Broadband Envy: Fixing American Broadband 847
Ant writes "Broadband Reports has a story on broadband services among countries including United States falling behind: 'Bombarded with tales of South Koreans and Swedes watching high-definition soap-operas via 100Mbps connections, the media has apparently developed a nasty case of broadband envy. This Reuters article suggests the US has "missed the high speed revolution", while last week Business Week dubbed America a "broadband backwater".'"
Re:Yawn. Same old story. (Score:5, Informative)
His 10mbit cable modem is a little over 3x as fast as...
The article is a bit unclear here, so it's understandable that you think he has a cable modem. In fact bredbandsbolaget delivers 10mbit ethernet to apartment houses, connected to an optical fiber connection. This means that they deliver 10mbit in both directions, which is significantly different from what any high-speed DSL/cable modems are capable of delivering.
We are also comparing Sweeden to the United States... I don't need to rehash the fact that the US is quite a bit larger than Sweeden and the population dense areas are quite a distance apart.
Population density, Sweden: 20 citizens/square kilometer.
Population density, USA: 33 citizens/square kilometer. (CIA Factbook)
As for population dense areas in US being quite a distance apart, you are probably right.
Re:2 words.... land mass (Score:5, Informative)
So the cost per person of cabling out Sweden is probably more than the same exercise in the US. Frankly, this blows your argument out of the water.
Re:Area to cover (Score:4, Informative)
Penetration: Similar to South Korea
Their solution: Public funding.
But is it split-speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So true (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A concerted effort... (Score:3, Informative)
I do know that one of them is Lock Haven, PA, which is only about 120 miles from my current location.
Not true (Score:5, Informative)
I know some cities Internet connections are subsidised, but Bredbandsbolaget is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) ISP in sweden and are a privately-held company.
Re:Yawn. Same old story. (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but in Canada, 95% of the population is less than 5 degrees north of the 49th, and that population tend to clump near the cities. And given that there still are people who are on partyline phones (I think they've only recently got individual phones when a microwave link was established)...
In addition, Canada has a very high percentage of the population that subscribes to cable TV, so the infrastructure to actually do broadband is there. We may have similar geography to the US (larger country, actually), but when you have a population distribution as whacked as it is here (we love to hug the border), as well as infrastructure penetration, it makes broadband access easy. (In urban areas, there are only two types of TV - cable, and satellite. OTA is very rare. In the sticks, they tend to have satellite (C-Band or DSS), since pretty much the only OTA channels is CBC and a couple of others.
Sweden's highspeed broadband is exagerated... (Score:2, Informative)
I would say about 80% of appartments that I have seen do not in my town - and it is not available without your appartment building paying quite a hefty premium for installation into the building.
So the lines maybe laid - but not so many are using it - in my opinion. I'm not so sure we're ahead with broadband - but as for 3G networks- we practically have a transmitting antenna on every other rooftop!
Re:Small scale vs. large scale. (Score:3, Informative)
A more just comparison would likely be Canada; but wait: they're not only offering faster speeds than their southern neighbors, but consumers pay less, and Canada is close to South Korea when it comes to broadband penetration.
Community Based Fiber (Score:4, Informative)
For those who may not remember, here's alink [pafiber.net] to a story on a community based fiber project in Palo Alto .
Re:Area to cover (Score:3, Informative)
It's the local phone company's fault (Score:2, Informative)
I don't live in some far out, low population density, backwater farm land. Then again, I'd never woke up to a rooster crowing, goats in the neighbor's yard, or stories of a cow blocking a highway until I moved here from Ohio.....
Yes, I could get a cable modem through COX. They want $56 US per month for the lowest level of service. I don't want broadband bad enough to give up a weeks worth (or more) of lunches each month.
Re:The size argument is crap (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So true (Score:2, Informative)
Size:
South Korea: 98,190 square km.
Sweden: 410,939 square km.
United States: 9,161,923 sq km.
Population:
South Korea: 48,598,175 (July 2004 est.)
Sweden: 8,986,400 (July 2004 est.)
United States: 293,027,571 (July 2004 est.)
Hrm... could it just be that much easier to get broadband to a population an order of magnitude or two smaller, in a country that is roughly the size of California (that would be Sweden) or Indiana (that would be Korea)?
Nah... it's got to just be the monopolies.
Now, I'm not going to argue that Comcast service doesn't suck liquid monkey ass, because, well, it does. But to solely place the burden on the big, bad businesses is a bit of a fallacious arguement. We have a much larger population, and a much larger country. That has to be taken into account for why Uncle Jim Joe Bob Cletus (affectionately known as Junior) doesn't have broadband running to his shack in the Ozarks, much less the still out back.
Kierthos
I'm only about 40 miles from the Governator... (Score:3, Informative)
I can SEE people that have had cable access for 20 years, but I can't get it. (literally, they're just one hill over). My sister gets 14.4k tops, and she's 1 mile away from her inlaws that get 48k. My phone line supports a flakey 26.4k max connection. The only thing that I get that says "DSL" is advertizing. Many people in the area and surrounding areas are in a state where the "bad line" just gets passed around from someone that complains to someone that doesn't. They're out of good lines. The problem?
NOONE WANTS TO SPEND MONEY.
Upgrading the infrastructure costs money, and in an area that isn't currently being changed from an open field to high density subdivision who cares? The profit just isn't there. Let the lines corrode. Whenever it rains, my connection gets worse. The cover to the splice box at the top of the pole outside our house fell off two months ago. Last I checked the terminals are still open to the weather. That's how much they care.
If we talked to the phone company could we convince them to do something? My dad tried when he was a systems tech FOR the phone company. Didn't work.
Cheap broadband comes with a $300,000+ setup fee. The cost of buying a two bedroom house near a central office or in an area with cable.
Who would've thought that California would be a third world country?
Re:Yawn. Same old story. (Score:2, Informative)
That statement is accurate but now irrelevant. The Alberta supernet is a government infrastructure project designed to provide high-speed, broadband access to public facilities (and through service providers, to businesses and residences) in Alberta communities, Alberta SuperNet is a partnership involving the government and private enterprise.
Alberta is a rather large place, 660,000 sq. kilomters. Sweden is about 410,000 Sq. Km. Alberta also has roughly one fifth the population of Sweden. If left only to the service providers broadband would never get to rural communities.
It will take government intervention to lessen US broadband Envy.
Re:Size DOES matter. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:But is it split-speed? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yawn. Same old story. (Score:4, Informative)
That's 5 degrees in one plane only. It's approximately 90 degrees in the other dimension. That is still a huge landmass to cover -- particularily when you consider there are major centres strung out through that area.
Canada is a big place. Quite a bit bigger than the US. The difference in population density may help wiring the major centres themselves, but makes it much more expensive to inter-connect those centres.
Canada has always been an innovator in the area of telecommunications. When you have a country that covers 90 degrees of the globe at the 49th parallel you have to be good at telecommunications.
Statements like this have always bugged me, because with only two exceptions, the reason why the highest population density is close to the border has nothing to do with the assumption most Americans make that Canada's population is this way because it wants to be close to the US.
We don't particularily "love to hug the border" -- it's more that the border is placed along areas where it makes sense for higher population density. If you were to look at a map of Canada showing population density, the highest density areas are along the corridor following the St. Lawrence Seaway/Great Lakes. This makes sense if you think of how the continent was originally colonized, and how important water was to travel and commerce. Historically large population centres grew in areas with maritime access.
It's also the area where the best land for growing crops is. You don't farm in the tundra, and the original settlers of Canada relied heavily upon farming (and fishing) for their food.
The two exceptions I mentioned above were:
As such, it's not so much that we love to hug the border because of the sake of the border. Indeed, these areas were heavily settled even before there was a border, and the border cuts through regions condusive to commerce and travel. If the border were 1000km further south, I'm willing to bet you'd see the same population density as already exists between our two countries.
Yaz.
Re:The size argument is crap (Score:2, Informative)
Well, considering Canada is 77% urban, you should note that Canada's URBAN population density is 3,191 people/sq mile compared to the US's URBAN population of 2,400 people/sq mile.
My point: The US has a lot more rural/sub-urban population to deal with, which really isn't the case in Canada. Also, Canadian rural communities also tend to be more consolidated and closer knit, which I think is a good thing.
In other words, the US doesn't have the long stretches of roads where there is NOBODY/NO TOWN/NOTHING for the next 300 kilometers, which is VERY MUCH true in Canada. Even on the Trans-Canada highway in Ontario!
Something to consider.
There is no broadband problem (Score:3, Informative)
First, in the US broadband passed modems last month. [websiteoptimization.com] The trend is steady and that number should pass 80% within two years.
Second, because the US has free local calling, good line quality, and plenty of telco switch capacity, dialup works well in the US. In many countries, dialup involves per-minute costs, and you can't stay on all day. It the US, it's been flat-rate monthly for years. And dial-up is really cheap.
Third, more people in the US have Internet access than buy books or subscribe to newspapers. The literate fraction of the population is already on line. If you can't read, even AOL isn't useful.
What's the problem?
Re:Not true (Score:2, Informative)
Sure, Bredbandsbolaget is not owned by the state, however it is made possible thanks to the government.
Re:1978 is calling..but 2004 answers the phone (Score:5, Informative)
china stockpiling
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,82
http://www.aseansec.org/16144.htm
peak oil
http://www.peakoil.net/
--I stay informed, thankew. Prices can be manipulated temporarily for business and political purposes, but there's nothing they can do about rapidly diminishing supply in conjunction with rapidly developing demand. They haven't even found a single mega field for a coupla years now (longer I think really), and several large oil concerns have had to re-assess severely downward what they previously claimed as recoverable reserves. Maybe you missed that little news fact, it's somewhat of what they call a "scandal" lately. It's in the news, not even hard to find. North sea-past peak. Mexico-past peak. Venezuela-past peak. Indonesia-past peak. Lower 48 USA-way past peak. North slope-past peak. Last good stash that is rapidly approaching peak is in the little area of iraq/iran/arabian peninsula. Some dribs and drabs here and there left to develop, west africa, some offshorte areas, etc, but that's it for the good and still easy to get at stuff. I was just reading last night some wells in sauid are pumping at 55% water now from the water they force in to extract it. They used to *gush* pure crude out of the ground, now they have to force it out.
Naw, maybe the dittoheads still believe that smoke and mirrors razzle dazzle that there's unlimited near free black gold energy, but pure geology proves it otherwise. People who actually do the research and don't fall for snakeoil salesmens spiels know what's up.
Re:Don't stop incentives for new tech! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Other countries do exist, you know (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe you should all stop complaining about how you don't all have ten megabit connections?
Over here in Australia, we are almost all on 56k. I can count the number of people I know who have broadband on one hand.
In the USA, you recently got to 50% of households with broadband. Care to guess how many people in Australia have access to high-speed internet? One million as of June 2004. Out of more than 20 million. THAT'S FIVE PERCENT!!!
Your statistics are somewhat muddled. The recent news [whirlpool.net.au] is that the number of broadband connections in Australia has reached one million. One million connections means a lot more than one million people. Most people in Australia DO have access to broadband, but you confuse that with actually taking it up.
Telstra claims that ADSL is available to 75% of the population, and the availability of cable in many Australian cities would increase broadband availability even further.
Most people I know have broadband. Anecdotes don't mean anything.
Just because some countries have faster internet, that doesn't mean you're falling behind.
Um, yeah, it does. Falling behind means you're not keeping pace with others.
I'd kill people to get a 512k ADSL line, but I'm just not able to. Be happy with what you already have.
Some people in remote areas don't even have 56k [iapselfhelp.com]! Why aren't you happy with what you already have? Or at least, if it's so important to you, why don't you move to where it's available, or pressure Telstra to provide ADSL where you are?
Re:Uhm... small countries, here, people (Score:3, Informative)
Well... (Score:2, Informative)
I only have 8 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up.
Two static IP:s though, that's nice =)
Re:1978 is calling..but 2004 answers the phone (Score:2, Informative)
If the oil's cheap, efforts to transition away from it will be marginalized. The 2nd biggest field in the world went from control by a west-hating madman to direct control by the US yet prices still shoot up. And those SUVs keep selling.