Internet Connectivity Outside of the United States 504
Ant writes "A Yahoo! news story says that nearly 60 publications in countries bear the PC World name, or are associated with it in some way. The editors at several of them were asked to report how their readers get online. Not surprisingly, the report indicates that many countries are substantially ahead of the United States in online access." From the article: "For example, in the United Kingdom, you can buy DSL service with a download speed of up to 24 megabits per second. In Denmark, some people have fiber-optic connections as fast as 100 mbps. And in Italy and Spain, broadband service is cheap, and dial-up service is free (except for the cost of the local call). Still, many countries have their own connection quirks ..."
UK story a little optimistic (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost everyone I know is on broadband but none are on 24mbit and most on 1Mb.
Re:As expected (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:As expected (Score:5, Interesting)
42% lives in urban areas with more than 1 million people (2005)
compared to Italy (67%/20%), Spain (78%/23%) and Norway (76%/?), it doesn't look like there's an inherent disadvantage.
source: http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdipdfs/table3_10.pd
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:2, Interesting)
Later = better (Score:2, Interesting)
The USA were the first ones with access to the Internet. Every other country got their infrastructure built later. When the more recent infrastructures were built, they used the latest technologies available, which are obviously better than the early ones. So the result of this study is not surprising in my opinion.
Some countries who are building their Internet infrastructure these days are going straight to wireless. I'm thinking of African countries here. What is at stake for them is not performance, but cost. It's much cheaper to plant a few antennas than pull miles and miles of cable to reach each house. The USA is a large country, so they would have done the same probably, had the technology been available at the time.
comparing aples and oranges (Score:0, Interesting)
For example, in the UK there's only a tiny number of people who are close enough to an enabled exchange to actually get 24Mbit/s connectivity.
Further, in spain my personal experience is that ADSL connectivity is more expensive than in the UK. Granted, there may be some offers available in major cities that make it look cheaper in absolute terms -- but then take into account the average wage in these countries and the real cost is higher.
To sum up: don't take these headlines and get paranoid, they are as misleading to what real people actually get as any sales brochure.
100 MB ? LOL ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Cost is announced @ 70 Euro / month, no caps...
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,3902077
Right now I have a 24 Mb DSL for 30 Euro/month. I regularly max up the connection.
In September the fiber offer will be available in my district, I will have to upgrade to PCI-x or something and get a 2 GB fiber card for the router. 4Gb cards are still too expensive, and that network is not scheduled for 4,5 GB internet till 2010.
Sad, no, when the most recent and speedy computer in the room is your router...
Well, I'm ready : Bring on the Pain !!!
I might even re-think about providing a small web-hosting solution to friends and customers...
Da5id
Re:grass, greener (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of us aren't (even close to being) so lucky. Where do you live? What does that connection cost? What is the provider?
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:5, Interesting)
I suggest that most countries and their citizens do benefit from street lights.
To the free market worshippers: the free market only works when not all people choose to be totally selfish and greedy. Once there are too few of those "salt of the earth" types, the whole thing starts falling apart.
No matter what system you have, if you want something good from it, you will need good people.
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:2, Interesting)
I live outside of the nearby villages, in a rural area. As most rural areas, cable access is not available. On the other hand, DSL is everywhere accessible. I use a 8Mb down / 1Mb up connection which cost us about 30 (ca. $38.50) per month. That is pretty average here. Dial-up is not much used anymore, and apart from phone-cost it is almost always free of charge.
The connections aren't government-offered, but are to some extend government-regulated, which keeps the prices low and the choices broad.
I would like even more regulation. UMTS (G3) frequencies have been actioned here, at HIGH values. The result is that the prices are astoundingly high, and the density is low (because the companies don't have money left to build antennas to actually USE the frequencies they bought). Same goes (apart from the price) for digital TV via ether. In countries with even more regulation (Belgium seems to be a good example) the coverage for digiTV and UMTS are near 100% and the prices are reasonable.
Government regulation has done this, and as a result it has nothing to do with density of population. It surprises me to see that the US need companies (Google) to offer certain features to the masses (wireless internet) whereas the government doesn't seem to do anything to make more basic services (broadband) more accessible. No, I don't consider broadband a luxury, given the situation here.
Re:The thing that makes me laugh about the US tech (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:5, Interesting)
When British Telecom was the only ADSL supplier, it didn't bother to invest anything in competing with the cable companies. And the cable companies (which are also regional monopolies) didn't bother to invest anything in competing with BT. So we all had a choice of 512k broadband from either supplier.
Then the government forced BT to lease equipment to competitors. Suddenly we have 24M broadband from those competitors, and BT has suddenly discovered that its own equipment can do 8M instead of 512k.
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:3, Interesting)
And actually one of the few places in the US where you can get 24 Mbps, Vermont, has a very low population density. It probably helps that VTel [vermontel.com] is an independent telephone company. 24 Mbps isn't available everywhere in the state yet and does cost $50/mo, probably more than people in the UK are paying, but 24 Mbps DSL does exist in America. And if it hasn't arrived in your corner of Vermont yet, you can still get 8 Mbps for $35/mo while you wait.
And when you sign up for it, you get two t-shirts featuring smug comparisons between VTel's speed and everyone else's. All of the gloating would be annoying if it weren't so justified; I just find it frustrating that all of the nice retired Vermonters down the road from my parents' place can get nearly 10x the speed of what Verizon deigns to give me where I live.
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah no kidding... population density really has very little to do with how easy it is to offer proper internet.
If the argument were to hold true then why are there many countries (including Canada) with a significantly lower population density that offer better internet access for a lower price?
And if you really think about it almost the entire infrastructure is already in place in the united states (cable and telephone lines). I know it's not that simple, equipment has to me upgraded or modified, but it's not like they have to roll out new wire to all the communities.
If you ask me the whole problem is the states overly capitalistic government. All of the infrastructure is controlled by a select few companies (with little regulation compared to the countries that rank high in internet access). The companies set the rates and the little guys have to live with it. While they're making a profit there's not much anyone can do about it.
Government control would most certainly help the situation, but that isn't the american way. I suspect the american public will have to wait for a new infrastructure to be built for the rules to change (perhaps WiFi). And even then, if it's rolled out by the same companies that control the wires, it may not help.
Re:Castro receives 110% of latest vote! (Score:2, Interesting)
That happens sometimes. Too often, it is like in the Cuba situation, where a revolution occurs because an armed faction is successful in its effort to take over and crush both the existing/previous regime AND any dissent from the populace. A similar thing happened when Lenin overthrew the democratic Russian government.
"This means that although you might have to go without the occasional little luxury, you dont have to see someone else who has more money than they know what to do with living it up"
What do you think they have NOW in Cuba? The super rich guy who has more money than he knows what to do with is living it up (aside from the fact that he is now dying). He has his picture all over the place. He's worth several billions in cash holding, but if you count his vast real estate holdings (almost all of a really huge Caribbean island), he's even much richer than Gates.
Re:Superiority of the Free Market. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not in the least. The population concentrations are concentrated enough to be independent entities. Yes, the entire US doesn't compare well to any individual European country, but many states have similar area and distribution as European countries, and Europe as a whole can roughly compare to the US. Regardless of how you measure it, the USA is well behind other similar places around the world. Or are you saying that NYC should have crappy access because Montana is spread out?
I imagine that Sweden's population is highly concentrated around the southern portion of the country with it being very sparsely populated to the north, and then typically in isolated pockets of towns. How many people who live in Sweden do not live in a large city?
Sounds like it isn't too far from the Alaska layout. Care to guess what we get for speeds and prices? I'll give you a hint, take whatever you have, half the speed, double the price, and put a monthly cap on usage, and that's what I have access to. Yay for population concentrations!
I'm not throwing rocks, just pointing out facts and how/why it may be easier to give most of the people in Sweden better Internet access than most of the people in the USA.
And I'm just pointing out that the US is diverse enough that every arguement I have heard is refuted by some specific state in the US. The population density in California is greater, so their prices should be lower, but aren't. The population in Alaska is more concentrated than Sweeden, yet has higher prices. Montana is more spread out and has higher prices. The difference is that the USA has private monopolies. Private monopolies have always worked to screw the customers. And it was the free market that brought us to those monopolies. The FCC wasn't involved until long after AT&T was formed.
Re:France DSL is pretty good, too (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm in France and I work about 40 hours a week, but I have more than 7 weeks of holidays, not counting holidays such as Christmas or Labor day.