Krugman On the Connectivity Power Shift 360
In today's NYTimes (registration required), Paul Krugman's op-ed piece lays out in simple terms the statistical power shift in the online economy among Europe, Japan, and the US. This shift has been discussed here for some time, but it's good to see it coming to the attention of a wider audience. Quoting: "As recently as 2001, the percentage of the population with high-speed access in Japan and Germany was only half that in the United States. In France it was less than a quarter. By the end of 2006, however, all three countries had more broadband subscribers per 100 people than we did... [W]hen the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the FCC, the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there's little competition in U.S. broadband — if you're lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go."
The real question (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Another problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
At times, I wonder if the "spread out America" card gets played a bit too much. Most Americans live in fairly concentrated regions. How much of the difference between US, European and Japanese broadband adoption is really about density?
Triple Play for EUR 30 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Another problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
Put down that crack pipe and come back to Earth (Score:1, Interesting)
It's those "social conservatives" that run amok protesting global trade meetings at the World Bank.
It's those "social conservatives" that shout down speakers they disagree with.
It's those "social conservatives" that term policy implementation they don't like "lies", despite the claims that policy is based on being IDENTICAL to the claims of the previous administration, which gets a pass because of the "D" attached to them.
Yeah, those "social conservatives" are so close-minded....
Omaha, eh? Why do I think your father was the Nebraska Cornhusker and your mother was a sheep?
Re:Krugman's a fruit (Score:5, Interesting)
The US lags behind because the FCC allows the big industry to do what they want. Heck, we are almost completely back to AT&T and ONLY AT&T in terms of telephone service. The 1982 split that was a part of a lawsuit settlement from the government against AT&T was what allowed AT&T to get into the internet business in the first place. AT&T agreed to split into 7 new companies (plus AT&T), and would be allowed to start developing data network services which is what led to access to the internet for normal businesses and then people at their homes. SBC was formed from Ameritech, Southwest Bell, and Pacific Telesis. SBC then aquirred AT&T itself and BellSouth, and renamed themselves back to AT&T (as that had the more important name, since it had been around since 1883 and was the ORIGINAL telephone company of all telephone companies). So of the 8 companies that AT&T was split into, 5 of them have been merged back together. The other 3 are now down to just two, Verizon and QWest. So in the landmark 1982 settlement that allowed the phone company (AT&T) to get into the internet service business, they are now just three. The Supreme Court settled with AT&T with the stipulation that it was going to be 8 companies that controlled the infrastructure. There was a reason for that because there would be enough companies out there that it would be difficult for them to all collude together and over-charge the customers, because someone would always say, "We can make more net money by cutting our profit margin down lower then the other companies and taking a large portion of their customers". Whereas now, with only three companies, it is easy for them to say, "We can make a LOT more money by steadily increasing the fees and rates we charge, so long as the other two guys see what we are doing and do the same thing, because it will only benefit them as much as it benefits us".
Re:Krugman's a fruit (Score:3, Interesting)
LOL, what a crock. Besides, you chose the wrong countries to compare to. While some telephone deployments in the US may have been a few years ahead of anyone else, Germany and France were pioneers in the field in their own right and were right up there in rolling out infrastructure. We're talking about technology that's over one hundred years old, a few years here or there would most certainly not explain the current state of affairs.
Besides, I doubt copper rolled out in 1900 is even in use anywhere in the US. My house is in one of the oldest neighborhoods of our town and was built sometime in the mid-1890s. It still was fully piped for gas lighting and also had knob-and-tube wiring throughout when we gutted it. Yet the telephone lines running to it had probably been replaced many times throughout the years, with the latest run not being older than 20 years or so. I think you will find that to be the case for any last-mile runs in the US.
With 50Mbps at Home why have an office? (Score:4, Interesting)
What Do You Get In The US? (Score:5, Interesting)
I get high speed internet through YahooBB (ADSL), which is now run by Softbank. I pay 4200 yen a month (~$34 at present) for 50 MB/s download speed, which is oversold (bounces between 2 MB/s and 12 MB/s when connecting to sites where I could reasonably expect to get the full benefit, such as iTunes Japan or the WoW bittorrent installer). This includes the basic charge for VoIP phone service but no call time (which is cheap -- 3 cents a minute to the US) and equipment rental (the modem -- should have bought it, would have paid for itself around month 18). I also pay approximately 1800 yen for basic telephone service, a necessary prerequisite for ADSL unless you want your VoIP phone to not be reachable by non-VoIP customers ("uh oh"). There is also the issue of buying a lease for a landline, which is a one time charge of $100 but which theoretically has the same resale value so we'll ignore that for the present.
So, all told, about $50 for high speed service which consistently delivers 2 to 12 MB/s.
What does $50 get in the US these days?
Re:Krugman's a fruit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What Do You Get In The US? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm told other providers in our neighborhood offer equivalent throughput over copper (usen comes to mind), possibly at a lower price. There's also service available from the local electric utility TEPCO. And of course, lower throughput options like YahooBB are also available.
Having informally checked out each of these options, my impression is that at least in our neck of the Tokyo woods, service is not oversold regardless of which of these options you chose.
Friends back in the states to whom I've described this say I'm in for a rude awakening when we move back.
Re:Another problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
Reform your electoral systems, people! PR is the way!!!
Yes and no (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Densities per whole state can be a bit misleading, because the USA has a ton of farmland or just empty space. The communities you need to connect (first) tend to be a bit more concentrated. Even if you take Montana as an example, I'm willing to bet that even the villages there have a bit more than 2.39 people per square kilometer. (Unless they're all hermits.)
By comparison, western Europe simply has less empty space to screw up the maths. For example, North Rhine-Westphalia [wikipedia.org] (the heavily industrialized county in the NW of Germany) is almost one contiguous megalopolis spread across a whole state. Not exactly, but almost. You only know that, say, Düsseldorf [wikipedia.org] (land capital city) ended and Duisburg [wikipedia.org] ('nother city next to it) started only because the shields on the highway say so. There's just not that much empty space to screw up the maths.
2. If population spread was the real problem, then in the USA the major cities should all be on Ethernet, which AFAIK isn't the case. I mean, high population density = good for broadband, right?
Cities are a lot less dense down here in Germany, and while there isn't as much suburb sprawl (for lack of space and a different culture), houses are rarely higher than 3-4 floors (including ground floor) even in a densely populated area like NRW. The NRW has 18 million inhabitants spread over 34,083 square kilometres, which means some 528 people per square kilometre. Of course it's not uniform, but take it as a rough ballpark figure.
Düsseldorf itself ends up at 2681 people per square kilometre, according to Wikipedia, and that's a major German city.
By comparison, New York City packs 8.2 million people within 830 square kilometres, which means around 10,000 people per square kilometre, or about 4 times the density of Düsseldorf, 20 times the density of the NRW or 40 times the density of Germany. They should have some _awesome_ network access then, right? The New York City metropolitan area packs 18.8 million inhabitants in 8680 square kilometres, so the density is around 10 times that of Germany, 4 times that of the NRW and slightly less than Düsseldorf. (But the last one is slightly misleading since it's comparing the whole sprawl including suburbs and satellite towns to just the main city area of Düsseldorf. The comparison to the whole NRW is a lot more accurate.)
3. But that all becomes a lot less relevant when you notice that density doesn't correlate to net access that well in Europe either. E.g.:
A. Actually the best places for net access aren't in such dense industrial areas of Germany, but actually in many rural areas. Somehow the Telekom ended up upgrading the net access to some villages and small-ish towns before the larger and denser cities.
B. Among countries, the best access is in countries like... Sweden. According to the link you posted, it ends up at 20 inhabitants per square kilometre, which is considerably lower than the USA.
Ok, so there the frozen north is mostly empty space, so let's look up Stockholm on Wikipedia. Stockholm itself is pretty packed, at 4,136 people per square kilometre, but then that's still peanuts compared to, say, New York City. If you take it together with its suburbs, i.e., the whole metropolitan area, it's a meager 499 people per square kilometre. Compared to the NYC metropolitan area, it's outright sparse. Some of the suburbs have as low as 80 people per square kilometre.
Basically, to wrap this long rant up, population density doesn't seem to correlate to net access _that_ well. Sure, noone drags optical fibre to some lone hut on the top of a mountain, but you don't need ultra-packed communities to get broadband either. And in between those extremes, the correlation is at best imperfect, and at worst non-existant.
Re:It's possible (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Monopolies will form, regardless. (Score:3, Interesting)
Libertarians want government. They want a government police force to keep their legally purchased slaves in line, and to keep the desperate starving masses from 'stealing' their land.
Re:Another problem... (Score:1, Interesting)