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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.
interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:interesting (Score:2)
finland: around 16 persons./km2.
true, finland is a small nation, but so is every us state on it's own.
basically, you can get phone anywhere, and basically you can get adsl anywhere you can get that (landline)phone in. it's more about people WANTING the service and firms thinking it's a bright idea to provide that service, and since the infastructure needs to be upgraded every few years anyways, providing the service doesn't get to be such a big issue. mind you, we pay for local call
Re:interesting (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, I do care, because I'm American and computers are my bread and butter. I worry that we're losing our edge. People in Korea and elsewhere are rapidly embracing the technology, while all Comcast (my broadband provider) can think to do is raise rates and tell me not to use the Internet for anything too unconventional.
Re:interesting (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No Need to Be Jealous of Korea: the American Wa (Score:5, Informative)
thousands want to emigrate. Few, if any Americans, want to emigrate to Korea.
Don't kid yourself, most immigrants do so for economic reasons. To get closer to the
captilatist Mecca that the USA is.
Is your "health care" system an aspect of your so called "nation of compassion"?
Re:No Need to Be Jealous of Korea: the American Wa (Score:5, Funny)
Hey buddy, two Trolls don't make a Right. (Score:2)
South Korea. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:South Korea. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:South Korea. (Score:2, Funny)
As the one person in his country with access to email, yes, over there, he probably is.
Re:South Korea. (Score:2)
Baghdad Bob? Is that you over there in North Korea? How's it going, buddy? What a relief, we thought you'd been killed.
Re:South Korea. (Score:2)
Re:South Korea. (Score:2)
Re:South Korea. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:South Korea. (Score:5, Funny)
And there is no North Korea either (Score:2)
Re:And there is no North Korea either (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, and I suppose you're going to tell me that the abbreviation "DDR" didn't always refer to RAM either.
It's called "North Korea" simply as a conventional short-form of the name, much like how you would refer to "East Germany" and "West Germany" instead of DDR and BRD. "North Korea" simply has fewer syllables than "DPRK" and is similar to saying "America" and "Great Britain." Neither American continent is ruled by just one government and the island of Great Britain is a part of a larger government, but people still know what you mean.
Of course, if you really want to be technical, there is no "South Korea" either. It's the "Republic of Korea." Similarly, there is no Taiwan (even if you ignore the whole "One China Policy" thing). But who'd want to keep on reading sentences like "The United States of America borders on the United Mexican States" or "Some of the big players in Europe include the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Republic of France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation." About the only country I can think of whose "formal" name is the same as the informal one is Canada, and I think that's at least partly due to the fact that adding any more words to it would require two official names (one English, one French).
Funny you should mention Canada (Score:5, Informative)
With Timothy's typically unenlightened, American Apologist addendum to the original post, and I quote:
The U.S. is a lot more spread out than Korea, though -- some American cities are pretty well connected.
one would expect Canada, which is even larger than the US, less densly populated even in its populated areas, and much so in its rural areas, to have even less broadband availability than the United States. However, surprising as it is to many of my countrymen, broadband is both more widely availabe and less expensive in Canada, indeed, in rural Canada, than it is in downtown Chicago.
This wasn't always the case
No longer.
Although I live in the heart of the city, a mere 10 minute walk from the dense, commercial portion of the city commonly referred to as the "loop," I am unable to get affordable DSL at anything greater than 1 Mbit. This, in contrast to the very inexepensive, 2 Mbit and better offerings available to rural residents of Alberta.
The dichotomy between the United States and Korea (South) isn't one of geography, it is one far more closely related to the dichotomy between Korea (South) and Korea (North), i.e. the difference between a nation with a well managed telecommunications industry and one with a poorly managed telecommunications industry, and while America (The US) bears little resemblence to the deprivations of North Korea, we probably owe that more to a history of decent management which has only, since about the 1980s, become an ongoing condition of zero and even negative-sum gameplaying by our leaders, in contrast to North Korea's fifty odd year of starkly negative-sum policies.[1]
However, if those of us living here do not get off our butts and insist on good governance, for the good of the many and not just the few, we may find ourselves, in not so many generations at all, bearing a striking resemblence to the third world we so like to disparage. Indeed, arguably, in terms of health care and telecommunications, we already do. Let's hope the greed of the ruling class and their political pawns doesn't extend that to our home or, worse, our food supply.
[1]Negative-sum games are scenerios in which a player's strategy is to win in such a way that the overall wealth is decreased, but their sum total increases. Imagine starting out with three pies, throwing one in the face of your opponent, and then running off with the other two. Only two pies remain, but 2 pies are better for you than merely 1 1/2. Or imagine an intellectual property regime that impoverishes the culture of billions, but makes a few thousand people filthy rich, and a few million able to make ends-meet, if just barely.
Zero sum is where you compete for portions of a pool of wealth which neither grows nor shrinks. Assuming a fair outcome, you both end up with 1.5 pies. Assuming an unfair, but nevertheless non-destructive, zero-sum scenerio, the three pies remain in existence and are divvied up in some fashion favoring one party or the other.
Positive sum scenerios are of course the best, and in terms of physical goods (and limited supply), capitalism generally excels here (except in situations of monopolies, be they 'natural', such as roads and telephone wire, or through economic or political force, such as the East India Tea company in days of yore, or Microsoft today). In this scenerio a strategem is employed that results in the creation of additional pies, which may or may not be shared freel
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
And North America... :) (Score:2)
reg free link (Score:5, Informative)
Fragile broadband lead (Score:3, Funny)
One well-placed North Korean nuke and South Korea's broadband capacity won't look quite as attractive to business.
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:3, Insightful)
One well-placed North Korean nuke and South Korea's broadband capacity won't look quite as attractive to business.
More to the point, North Korea has artillery in position right now that could level Seoul in 5 minutes, and It's been like that for years. Talk about a mind-fuck.
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:2)
> surprise.
Even if South Korea fired first, Seoul would still be gone. Current estimates are that it would take South Korean and US forces on the order of 24 hours, with heavy bomber support, to eliminate the North Korean artillery.
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:2, Insightful)
PS: Although that is one way to look at things, it is also possible that North Korea has always wanted nukes and has used the Iraqi war as an excuse to build them. Either way, America has made North Korea a lot more justified in building up their weapons programs.
Teacher: Peace begets peace and war beg
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, North Korea started their nuke buildup in the 1990's. 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. 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 J
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...
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:3, Insightful)
The US fully complied with the agreement.
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.
Most of the process of getting nukes is gaining the technical expertise to build them. They can sell this without losing it. Also, they can keep some
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:2)
If the US fully complied with the agreement they made, than N. Korea would have had "safe" nuclear power generators going by 1998. The US lagged really hard on the nuclear power issue, which was probably the most important aspect of the agreement (from a Korean point of view.) I'm not advocating in any way N. Korea's actions, but the US was not an altar-boy (molested or no) in the exchange.
Most of the process of getting nukes is gaining the technical expertise
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is Bush just destroyed an existing government and invaded another country without UNSEC approval. That would make anybody nervous who is listed on Bush's Axis of Evil list.
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:2, Insightful)
The US, South Korea, and Japan have been providing large amounts of food aid to North Korea for years now.
They signed the so-called 'Sunshine' agreement (The official name was the 'agreeded' protocal, or something like that), guaranteeing oil, and light water reactors in exchange for shelving their nuclear weapons program.
Then North Korea says, oh, by the way, we've been building nukes all along.
And using nukes as a deterrent? Bullshit. They are using nukes fo
Re:Fragile broadband lead (Score:4, Funny)
And North Korea won't look attractive to anyone but cockroaches.
Oh, wait...
"But profits are elusive." (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
lets not forget what type of economic system (Score:3, Informative)
so the governement told the telco to make broadband available every where and the telco did.
Re:lets not forget what type of economic system (Score:2, Funny)
What, the Government spends all it's time encouraging the erection of more government buildings?
(hur hur, he said 'erection')
Much Easier in Korea (Score:5, Insightful)
Koreas definitely at the forefront - subway has cell phone access, mainstream TV shows feature live gaming
Re:Much Easier in Korea (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Much Easier in Korea (Score:3, Informative)
The majority of Canada's population is concentrated near the border... where it's a little warmer.
Re:Much Easier in Korea (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not surprised... (Score:5, Insightful)
We've gone from ~$30/mo for 6Mb in the @Home days to nearly $50/mo for 1.5Mb thanks to ATT and now Comcast. In another 5 years, BB will be $100/mo for 768Kb. Gee, more money for less speed, I can't imagine why it's not taking off!
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!).
Re:Blame Canada (Score:2)
Re:Canada's density makes it different (Score:3, Informative)
It has a telephone company^Wmonopoly called SaskTel [sasktel.com], which was the firt DSL provider in North America. "It is now available in 158 cities and towns across the province - and will reach 237 communities by the end of 2003"
Check it out here [wideopenfuture.ca] Apparently it was also the first in the world to release 3G mobile networking. It also built the largest fibre optic cabling network in the world. Don't know if that
Re:Blame Canada (Score:4, Funny)
While you are technically correct, I need to point out that while most Canadians live *close* to the continental U.S. border, very very few actually live right near it. The reasons Canadians are located geographically where they are is:
1) Proximity to water (due to early colonization)
2) Milder weather
It's a common misconception in the U.S. that Canadians all live near the U.S. because they want to be close to it but if that were true, Windsor and Niagara Falls would be the size of Toronto, and only about 300 people (all MPs) would live in Ottawa. The truth is, heavy pollution and frequent shootings tend to kill off anyone who lives to close to the U.S.
Ha ha, just kidding. (kind of)
RTFA Timothy (Score:3, Insightful)
At who's expense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At who's expense? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:At who's expense? (Score:2)
You pay taxes for schools that you don't use, and to support the Interstate Highway System even if you don't have a car.
Society as a whole pays for the infrastructure expenses required to allow its functioning as a society that whose expenses can't be directly allocated to the specifically benefiting groups.
While this is "immoral" according to the tenet of Libertarian cult belief, it means that we get a society that can
The only problem.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this a good thing? (Score:2)
We've tried the whole "government encouragement" bit to an extent, except our phone companies aren't interested in having their cake if they can't eat it as well.
I expect the Baby Bells to be using this as an excuse to lobby our Congress to loosen up the Telecommunications Act of 1996 a bit...
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?
Re:How about Canada? (Score:3, Interesting)
Guess you're too young to remember just how bad the state-monopoly telco really was
Canada? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Canada? (Score:4, Informative)
However, that doesn't account for everything. We're far enough north to be outside that 85% and everyone here is getting broadband for less than $35CAD ($24.50 USD -- and I'm paying $17.50USD now) and we've been on broadband for a couple of years. Most people I know are on broadband, and dialup is quickly becoming a historical artifact.
It was really bizarre for me to actually have to use my modem a few weeks ago when I was on a business trip... I had forgotten how slow dialup really was!
Mod Parent Up (Score:2)
Re:How about Canada? (Score:2)
I can't speak for all of America, but my reason is that once government starts paying for something, it ineluctably starts to remake it in ways pleasing to it. The attitude is, "we're laying out the dough for this thing, and that makes it ours." An example would be government-paid health care. Because it's picking up the check for some people, government feels it can cajole, nag, and regulate those who smoke, drink, are o
Re:How about Canada? (Score:2)
The gov't has no money of it's own! Any funds they get come from thee and me anyway. How would we benefit from having another tax to fund this? Broadband is already available in a lot of places, and people are not adopting it now. Some even leaving cable/DSL and going back to dialup. And if it isn't available in your earea. there's always (yuck) satellite.
Where is the killer app that demands gov't funded broadband? We already have an int
It's not about being spread out. (Score:2)
Obviously the list shows this is not the case, so other factors are at work.
Re:How about Canada? (Score:2)
Re:How about Canada? (Score:2)
ARPANET was a defense initiative so major universities that subsisted on defense funding could communicate with one another quickly during the Cold War. I think the rise of the public Internet was a pleasant surprise for everybody.
It's not clear what the return on investment will be for a legislated rollout of broadband. In Cana
Re:How about Canada? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How about Canada? (Score:2)
6 Provinces and three territories worth of population. Saskatchewan was the first place in North America to get DSL(Saskatoon and Regina were the first cities), and Moose Jaw had it before Calgary!
Sasktel still provides high quality service for low rates. Manitoba is only slightly behind Saskatchewan, and the Atlantic provinces (Newfoundland and Labr
South Korea is so (un)wired it's scary (Score:5, Informative)
I was being made fun of by old people because my state-of-the-art US cell phone at the time was a "brick".
Obviously, broadband is just as widespread. My 80-year old grandmother doesen't even have a washing machine, but she has DSL, for crying out loud.
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 t
Fast Internet (Score:2)
Broadband aside, one of the reasons Internet connectivity in England is so fast is that pretty much all of the ISP's are housed in 2 buildings - Telehouse City and Telehouse East. This is doable because England is so small (about the size of Florida). Therefore, if you connect to another UK site the chances are your interconnect is over a 100Mbit (or even faster) LAN connection.
Is it the same way in South Korea? If so local Internet must be blindingly fast!
I would love to see this
Re:Fast Internet (Score:2)
Broadband aside, one of the reasons Internet connectivity in England is so fast is that pretty much all of the ISP's are housed in 2 buildings - Telehouse City and Telehouse East.
You're kidding! You mean one natural (or unnatural) disaster and half of England is off the net? That seems very September 10th.
Re:Fast Internet (Score:2)
The chances are that it'd take a pretty powerful bomb to knock out those buildings, though - my theory is that if a nuke hit Telehouse the walls and floor would crumble but the racks would be held up by the massive amount of wiring.
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
Didn't this happen to the Soviet Union? (Score:2)
Interesting, but... (Score:3, Flamebait)
if you prefer... (Score:2)
Did you see the comments above about the guy who took a US state-of-the-art mobile phone to South Korea and gave the South Koreans a chance to laugh at those primitive Americans by doing so?
As I said, you got your wish.
Yeah right. (Score:4, Insightful)
The neo-cons may mistakenly believe the pseudo-libertarian notion that everything should be a market, but any student of history and economics knows that a society is best served when public utilities are managed in the interest of the public as a whole. In case you didn't notice, sewage, gas, electricity, water, and roads are considered public utilities. What's so different about telecommunications?
Cities well wired? (Score:4, Informative)
...but I have ONE choice in cable, and last I checked, DSL wasn't being sold in my area by Bell- they don't offer DSL anywhere there's cablemodem access, because(gasp!) they don't want to compete. I think they may have started offering DSL now(they CO has been wired for DSL for many, many years), but the prices are absurd and there's a 96kbit upload cap. Yes, you read right, 96kbit! How am I supposed to upload cute photos to grandma, or "my files" they've always got some business-person-type harking about, for work, at 96kbit?
In lower/mid-westchester 2 years ago, I had 1.5mbit/768 for about $70/mo, and my choice of providers(I went with Speakeasy and paid a little more per month.) I was quite far from NYC, and Westchester doesn't have nearly the technology industry that most of eastern MA has.
Cheap in Asia (Score:5, Informative)
However, a lot of people used the free dial-up service. So, broadband ISPs had to push to get customers. They have done things like offering extremely cheap service and promising amazing speeds. This is not only limited to Taiwan, similar broadband pushes have occurred in China, Hong Kong, and even South Korea.
To comment on timothy's blurb and the article, although the US is well connected it does not have the push that Asian countries go for. The $32/month internet service is quite expensive in South Korea. Although the US is widespread, laws and regulations have also hindered the spread of broadband. For instance, there is no law in the US forcing cable systems to have competitors when it comes to broadband internet. There may be other examples, but I will leave that to Slashdotters to discuss.
Re:Cheap in Asia (Score:2, Insightful)
The key difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Particularly discouraging is that the US doesn't even have a policy to get broadband into every home on the horizon while practically all other modern, democratized nations do. We're still waiting for the Free Market Fairy to come along and wave her magic wand.
Re:The key difference (Score:2)
So, take your "collective investment" bullshit and take it to China. Here in America, you buy things you need and don't rely on the government to tax the population to provide you with non-necessities. Want high-speed access? Sure, buy it yourself. But
Re:The key difference (Score:2)
Not a dream, but a nightmare (spam) (Score:4, Insightful)
Once this and other rogue nations and ISPs behave in a responsible manner, perhaps they can rejoin the club. Now back to our regular programming :-) . . .
Re:Not a dream, but a nightmare (spam) (Score:2)
And similarly, many departments in the university I used to go in Estonia have blocked MSN, Yahoo, AOL and all other significant US ISPs because most of their spam originates from there. Obviously, such blind blocking is not a very good idea, and Koreans certain
Korea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Size doesn't matter (Score:5, Informative)
From the article, here is a list showing the broadband penetration as a percentage of Internet households:
Re:Size doesn't matter (Score:2)
How long has the U.S. had country-wide phone service?
When was the last time there was a war on U.S. soil that trashed most of the country and forced it to rebuild from scratch?
Re:Size doesn't matter (Score:2)
Canada, being highly urbanized, has a higher percentage of its population in dense urban areas, so providing broadband is easier.
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)
The real problem (Score:2)
They could have pressured Silicon Valley Power and PG&E to open their utility fiber optic networks to provide Silicon Valley with cheap bandwidth. Presumably, they were too busy figuring out what parts of their companies to outsource to bother.
The new
broadband (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
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 dece
Re:keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
South Korea: 98,480 sq km [photius.com]
New Jersey: 11,936 sq km [fedstats.gov]
Will you people, who don't know what you are talking about, kindly shut the hell up.
Re:keep in mind (Score:2)
7,417 square miles, at any rate.
Re:keep in mind (Score:2)
I already posted the correction, but thanks for pointing it out again. I also do know, I just did it wrong initially and after I posted realized that I did it wrong, so I do know I just made a mistake.
Shut your own trap!
Coming from an AC.. and I posted my correction before you posted, so... what's your point here?
Mistak
didn't pay attn. in geography in school? (Score:2, Informative)
keep in mind to check the facts:
S. Korea [cia.gov] : 98,190 sq km
New Jersey [pe.net]: 20,295 sq km.
so by my math: S.Korea is roughly 5 times bigger than NJ, more like Indiana.
Oops.
Re:Sick of the NY Time links (Score:3, Insightful)
http://nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/worldbusine ss/05BROA.html?pagewanted=all&position= [nytimes.com]
with this valid link from Google:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/worldbu siness/05BROA.html?ex=1052712000&en=5906ece0642a35 44&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE [nytimes.com]
What you suggest, which looks something like this, simply does not work:
http://nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/worldbusine ss/05BROA.html?pagewanted=all&position=&partner=GO OGLE [nytimes.com]