America's Broadband Dream Is Alive-- In Korea 356
An anonymous reader writes "America's Broadband Dream Is Alive in Korea thanks to government encouragement, according to the NY times (free reg, etc...). But profits are elusive." The U.S. is a lot more spread out than Korea, though -- some American cities are pretty well connected.
Blame Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
And what about Canada? They're up there too with ~%50 penetration. You can't really claim that they're much less spread out than the US. I imagine that dense urban areas, where implementing broadband would be easiest, make up a similar percentage of population as well.
On top of that their rates are lower than those in the US (in Candian $'s nonetheless!).
How about Canada? (Score:5, Interesting)
The U.S. is a lot more spread out than Korea, though -- some American cities are pretty well connected.
From what I gather, DSL and Cable is cheaper and more available in Canada than in the US. And we know that Canada is much more "spread out" than the US. So that's not the reason at all.
I don't understand why Americans are so against government intervention in this area. It's not so evil or communist to have the government subsidize, legislate or otherwise help create infrastructure. Nobody calls the US interstate highway system "communist" or "socialist" because the government built it. Besides, who paid for ARPANET in the first place? What ARPANET communist?
Wow, Canada is double than US (Score:5, Interesting)
1- South Korea : 57.4 %
2- Canada : 49.9 %
3- Japon : 25.6 %
4- USA : 22.8 %
Canada ratio is double than that of USA !
I guess that kind of make the argument "The U.S. is a lot more spread out than Korea" a bit overdue at the very least
Re:How about Canada? (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess you're too young to remember just how bad the state-monopoly telco really was
Re:How about Canada? (Score:1, Interesting)
Canada is much more "spread out" than the US
Ummm... About 99% of Canadians live on 1% of the landmass. As you can see in This Photo [nasa.gov] the northern 75% of the country is virtually deserted.
Re:Much Easier in Korea (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Damn Canadians (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously though, even many small towns in Canada have high speed. I live in a town (note, not even a city) that has not even a movie theatre or a small mall, yet we still have ADSL, Cable, and (crappy reception in many areas but...) cell-phone access. From what I've heard, it's often cheaper here too.
Here, it's the telco and cableco that mostly run the show. My telco does a really decent job of it most times too (Telus), though I dislike the requirement of a landline to run my ADSL. Cable is less so... it can be damn slow at some times/locations. I wonder why not as many telcos in the US aren't abandoning the old-fashioned phone-market for a higher focus on cellular/internet connectivity?
Re:Sigh... (Score:2, Interesting)
A government is for governing and protecting its citizens, not offering luxury goods to them. If the government did this, what is next, universal "socialist" health care? A pair of pants on every citizen? I mean, come on!
The government funded electricity and telephone service in its infancy, but those were utilities. I don't see how broadband is a utility.
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:4, Interesting)
In response to the USSR falling.
They signed agreement with the US essentially not to do so in exchanges for food,energy equipment, and other stuff. Then they took their program underground.
After the US didn't do shit to help them.
It has only now come out, now that they may have 2 nuclear devices. Now they are threatning overtly to use them against The US or Japan.
They are saying, "If you attack us, we will use them." They aren't saying, "We will use them."
Unspoken, is that North Korea would be willing to sell them to anyone. They already sell missile and other military tech to anybody.
They won't. The only guarantee they have to safety is their nuclear arsenal. Why sell the thing that keeps you safe? You may think, "Oh, but they can sell them secretely and still claim they have it." The world intelligence is pretty good, and that ruse wouldn't last long.
It is pretty funny that you would suggest Bush is a fanatic and not suggest that of the North Korean dictator.
They're both fanatics. At least Bush is productive in his cleansing, or whatever...
2Mbps/512kbps (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, those guys, who have run on free software for year (hence the name, Free), have developed their own set-top box, AKA Freebox, which is more than just an ADSL modem: it's got 100baseTX, USB1.1, 2x phone RJ-11, one SCART and has an IR remote control.
They plan on providing digital TV and phone service through ADSL soon. Service is unrestricted, unmetered, unfiltered, static IP through DHCP, though still a bit rough around the edge at times.
Some observations (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Much Easier in Korea (Score:2, Interesting)
broadband (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Funny you should mention Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks to me like Canada doesn't exactly have a homogeneous population distribution. [nasa.gov] Once you get 50 or 100 miles away from the border, Ontario and Quebec look about as empty as Alaska, and even out west you can easily see all the lights clumping around places like Calgary. Heck, looking at the US east of the Mississippi, I'd say a good chunk of the US is more homogeneously distributed than even western Europe. Even South Korea is a bit more "clumpy."
It's much easier to wire together a heterogeneous population because you just have to deal with sporadic, concentrated clumps here and there. You just need a whole bunch of short-range connections (such as DSL) with a few longer leads here and there to connect the clumps (A T-3 pipe here and there). An even distribution, on the other hand, is much trickier, requiring a whole mess of medium-to-long connections between users, where DSL doesn't reach far enough an a leased line is just way too expensive.
I'm sorry, but at first glance it doesn't look like comparisons between Canada and the US hold water.
Re:Sigh... (Score:1, Interesting)
One big access point. (Score:3, Interesting)
We're being told the country will have 802.11b end-to-end by the end of summer. The airport has had it for the last year. The old and new govts. push for this type of infrastructure. New apt. buildings for the last two years come jacked for broadband. If you have a need for speed, this is the place...