

A cure for America’s lame and costly broadband?  - HSO
http://www.economist.com/science-technology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15841658

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pragmatic
These articles never take into account the cost of laying fiber, equipment,
etc, etc to move those bits. The US has some incredibly sparse population in
certain areas. Compare to the population densities of Europe/Asia.

Of course, my father, living on a farm 18 miles from the closest grocery store
just had fiber turned up (connected).

There are many gov't programs set up to pay for this. Check you bill sometime
(cell, phone, internet) those taxes go to equal access, etc.

Obama and congress have an additional program to subsidize broadband to under
served areas. [http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/More-Details-On-
Obama-6-B...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/More-Details-On-
Obama-6-Billion-Broadband-Plan-100274)

And yes, we are mapping are fiber, trying to figure out where it all is. The
gov't wants to find out how much capacity is out there so they have a base to
figure out the improvement in capacity.

*Disclosure: I work for a telecom (of sorts).

~~~
joeyh
Agreed, they never do. When my sister got DSL, it involved running a mile of
underground cable through a swamp, just for her. This doesn't come cheap.
Comparisons to Russia, China, Australia, etc would be of value.

Though that doesn't really explain crappy broadband in NYC or why my ISP, who
installed fiber to my home, only lets me pull 6 megabit over it.

~~~
quizbiz
Why didn't she get a Clear Wire type service?

~~~
wwortiz
Most likely because dsl was the cheapest option I live in a place where you
basically have 3 semi-useful options for broadband service:

* DSL at 60 a month

* Satellite at _PRICE_ a month (to be honest I don't want the latency so I never looked into it)

and

* Wireless broadband at 300 dollars a month before any equipment rental or purchase.

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csomar
_Over the past year, hopes have risen among Americans that something might
finally be done about the third-world quality of their internet access._

As a third-world citizen, the author doesn't have any idea about the network
quality their. I live in North Africa and it's only few weeks ago that we got
a new 3G operator (Orange) in the country and it's only powering main cities.
The fastest connection you can get is 8 MegaBit (whatever place you live in)
and it's only recently that it was boosted from the 4M speed.

The quality is hilarious, you get sometimes a 3 days down time. You probably
never reach the promised speed and in rush hours, you can do a coffee with
friends instead. The 8MB connection costs around $60 a month; 3G promises 1MB
speed at around $20 a month.

~~~
Steve_Baker
I live in a smallish city in Indiana, pay $56 a month for < 5Mb cable and it's
often down for hours at a time, and from my own experience is better than the
alternative DSL in available in the area. The reliability has improved over
time, in the past we've had occasions where it would indeed be down for days
at a time. Wireless/Cable => apple/oranges maybe, but doesn't sound vastly
different from North Africa from where I'm standing.

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amock
I think part of the problem is that there aren't enough people who want a
really fast internet connection. Verizon's FiOS subscription rate is about 10%
even though it's significantly faster in both directions than almost all
alternatives. If the subscription rate were high enough Verizon would
definitely lay more fiber, but right now there doesn't seem to be enough
demand.

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pmichaud
tl;dr: The US is behind because the regulatory environment encourages
duopolies instead of fierce competition like in Europe or Asia.

~~~
devinj
Or lack thereof. The article posits that the lack of government interference
has caused the duopolies: the cost of entering a market is so high that only
two bother, after that it's not worth it. The alternative is a system where
the government pays the costs itself, or has the telecoms share the cost, thus
reducing cost of entry and encouraging competition.

The way you word it makes it sound as if the government is regulating where it
shouldn't be, but that's not what the article says at all.

~~~
pmichaud
It wasn't my intention to say that "regulations" cause the problem, just that
OUR regulation, as they stand, contribute. But it's not even my point, I'm
just summarizing the article 8)

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lotharbot
> _"Others have achieved something similar by having an independent authority
> build and maintain the network and then leasing access to all and sundry."_

Brigham City, Utah (about an hour north of Salt Lake) recently voted for this
in their community. The city is building fiber to every home, and broadband
providers can compete for customers while leasing the infrastructure from the
city.

~~~
trimski
Monticello, Minnesota attempted to build fiber to provide 50Mbps service to
the city, but was sued by the regional telecom for unfair competition. The
telecom then built up the infrastructure while the lawsuits went on.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-your-town-threaten-to-roll-out-
your-own.ars)

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maw
Broadband in the US may not be as awesome as it is elsewhere, but to call it
third-world quality? It's a big stretch.

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mynameishere
What on earth does someone do with a 100 megabit connection? (Answer: For one
thing, to avoid bankrupting the provider, you _don't_ use it.) I remember
going from a modem to 768 kbs and thinking, "That's as fast as you could
possibly need." As a heavy user, comparing that with faster connections, I
know I was right.

It's actually latency that counts, and that runs up against the speed of
light.

~~~
dkarl
I have a ~1.2 Mbs connection precisely because of latency. It's the best DSL
connection I can get in my crappy apartment (because of the wiring) and when I
had cable it was maddening to try to get work done over that connection. I
chose 1.2Mbs down / 768kbs up and consistent latency over 8Mbs down / 1.5Mbs
up with variable, often very noticeable latency.

However, you're wrong that such a connection is ample for all purposes.
Streaming video sucks; I often have to let things buffer for a while before I
let them start. Streaming Netflix is completely out of the question.

As for competition, if you live in an apartment where I live, your choices are
cable or crappy DSL. I'd love to have U-verse, but only half the people I know
in my area can get it at home. I don't know anybody who can get it in an
apartment. The limitations of my slow DSL connection are so frustrating that I
may switch back to cable and see if the latency is better these days (or give
up on logging in remotely.) It's ridiculous that the local cable provider has
a monopoly on broadband in most households where I live. (Even with good
wires, I think the local DSL tops out at 3Mbs, which isn't broadband in my
book.) In places where U-verse is available, the competition is between two
giant companies who see competition as an annoyance -- I wonder how keenly
they compete against each other? Unfortunately, in the United States, people
still think the government can only hinder competition, never enable it.

[Edit: My DSL connection is not really 1.2 kbs down / 768 kbs up as I
originally stated.]

~~~
sliverstorm
Sorry, 1.2 kilobits per second? DSL that's 47 times slower than dial up?

Just wanted to clarify.

~~~
dkarl
Corrected; thanks for catching that.

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dnsworks
For me it's the lack of uplink speed that drives me insane. As heavily data
driven as we've become with 22megapixel digital cameras, HD video cameras, and
then just our normal backup requirements, I would be happy with 100mbps up,
and 2mbps down.

