Lately we've been looking at increasing the broadband Internet service used to provide WiFi access to guests. When we rolled out the first broadband circuits there 5-7 years ago, our options were typically cable service at maybe 5-10Mb/s and DSL service at usually 3Mb/s. Now, most of these sites have 100Mb/s cable internet service available. Granted, it typically runs ~$200/mo for business class 100-150Mb/s internet service, but still, at least the options fucking available at this point.
I really feel like in the last couple years there has been an actual improvement in broadband speeds with the real push for DOCSIS 3. It's the one real improvement we'll see without replacing (too much of) the copper in the ground. Maybe I'm crazy but I really believe Google Fiber may have played more than a small part in this. Not actually being available everywhere, just the threat to the existing duopoly of cable/dsl providers that they may move in and provide some real competition.
> you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Government.
I simply have a clue as to how the US government was designed to work. The North Korea government is efficient - lil Kim makes a decision, issues the order, and it gets done. The US government is DESIGNED to be the exact opposite of that. It's supposed to be be fair, open, and accountable. So to make a major decision, a legislator in one house proposes a bill. The bill is referred to committee, where studies are ordered and hearing are held. A few months later, it goes to the full house. If we're lucky, it's approved by that house and sent over to the other house before the year ends. A similar process is repeated in the other house. If it's passed in the other house, then it's time for conference committee, then it needs to be passed by both houses again. Eventually it makes it's way to the agency responsible for implementing it, who puts out a Request for Proposals, etc.. A year or so later work can begin, with various reports being done constantly for that transparency we want. The reporting and compliance costs mean that it bids for a government job are about twice as much as the same job for a private client. Looking at jobs my company might have bid, for example, my city wanted a $35,000 IT job done. For the first round of being considered, there was 35 pages of paperwork. Round two would have been another 60 pages. To have a better chance of getting the contract, I'd probably have needed to hire my wife as an executive because she's female and black. For a private purchaser, the same job would have been set up with a few phone calls.
I'm glad there's so much extra overhead in government to seek fairness, openness, etc. The government has the power to simply take your house, kick you off so they can sell the land to a developer to build a mall. Because the government has so much power, we want to build in processes that encourage fairness, transparency, etc. It damn sure slows things down and makes it more expensive to get stuff done, though. I think it's a good trade-off - I'm willing to pay twice as much for a FAIR court system as opposed to an EFFICIENT court system. The extra overhead
Corporate greed is the overwhelming reason.
Corporate greed is also the reason you have broadband in the first place. Your argument is necessary but not sufficient to explain what is going on. Greed is why these companies exist but it also is the reason that once they achieve monopolistic power they tend to slow down investment and try to maximize profits. They merely have to invest enough to keep their cost of providing service low enough that it is difficult for competitors to enter the market. Absent regulation demanding minimum service levels you will see a slow increase in network speeds but less than you would expect in a more competitive market.
What you have is a classic barrier to entry. It is REALLY expensive to build a network of cables to provide data services to the entire population. The expected return on investment becomes quite poor when there is an existing competitor with already in place infrastructure. Cable and phone service tends to be a natural monopoly meaning that the lowest costs are achieved by having all production concentrated in a single firm. Incoming competitors literally cannot achieve cost parity with the incumbent cable/phone monopoly without enough funding to build out a network of similar size. So the only way to get competitors is to have a parallel service (like phone versus cable tv) where they can then cross over and compete. Theoretically the power company has a third set of wires that could be used for data but there are technical issues there.
The only way things are going to progress faster on internet service levels is either through regulation mandating minimum service levels or through some other technology like wireless. You could in theory mandate via regulation that companies that provide the wires cannot be the actual ISP (you provide the pipe or router but not both) but I doubt this would ever happen for a variety of reasons.
why do i need to pay for super fast internet?
If you have to ask that question you probably don't.
there is nothing out there that needs 100mbps access.
There are plenty of applications where 100mbps or faster is extremely helpful. Everything from high qulaity video and music streaming to VPNs to teleconferencing to remote computer access all benefit from faster connections. Sure you can do it (usually) with slower connections but it doesn't work as well. There are applications that only become feasible with faster internet connection speeds. Furthermore even when you don't technically need faster access it is still really nice to have. Why spend your life waiting when you don't have to?
what exactly am i missing without fast internet?
Probably just wasting your life in small increments waiting for data that could have been there faster. If you don't mind wasting your life waiting for something when you don't have to, then knock yourself out. Personally I want the fastest internet service I can reasonably afford because I can think of better things to do with my life than wait.
You sure about that, Chief? One simply does not compete with the US Government. They're the last one's I'd want meddling with my communications.
While the options are endless with bigger pipelines to the end users the average user doesn't need it. You remind me of over 10 years ago when I hosted big LANs (1000+ people). There were some hardcore users who also wanted Gbit lines and mind you, back then it was very expensive to have fibre lines to support that. After careful monitoring the switches we found out that even the hardcore users seldom actually went over 100Mbit. Now same for internet in your home, for normal users off site cloud solutions will never be asked for. HD can already be done with your current line. While we /.'ers may have better wishes the normal user doesn't need more. Yes he would like more but will he use that capacity, very doubtful.
Have you ever tried burying wire in Westford, MA? There's a reason everybody uses poles in New England, the same reason most farmers gave up. The ground has a little soil mixed with lots of big hard rocks. A Ditch-Witch cable backhoe won't work. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile to bury wire here, so it's only done in core cities or to go under some intersections. And with Westford's low suburban/exurban density (gotta love those big expanses of Chem-Lawn and SUV garages, the Amerucan Way), the number of subscribers per mile is low.
Amortizing out over many years when the government gave them enough to keep expanding the infrastructure - ie - lining their pockets while sitting on their asses.
Gotcha.
That's OK. Pretty soon the whole map will just say, "Comcast." That will make things a lot easier, don't you think?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
...We aren't allowed to have Europe-quality Internet access because freedom.
Basically, when a city is approached by Google as a candidate for new fiber, the city has two choices:
Obviously there is still greed on the part of the ISPs. But that doesn't mean that city governments are innocent in this matter.
most people don't "get" the internet.
most people just want to watch TV.
most people just want to make a (cell-)phone call.
most people think "facebook" is the internet (but would work great over a central server on a broadcast network, like a widget on cable-tv receiver)
so most "networks" are made to either broadcast .. tada...
TV or route phone calls. this is where the money comes
in. in the above networks, the internet part is just bolted on
as an "extra".
if you have ever owned a dial-up modem, then probably you "get"
the internet. it runs on a physical network made for
the internet.
it's obvious that the logical internet can handle a bolted on TV
or phone no problem : )
the other way around not so "no problem" : /
*beware physical broadcast networks that bend over backwards to get the internet working on it*
-
"a real connection is symmetrical", sayz the internet.
and what happened is, the cable division of Xcel Energy drilled through a gas main of the gas division of Xcel Energy in St. Cloud.
BOOM!
the 811 number for "call before you dig" is much busier now.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
You think that's bad? Check out this scene: http://www.loper-os.org/?p=38
The article says: "FCC can mandate right-of-way rules similar to those granted Google Fiber to all credible competitors."
If they did that, we'd have something similar. Instead, we need the same solution adopted in NYC at the end of the 19th century: common carrier status, one set of wires to a customer provided by a highly regulated utility. It should be treated as a Natural Monopoly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
Wow. I pay $50 per month for a 12 Mb download and 1.5 MB upload here in Albuquerque. I use Centurylink, Comcast here costs the same for 6Mb down every time I call them up. (These are prices without promotion) $35 per gig OMG that would be amazing. If Google sold theirs here for $55 or even $60 per month that would force Centurylink and Comcast to drop their prices. I'm happy with 12 Mb but $50 per month is quite high.
Everyone forgets that the population density of the U.S is 1/40th of South Korea and less than a tenth of Japan's density.
Also, the collusion of big biz lobbying and gov regulation screws us over. Obi One Google, you are our only hope.
Too lazy to log in.
First of all, if you think broadband is slow in the US, you clearly haven't traveled overseas. The numbers might look good on paper, but in the experience of myself and others the reality rarely reflects what the numbers promise.
Secondly, the arrangement telcos enjoy overseas is usually even more monopolistic than it is in the US. Usually, there's a single provider who does everything and often that company is partially owned by the government. Mind you, they're still for profit enterprises, their involvement with the government generally involves subsidies and infrastructure investment. The multiple providers you see are really nothing more than resellers. Service overseas isn't necessarily cheaper either, but when it is, that's thanks to those subsidies meaning that what you're saving on your monthly bill comes out of what you pay in taxes.
I'm not saying things are better in the US, but merely pointing out that the grass isn't as green overseas as these articles always imply.
I thought Florida voted for Al Gore?
That awful "red state" you lived in definitely elected Obama TWICE, voting liberal even after his first term demonstrated how effective he is. Of their two senators, one is Democrat. Damn red states.
I can watch HD video on Hulu Plus and Amazon.com with Cox High Speed internet. Am I missing something?
Other countries avoid tel-co monopolies whereas US corporations cite the 'invisible hand' (which is created from multiple vendors) then demand monopolies. Also other governments usually demand a minimum level of service in a tel-co's operating license.
Other than the new infrastructure Google is BUILDING? Go talk to any accountant, you'll often be able to fully depreciate infrastructure in 2-3 years. The cableco's will, of course, use that gear for a decade... (it wasn't until D3 that they had to replace entire chassis's; prior to that there were software and modular upgrades.)
This is full of libertarians who keep saying that we wouldn't be having problems with these corporations if government would just get out of the way. Now, I do get the frustration with moronic city governments who gave a defacto monopoly to one company to roll out service in their city..... and later of course the company keeps the monopoly and never quite gets around to doing the infrasctructure work. I get it. But...
No, things won't magically get better if we take government out of the picture. Why not? The free market would fix it!
Except that The Free Market is a myth. Any entity, be it government or corporate, immediately starts tinkering with the Free Market to make it Less Free. It Happens, and we need an entity that is responsible to US, the people, to keep everyone on a level playing field. Yes, i realize we don't have that in the U.S. Mainly because our reps are so busy dialing for dollars so they can get reelected. That buys influence.
Getting rid of government doesn't make companies magically behave better. Freedom Industries is going bankrupt instead of paying the price of their actions. They'll be back with a new name in a few months, and no one will be the wiser. There are no appreciable downfalls to bad corporate behavior.
Lest you think I'm a fan of government.... Well, I kind of am. That's because I don't take for granted all the roads, power, water, sewer, organization, building codes, blah blah blah that I get from my government. I like my civilization. I just think they're let the corps run amok. I'm not a fan of government for that reason alone.
If you want better broadband in the U.S., we need to get money out of politics. Call your reps, complain, get involved at a city level, Get Off Your Ass.
wolf-pac.com. I'm working on a solution, and we're doing Very Well. I'll be saving our country, and enabling a fix to our broadband woes (by getting money out of politcs and allowing anything useful to happen) while you're complaining to random strangers on the internet. :D
If it's such a fire hazard, why hasn't the country burned down a dozen times over by now? (phone lines don't carry enough power to cause a fire. power lines have fuses and breakers, and while downed lines do cause brush fires in dry climates, it's rare for a transmission line to be the cause of a structure fire -- faulty inside wire, on the other hand burns down a lot of houses.) Are you sure that was hemp and not asbestos? (asbestos was common for electrical insulation around 1920.)
If you're seeing this stuff today, it's because it's still working. There's no reason to replace it when it's still doing exactly what it was intended to do. Am I to assume you knock down your house every 5-10 years to "modernize"?
Speaking of fiber, in my town (a small college town, less than 9,000 people) There have been unmarked utility trucks installing underground fiber all over town. No one I've talked to has any idea who they are or what its for. (I've not reached the point of caring enough to go ask city officials) They literally installed fiber all the way around the perimeter of an empty lot. Anyone else seen this sort of activity?
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
It's working. Yes. It's just not very safe. And being a fire hazard doesn't mean that it has to burn down, I could easily give you a full blown fireworks display for the 4th of July in, say, Nevada without setting anything ablaze (mostly because I know what I'm doing, having the relevant training and a certificate to prove it). I still won't do it, simply because there IS actually a chance to cause a fire and the risk (causing a fire) is in no relation to the benefit (seeing some nice explosions).
The same applies to outdated insulation. Yes, it works. But the risk is in no relation to the cost to replace it. I'm the last person who thinks that you have to replace everything with the current fad, but I'd say from time to time it would be sensible to consider replacing something, even if it's still working. Just recently I threw out my still working refrigerator simply because I could get a model that uses FAR less power for the same work.
But if it is any consolation, my TV is about 10 years old (yes, it still works).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is it since downmods you applied cheating the moderation system will go away http://games.slashdot.org/comm... or is it since you're still eating your words after http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... for libeling him then you ran away like a scared little girl for opening your mouth and inserting your foot while you ate your words seasoned with the bitter taste of self-defeat. You also called apk a loser that can't program here http://slashdot.org/comments.p... well it looks like you lost on all accounts since apk's program http://start64.com/index.php?o... he can show for himself against your libelous bullshit that works well and is hosted by members of the security community (malwarebytes hpHosts) and you have nothing to show for yourself like he does. You were reduced to name calling and using anoncoward sockpuppets to support you to me and projecting your own issues in being an uber loser.
Again... its a joke
Who says that there isn't enough capacity? Most of the big ISPs are able to open the pipes and crank out massive throughput when really needed. If you're only receiving drips, follow the hose back to the big bully next door with his foot on it.
The reason why USAian broadband is so "slow" is because vendors (all vendors, everywhere) only supply a product that is "good enough", and no more, for people to pay the price they're paying. In the USA broadband is very cheap for what is being supplied.
In other countries around the world people can only dream of having that amount of bandwidth for that price. Suppliers outside of North America simply don't offer packages that cheaply.
Don't blame the Republicans, don't blame the Democrats. Blame yourself.
Look around for the politicians that are most likely to be bought by a big corporate interest. It's going to be from SAFE RED or SAFE BLUE districts / states.
You need to end this oligopoly of two parties over your politics.
And the solution isn't complicated, it already works in other countries.
Today third party candidates have enormous hurdles to get into the ticket, and then people typically don't vote for them, cause if he/she doesn't win, your vote was lost.
France has this simple difference, run off elections (not really an idea particular to France) but rather the criteria that all candidates with at least 10% of valid votes get to the run off (final) vote. Typical run off only gets the two best voted candidates. The run off doesn't happen if the best voted gets 50% + 1 of valid votes.
This has the following advantages:
1 - It only eliminate the fringe candidates but keep all significantly voted ones, this creates and incentive for alliances where for example, the 3rd voted allies with the 2nd voted and drop out of the run off, if he/she believes he can compromise a common ground
2 - If you didn't vote on the two best candidates on the opinion polls, it doesn't matter, if the best voted got 50% + 1 of votes and you didn't vote for him, than your vote couldn't change anything, otherwise the run off takes place, and then, on the run off you can select a second choice candidate that is more viable
3 - This would effectively reduce the importance of primary elections and give more importance to the general elections, so there could be a liberal, labor, conservative, centrist, libertarian parties, instead of everybody needs to be left, right or independent like today
Think about it
PS: I'm not from France. I'm Brazilian, we use a very stupid system, and we're raising awareness to move from the idiotic proportional voting system to district voting, and our movement favors the French system. Instead of having just two viable parties, Brazil is on the other extreme, with almost 25 parties and 6 or 7 parties with at least 5% of seats in the federal house. Huge mess here, but if we went district voting and ended up with bipartidarism, it would improve much less than it could.
Speed is a problem. The oligopolistic practices of companies like Verizon are a major factor. I took my laptop in to get an internet connection, and was told that "no wireless provider existed for Linux" because Linux only was an operating system that worked on minicomputers and large business computers, not on home pcs. (One of the salespeople had experience in the movie industry.) They only served Mac and Windows. When I opened my laptop and booted up Linux, they were amazed, as if I'd shown an effing miracle. This is in Alhambra, California, fifteen minutes from CalTech, so it's not quite in the sticks, except culturally. So why is a public utility permitted this lattitude?
Many non-rural locations in the UK can get 50/100Mb fibre or 80Mb VDSL.
Although more than $20 the cost is not really very high, particularly when bundled with voice/TV packages.
Places that cant get high speed can usually get up to 24Mb ADSL (which normally means 3-15Mb)... its usually under 15$ and often free with a TV package.
When I visit the US I'm shocked by the poor speed and reliability... even in central city locations... 3G and 4G GSM roaming (ATT or TMobile) is also pretty bad forcing you onto high cost Verizon/Sprint connections.
The reason why USAian broadband is so "slow" is because vendors (all vendors, everywhere) only supply a product that is "good enough", and no more, for people to pay the price they're paying. In the USA broadband is very cheap for what is being supplied.
In other countries around the world people can only dream of having that amount of bandwidth for that price. Suppliers outside of North America simply don't offer packages that cheaply.
While I agree with you that they (providers) usually only give us a little bit of bandwidth when they could easily provide more, I can not agree with your second paragraph. It might be true in a small percentage of countries, but the great majority have been putting in Fiber To The Home and giving their customers fantastic bandwidths (100Mb/100Mb or 1Gb/1GB) for less than what most cable internet providers charge their customers in America.
This was not true in 2007 and is not true today. Americans do NOT have it better with respects to Internet bandwidth. As of 2010, broadband penetration dropped to 25th place worldwide. We are not even on the chart any more, we have dropped that far, however we still pay more for less, no its not better in the US.
We, USA, dropped to 17th from 15th in 2008, but at least the US is on the chart
Wish it were not true, but it is.
"Broadband service here (Japan) is eight to 30 times as fast as (faster) in the United State..." and cheaper as well.
In the year 2000, most Japanese had 100Mb/100Mb, symmetrical FTTH, for less than $52 per month. Most American Cable providers charge well over $50 per month for a promise of 20Mb/2Mb that is throttled (except during the speedtest) to less than 300Kbps/40Kpbs. So in reality Americans pay a heck of allot more for a heck of allot less.
1GB/1GB; And this from 2008, thanks to the Fiber To The Home investment started in the year 2000 with the de-regulation of NTT in Japan, "The Hikari One Home Gigabit service will cost 5,460 (US$51.40) per month and provide an upstream and downstream connection at 1G bps"
Since most cable providers push customers to the $100 to $150 per month range, well it only is worse for Americans, not better. If you think its better, well their marketing works doesn't it.
If you can not get FTTH, only purchase DSL, do NOT purchase cable internet as they have always and will continue to always rip off consumers with higher prices for less service...its their business model, no matter what promises they have made over the years to provide Fiber. They will not unless forced to.
One day we may have it cheaper, but that day is not today...nor has it been for the last two decades. Here is a map that shows you were you can move to in order to get Fiber To The Home (FTTH). Well worth it if the bank took your home as those communities are creating better paying jobs faster than other communities in the US.
So I don't really understand why utility quality doesn't seem to affect realty prices. Maybe if Zillow and Craigslist started including broadband rankings from broadbandreports.com for homes and rentals alongside listings, we'd get somewhere. Thus far, it doesn't seem to appear on the radar, somewhere far beyond "school rankings in standardized testing" and even "price of garbage collection".
I agree with your thoughts on FTTH or no FTTH should increase or decrease prices respectively. In fact they do and here is your proof: It typically costs between $1,500 and $3,000 to put in FTTH and adds $5,000 to the value of the home per this article. If that article does not load, this one will...FTTH adds $5,000 to price of a home.
In reality it is worth way more in economic development and jobs for your community.
Since real estate can be negotiated, feel free to take $5,000 off the price of any home that does not have FTTH. The worse they can say is NO.
Better yet move to one of the less than 30 communities in the USA that has symmetrical FTTH. These communities have more jobs, more prosperity and absolutely no incentive to throtlle / limit your internet broadband in any way.
Here's a thought: kill the video. Make Netflix and Youtube, etc. build their own pay-per-byte network as a separate entity entirely. Nobody NEEDS to see that shit. The bandwidth and energy wasted on video is unbelievable.
gosgog:
Government in the country in which I live has essentially 5 providers, & we have the slowest internets in the world, U.S., is second slowest. Our basic 5 providers are actually owned by 2 companies, but one outfit actually owns 4 of the provider companies, the other one is competition. The Big .4 company tried some 10 years back to buy the independent but the Gov't decided we should have competition, & back then, with landline before cell phone there was more independence. However, today's Big outfit had a lock on all overseas calls. Theoretically that was the Gov't wanting to maintain all communication to be nationally owned, except in reality it was FINANCED unpublicized by Chinese money.Today for about $23.00 we have basic broadband & DSL, & slightly faster speeds are available,they offer in some cases unlimited amount of GB availability daily & sell as such, but in many cases if even you pay the extra you may still be be restricted
Oh you can blow another one, but you have to pull the first one first. Conduit to single premises are a couple of millimetres inside diameter just so that you can blow a single narrow fibre. When you pull thicker trunk lines you attach the bundle to a "cushion" with the same inner diameter as the tube and hook what you're pulling to that
Thanks for the clarification. But even assuming that a tube not empty is full, the city could still tear up the roads once to lay a bundle of several conduits for future expansion, tied up sort of like a Twizzlers Pull 'n' Peel candy.
We need to reveal the ISPs for the oligopolies that they are. Each town probably has one ISP (like above, I have DSL (1-4 Mbps) or CableVersion (fat pipe, but bundled up over $200 / month... On the flip side.. is it time to sell short on the ISPs that will soon get hammered?