We Don't Need No Stinkin' Broadband 572
Ant writes "eMarketer has an article on The Yankee Group's analysis on why some Americans aren't feeling the broadband love. It was based on Ipsos Public Affairs. 45% of Americans say it's simply too expensive. 30% say that they just don't want it. 14% say they feel dial-up is adequate for their needs. Less than 10% are not able to get broadband access in their area. Five percent insist broadband is "too complicated". Another 5% aren't even sure why they don't have it..."
Uh-huh and... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Expensive ??? (Score:4, Informative)
And not everybody is savvy or patient enough to get the $15/month plan.
I try to renew at $15/month , and the dumbass on the phone says I can only renew for $35/month. I call again, and I can renew for $25/month but only if it's the second tuesday of the month and my right foot wearing a shoe. What to non-techies do in this situation?
Re:56Kb/s isn't that bad if ads are blocked (Score:3, Informative)
Price drop (Score:5, Informative)
The only excuse now is if you travel a lot, and need access all across the country.
Re:Expensive ??? (Score:2, Informative)
http://home.shentel.net/DSL/cost.cfm [shentel.net]
It doesn't help that this one company runs the telephone, cable TV and internet access for the entire county, and they refuse to offer internet access via cable for faster speed.
Re:45% say its too expensive? (Score:5, Informative)
*Especially* outside the US broadband is more the norm than the exception since the late 1990's.
Some facts (based on Q3 2005 numbers):
80% of the South-Koreans have broadband, 75% of Hong Kong, 60% of Israel, 60% of Taiwan, ~57% of Singapore, 55% of The Netherlands, 53% of Monaco, 53% of Canada, 51% of Switzerland, and 50% of Denmark. (source: http://www.marketingfacts.nl/images/uploads/20060
The following is also interesting to see: http://www.marketingfacts.nl/images/uploads/per-c
Growth broadband in percentage first half year of 2005: http://www.marketingfacts.nl/images/uploads/europ
And Eastern Europe is very active right now revamping a lot of their telecommunication systems so that will mean that in the coming time their broadband penetration will soar as well.
I'm not surprised Americans don't want broadband. (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with broadband for many Americans is that they don't see the advantage in it. Many Americans can afford to pay for many of the things that people in other countries might only be able to get by downloading them freely off the net. So, in a way Americans have blinders on with regards to the possibilities of the Internet.
An excellent, and I would even say profound, example is academic journals. An American could be forgiven for thinking that all universities across the globe have libraries with stacks and stacks of academic journals just like the local state university library does. In fact, that's not the case at all. In many nations, broadband is enabling a great leap in educational quality that gives millions of students the chance to study meaningful cutting-edge research for the first time in their local academic history. Americans naturally have a hard time imagining what that means or how important it is because they already have practically free access to these things. Anybody in the States can use the university library after all. So, for an American, the issue of getting journals on the Internet seems somewhat irrelevant.
So, broadband is definitely something that the US is only going to accept reluctantly, but slowly or not it is most certainly going to come even if the US is the last place on earth to get decent broadband penetration which I could easily imagine having just visited there and having been forced to use a modem on a number of occasions.
Meanwhile in Japan (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Japan was essentially reduced to mostly rubble 60 years ago while we in the U.S. deal with OSP that is both that age and has never been properly maintained.
But here is a good example of why most people don't get even DSL. I'll present two cases here, the first my own, the second that of a relative in the same state.
Verizon said that I was too far from the central office to get DSL. "That's funny" said I since I could basically throw rocks at the central office.
Did two go arounds on this until finally I got the bright idea to call repair and get them to do an MLT. Sure enough, MLT said I was less than half a mile from the CO. I asked repair to enter the distance into my customer record and then called Verizon DSL back. Lo and behold - I now qualified.
In my aunts case, the home had DSL before she bought it and the previous subscriber had the line disconnected. When my aunt tried to get DSL installed she was told by Verizon that they she was too far out. I told her to use the trick I'd discovered and sure enough, two weeks later she had here DSL.
I've since ditched Verizon entirely but this demonstrates that in the case of DSL, if you don't know how the system works, you're screwed.
Not always their choice (Score:3, Informative)
Re:45% say its too expensive? (Score:2, Informative)
I think there are a couple of factors that explain the difference:
1) As the article says 30% don't want it and 14% say dial-up is just fine. So, thats 44% that don't want broadband because they are not interested in it or see no benefit to it. Though I can't understand why, I would die without my broadband connection.
2) When broadband was initially offered in Canada there were very few ISPs offering it. Bell Canada, our major telco up here, and Rogers Cable our major cable tv provider. That made it alot easier to decide who to go with for broadband. As market penetration progressed many smaller companies popped up offer some form of a DSL package. Cable internet is pretty much solely in the hands of a few cable providers such as Roger's and Shaw Cable and there is less competition for cable internet. Basically if you want cable broadband and you are in an area serviced by Rogers, you get your broadband from Rogers, unless you want DSL then you have more choices.