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)."

Comments

How can the situation be improved?

[fustakrakich]

Competition... From the government, if necessary. Let's put our tax dollars to work for us for a change.

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not competition, it's service. The government is meant to serve the people, and sometimes that means providing utilities for the public, with the public's input and desires accommodated.

As long as we keep private enterprise from buying up the regulations anyway.

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[Taco Cowboy]

It's not competition, it's service

Say what ??

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.

I was one of the many thousands who were pulling cables in order to hook up the communities - and then the government stepped in, and gave the telco / cable operator the rights over others - which leads to what we have today, a scene where competition has been artificially choked off, and the country has suffered for it !

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[Cimexus]

Agreed - more competition is needed.

I moved here to the US from Australia last year. While speeds in Australia are nothing spectacular, we did have a LOT of choice when it came to ISPs. In Australia, in a mid-sized city (~350,000 people), there was a choice of 20-30 ISPs (ADSL2+, VDSL2 or in some areas, fibre). Here in the US, in a similarly-sized city, I have a choice of precisely one provider (the local cable monopoly).

Ok that's not entirely true - I also have AT&T DSL as a choice, at a whopping maximum speed of 6 Mbps down / 512 kbps up. But really, that's a non-option - it costs roughly the same and is 10 times slower than cable. (That upstream speed in particular is ridiculous in the year 2014 ... no idea why they don't use ADSL2+ with Annex M or similar tech to boost that up to 1-2 Mbps at least ... but I digress)

Having at least just a couple more options for ISPs would help, you'd think. With the vast majority of people in the US having only one or two choices of provider, what incentive do those providers have to improve their product? They have a captive customer base who literally have nowhere else to turn.

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[cold fjord]

You've just noted that there is an existing infrastructure, and it is common to live off of existing infrastructure until forced to move off it. To that I will add that if I recall correctly, 10 years ago 90% of the optical fiber that existed was dark - there wasn't enough demand for it due to overbuilding in previous years. I wouldn't be surprised if that had something to do with the leisurely pace in adding both capacity and speed.

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's not competition, it's service. The government is meant to serve the people, and sometimes that means providing utilities for the public, with the public's input and desires accommodated.

As long as we keep private enterprise from buying up the regulations anyway.

Arguably, 'internet access' can be broken down into two (broad) components, one a fairly natural 'utility' and one much easier to build a functional marketplace for.

The last-mile bit pipe between your house and whatever the local aggregation point is is, like most 'utilities' strongly inclined toward being a natural monopoly. Not as bad as something like roads(where running multiple competing roads simply wouldn't fit, in most cases); but between the cost and the disruption of laying additional runs, there is very, very strong pressure toward a sharply limited number of, typically incumbent, wireline players, with maybe a feeble wireless competitor that is compelling if you use under 5GB a month.

Once you hit the aggregation point, though, anything that flows over IP can, relatively easily, be offered for hookup to your pipe. Cheap residential ISPs, fancier offerings with loads of static IPs and symmetric bandwidth, assorted VOIP and video offerings, anything you can shove down a pipe.

Keeping the connection between me and the aggregation point installed, maintained, and lit seems like a perfectly sensible function for either the local municipality, or a suitably-tamed contract operator(It's a matter of pragmatism and local choice whether the work be done by municipal employees or an outside firm; but natural monopolies are to be kept on very short leashes). Once you hit the aggregation point, though, the more the merrier. Subscribing or unsubscribing is just a few ruleset changes, so can be fairly frictionless, and this avoids any...potentially unseemly....favor or disfavor by the municipal government toward specific content or services. They just keep the lights on, you buy what you want, or nothing at all(though, even if you buy nothing, it might well be cost-effective for the municipality itself to still offer access to its own site, emergency services contacts, etc. to residents, since traffic on the LAN costs near zero.

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've just noted that there is an existing infrastructure, and it is common to live off of existing infrastructure until forced to move off it. To that I will add that if I recall correctly, 10 years ago 90% of the optical fiber that existed was dark - there wasn't enough demand for it due to overbuilding in previous years. I wouldn't be surprised if that had something to do with the leisurely pace in adding both capacity and speed.

Bingo. The ISP I work for isn't looking at laying new fiber in trenches, what we're looking at is upgrading the equipment on either end. There are plenty of situations where an existing fiber pair can carry 10x or 100x more data simply by putting better optics on it, but that shit isn't cheap. Then you have to figure that Carrier-grade routers and switches also need to be upgraded, and those things can get really fucking expensive. And all the internal bandwidth in the world won't do your customer jack shit if you can't find peering/transit partners who are willing to increase the capacity at the handoff points without charging a shitload of money.

Sure, more fiber is better, but it's only a small part of the overall picture.

Re: How can the situation be improved?

[AudioEfex]

Cute. Who the hell gets high speed Internet for $20/mo? Most of us are stuck with cable, which costs far more than that. Even though I don't live in the sticks, DSL is not an option available to me because I'm between two stations. And even where DSL is an option, it's speed is unreliable and not great to begin with. So I have two choices - Time Warner, or EarthLink - which just resells...Time Warner. The problem is the cable companies being in control of the majority of the broadband services in the country. They want to keep up the status quo and everyone in the dark ages as long as possible. The entire industry is anti-competitive to begin with, we should have a slew of cable providers to choose from, but we don't because they grease so many palms in Washington. They get to be anti-competitive like a utility (I can't change water or sewer companies, either) but don't have the same restrictions and other controls to keep them from overcharging for their services.

Re:How can the situation be improved?

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys aren't that bad, you just can't compete with Europe or Asia (how should you? the US is quite bigger and harder to lay down fiber)

That is a bit of strange myth. Apart from central US perhaps being a bit empty many states are comparable to European nations.
Take for example California, it is just marginally smaller than Sweden and approximately the same shape. With four times the population one would think that the internet should be faster, cheaper or at least comparable.
It is all just politics.

Re: How can the situation be improved?

[rastos1]

Who the hell gets high speed Internet for $20/mo?

Me. I pay 15€/month for 100Mbps down 10Mbps up over fiber in east Europe country. Another 6€ for TV and phone delivered on the same connection. The rest of the life here sucks, but that internet connection is great.

Re: How can the situation be improved?

[AmiMoJo]

Who the hell gets high speed Internet for $20/mo?

Japan. Korea. Eastern Europe. Even some western European countries give you pretty good speeds for $20/month, with no cap.

Apologists will point to differences in population density, geography, history and so forth, but the simple fact is that the US is being raped by ISPs. The UK is in the same situation, if it makes you feel any better.

Why Is US Broadband So Slow?

[Anonymous Coward]

Answer: corporate greed.

Big picture remedy

[oldhack]

Cut down the biggest branch of our government - the lobbying industry.

I could be wrong, but...

[The Grim Reefer]

Didn't we give the telecoms a shitload of money during the Clinton years to build out high speed internet?

Re:govt enforces the monopoly. Want govt monopoly?

[TheGratefulNet]

you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Government.

I have issues with them, too; but I'd rather a non-corporate entity build out and even own our infrastructure than profitmongers!

roads, water, electricity, bridges: all were started by government and that was the major funder. we would not have postal system and roads 'to everywhere' if the decision was left to the profiteering ones.

infrastructure is one of the things goverments do best.

as for your bullshit distraction about how well congress works, that's neither here nor there nor part of any thread on this topic. sheesh.