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Ask Slashdot: When and How Did Europe Leapfrog the US For Internet Access?
New submitter rsanford, apropos of today's FCC announcement about what is officially consided "broadband" speed by that agency, asks In the early and middle 90's I recall spending countless hours on IRC 'Trout-slapping' people in #hottub and engaging in channel wars. The people from Europe were always complaining about how slow their internet was and there was no choice. This was odd to me, who at the time had 3 local ISPs to choose from, all offering the fastest modem connections at the time, while living in rural America 60 miles away from the nearest city with 1,000 or more people. Was that the reality back then? If so, what changed, and when?
You see, the internet is all about the cloud these days. Most parts of Europe are cloudier than the U.S., ergo, they get better internet access.
In the US we gave our telcos massive tax cuts in the 90s in exchange for fiber rollout. The telcos took the money and ran.
Don't worry I'm sure the market will sort it out...
Thats why you have free market, capitalism and democracy!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
We subsidized something, it turns out it certainly wasn't broadband.
I think you subsidized the bonus payouts to the telco executives...
Don't worry I'm sure the benefits will trickle down through the economy
LOL
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I don't believe you (about the "girlfriend" part, not the "fiber" part).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
According to the commercials I get on my Comcast Xfinity operating system, when the government rolls out fiber networks, it uses baby carcasses to do it and violates hundreds of international non-competition treaties, so we have to leave it up to the telcos or we will all die of autism.