Broadband Bits

rtphokie writes "In an article covering bringing wireless and high speed internet connectivity several rural counties near Fredericksburg, VA, a county commissioner comments that transportation issues were once considered the top issue in economic development discussion, now it's the lack of high-speed Internet." Reader Darmok0685 writes "UGO has an interesting feature that explores the future of broadband, with in-depth sections that explore such technologies as Broadband Over Power Lines, WiMax, Fiber to the Home, Stratellite, and ADSL2/ADSL2+. It delves into the pros and cons, as well as giving backgrounds on each."

Government intervention required

[Sarcastic Assassin]

I think one thing this article highlights is that government intervention is needed if we (the US) are serious about upgrading our broadband infrastructure.

A clean bill of health.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In an article covering bringing wireless and high speed internet connectivity several rural counties near Fredericksburg, VA, a county commissioner comments that transportation issues were once considered the top issue in economic development discussion, now it's the lack of high-speed Internet."

And here, I thought good water, and sanitation was important? Shows what I know.

So much for multi-camera VR...

[UnapprovedThought]

If most of the populace is still trying to suck their bandwidth through a dial-up straw.

I hope someone on high wakes up and realizes that a fast broadband infrastructure has the potential to reduce energy consumption more than any other technology out there.

Re:Government intervention required

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one thing this article highlights is that government intervention is needed if we (the US) are serious about upgrading our broadband infrastructure.

The last thing any growing industry needs is the death knell of civil servants running the show.

I can't see what's wrong with the current situation. If you want broadband, you can get it pretty much wherever.

Exactly how...?

[Snorpus]

Exactly how are radio waves in free space "substantially slower than the speed of light communications we get with cables" ???

I'll grant that using geostationary satellites results in high latency, but the problem is distance, not that radio waves are slower than the speed of light.

In fact, because of the dielectric in cables, signals are significantly slower (although only about 5% IIRC) in cable than in the atmosphere or free space.

Re:Government intervention required

[to be a troll]

eh, thats BS...supply will meet demand and a few hundred IT guys will eventually realize they should quit their nine to five and open up a wireless internet company that could supply thousands

I REALLY can't understand the logic of "we have a problem, lets call congress!!!"

What needs to happen

[mat catastrophe]

What needs to happen is that ISPs need to wake up and smell the roses, ala Speakeasy. Allow the user, who is paying for all this anyway, to have port 80 open, to run servers, to have static IPs and the rest.

At least offer this as a "power user" option through cable and DSL providers. That way, people can actually create websites that are not fed by those banner ad driven hosts.

And yes, I know how many people probably are not up to the challenge of setting up firewalls and routing tables and whatever else it takes to do all this stuff, hell, I'm not able to really do it either. But, it would be nice to have the option to do it. I can manage apache well enough.

As it is, most "broadband" users here in the states are crippled with restrictive TOS/AUPs and upload bandwidths of around 256k. Hello? That's broadband?

As I understand it, people pay for upload. If that's the case, then consumers should be highly pissed at what they are paying. But, I guess most consumers really are amazed that they can download entire albums in ninety minutes, assuming that they find someone sharing it out at that rate.

Hmm, well so much for this not very thought out rant. I hope you all can make sense of it.

Re:High Speed?

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, and and how many square miles is Sweden compared to the United States. Population density is an issue when it comes to broadband deployment. Taiwan, Japan, and other very densely populated countries have a huge advantage over more sparsely populated nations like the U.S.

Re:Government intervention required

[Doppler00]

The same government that:

Wants to tax the internet?

Tax online shopping?

Tax VoIP?

Denies access to frequency spectrum that could currently be used more efficiently for broadband internet?

If anything there is STILL too much goverment regulation.

Government intervention required-Outsourcing.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Businesses move in because land is cheap, and they can do business just as effectively as if they were in New York or Philadelphia. People move in because housing is cheap and they can telecommute to their jobs three days a week. The schools benefit from all kids and parents able to be online, allowing them to check progress through a school portal."

Problem is. there's only certain types of businesses that fit the broadband model being advocated here.

Unfortunately if it can be done over broadband here, it can be done overseas with the additional benifits that aren't available here.

Maybe we need to start fixing the "other" problem before we start on universal broadband.

Satellite access

[FlynnMP3]

Having recently moved into a rural area from a densely populated area, I checked into all the options for getting any kind of broadband.

Wireless DSL was looking good until we found out that the location of the broadcasting tower and where we were had an electrical substation smack in the middle of line of site. No dice for that. Can't get through. WAAAAyyy too noisy.

So this past month, I took the plunge and purchased DIRECWAY satellite service. The cost is outragious (I had cable access before in the city), $1000 to get the dish/sat transponder/sat modem and to have Hughes flip the damn switch, another $350 to get the dish installed, and a measely $100 a month to have the service. For 2 years mind you, that's how long the required length of contract is. They never mention that part until you listen to the agreement recording to confirm your purchase.

The Fair Access Policy (such as it is) is even worse. I purchased the middle tier plan - 500meg download in 4 hours (sliding window). Now when I was on cable up in the city, online was my only entertainment, and I used it, quite heavily. The cable company never complained and the particular subnet I was on didn't have a lot of active nodes. But this FAP for the sat system is annoying the holy hell out of me. Heck, the available download speed from the service is 900mbps. That means I can blow the FAP in roughly 10 minutes (math mavens don't crucify me).

If you exceed the FAP, the download speed is clamped to 24kbps. It takes about 8 hours to reset. I've got a courtesy Hughes gonad squeezer making sure that I'm a good little boy.

So all in all, I payed nearly 2000$ for always on dialup service with higher latency. (*balloons* *confetti*)

I'm moving as soon as I can muster it.

Re:Government intervention required

[glockenspieler]

The same government that:
Wants to tax the internet?
Hmm, tax what? service delivery? Is the internet that different from other services that it, in contrast to power, water, and other utilities, it should be tax free?

Tax online shopping?
So, why should purchasing something from Amazon be tax free but going to Borders is taxed?

Tax VoIP?
Are you going to want to contact 911 services using VoIP or will you keep your cell and landline for this? Yes? Then you will need to support it.

Denies access to frequency spectrum that could currently be used more efficiently for broadband internet?
I am without enough information to respond to this.

If anything there is STILL too much goverment regulation.
Look people, there ain't no free ride. If you want something, you gotta pay for it. The fact is that government exists because there are somethings better done collectively than by everyone individually or by commercial entities. is it always the most efficient? No. But at least the first three things you cite I think have at least semirational bases and you're comment makes it sound like you just don't want to put a crowbar in your wallet and pay for it. Tell ya' what, why don't we just provide you with all these services anyway and then we'll just put the tab on your kids. Oh wait, we're already doing that....

Re:Government intervention required

[tukkayoot]

Sounds like you want your cake and to eat it too. So how do you want to use my money to make your live a little more comfortable?

I was just responding to a factually incorrect statement. The notion that you can get broadband pretty much everywhere is just wrong.

But yeah, I would like to have a reasonable broadband option without having to move. I really don't pretend to know what the government should do to help make that a reality, I'm not an expert on these things... but not everything they can do necessarily involves money directly coming out of your pocket to pay for it.

The FCC and FTC are already meddle in the way broadband providers do business. Chances are, they could probably act a bit more effectively to encourage better broadband coverage.

Or tax incentives could be implemented... rewards for being the first to reach X number of residents with broadband, or perhaps drastically reduce (or eliminate, for a period of time) the taxes that would normally apply to servicing a customer with broadband if they build out the infrastructure to service customers within that area who don't currently have a viable broadband options. Again, I'm not an expert economist, so I don't know how viable this kind of idea is.

Or local governments could foot part of the bill, as a part of improving the infrastructure... that way the citizens (and many of the businesses) paying for it would actually be benefiting from it. This has already been done in some areas, and it's the topic of discussion in one of the articles. Personally I don't think it's a bad idea at all.

I'm not saying that the federal government should make it a #1 priority to wire everyone in the country with broadband (though it would probably be money more well spent than a lot of the stuff taxpayer dollars is used to pay for and subsidize). However, I do think the Internet is increasingly becoming a vital part of the national and international infrastucture, and having greater a greater portion of the population able to access the Internet in its "true form", unhampered by a terribly anemic narrowband pipe is a very good thing. Ultimately, the investment we might make in improving broadband availability can pay for itself.