
World’s Fastest Broadband at $20 Per Home - hko
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-cost-to-offer-the-worlds-fastest-broadband-20-per-home/
======
mdasen
Unfortunately, the article completely ignores the geographic realities or the
United States and Japan.

First, Japan's population density is orders of magnitude greater than that of
the United States. It's going to cost less to deliver high-speed internet when
people live closer together. Likewise, Japan is a smaller country. That
160Mbps is not the speed you're going to get traveling over underseas cables
to North America. That's the speed you'll get for servers located within
Japan.

Backbone connections are going to cost more to create in the United States
simply because Americans are as likely to access a server across the continent
as they are within 100 miles of them. Where you can essentially create a
backbone in Japan with a under 1,000mi of fiber, in the US you'd need 20x that
amount or more.

Those are stark differences. I mean, it wouldn't be too hard for an ISP to
provide faster connectivity from Boston to Philly where populations are dense
for sites hosted in that area, but that wouldn't be helpful to users - since
most of the time I'm not connecting to servers hosted within eastern Mass, RI,
CT, the NYC metro area or Jersey. In fact, I'd say that most of the time I'm
connecting to Texas or California.

Can we stop comparing Apples and Oranges? The US can never have broadband like
Japan and it's not because of corporations or government or any sort of
conspiracy. Maybe those things could offer _marginal_ improvements (seeing our
service go from 6Mbps to 10-15Mbps), but we simply won't have service like
Japan will since we don't locate ourselves close to the servers we want to
access or to each other.

~~~
DarkShikari
This argument is complete BS.

Running fiber lines between large cities is cheap; there's far more bandwidth
there than anyone could possibly need at the moment. The main cost is the last
mile of connection.

And the last mile of connection is going to cost you pretty much the exact
same thing in New York City as in Tokyo. There is absolutely no technical
justification of any sort for the United States' backwards internet situation,
at least in regards to urban areas.

~~~
krschultz
I'd agree with you for most places in the US vs most places in Japan, but NYC
vs Tokyo may or may not be an apt comparison. Putting any lines at all in NYC
is a huge hassle. There is basically no clear map of the underground areas.
Try getting some quality dedicated lines put in in NYC, it sucks. I can't
comment on Tokyo, but it would be a lot easier to run a startup in the suburbs
simply for ISP reasons if only the talent would agree (damn fickle trendy
programmers).

------
raheemm
"The industry is worried that by offering 100 Mbps, they are opening Pandora’s
box, he said. Everyone will be able to get video on the Internet" \- WTF? This
really pisses me off!

~~~
DarkShikari
This is because cable companies are worried that streaming video will put
their VOD services out of business. Hence many companies trying to add caps to
their bandwidth. When they tell you it's because of 1% of users using the most
bandwidth, they're lying; it's because they want users paying for VOD content.

This is understandable, as VOD is by far their most profitable business
segment on a %-basis (I work for an IPTV company). Thus, they are scared to
death by the concept of decent internet service--it'll reduce their profit
margins.

~~~
sketerpot
Really? We haven't slipped through a hole in the space-time continuum and been
magically transported back to 2003?

There _will_ be decent internet service. Anybody whose business model depends
on internet access sucking forever needs to find a new source of income, fast.

~~~
netcan
Whenever this comes up on HN, my response is that just because it is hopeless
having a business model that depends on copyright (crappy internet), doesn't
mean they don't benefit from prolonging the process.

The days of mature consumer technologies depending on Broadband speeds you get
in S. Korea are a ways away. How many people are still not connected to the
internet at all? How many people have no broadband at all?

If they can add 1 or 2 or 5 or 10 years to the point where youtube is what
people connect to their big TV, they make a lot of money.

It's sort of like saying a business model that requires U2 to stay popular is
not sustainable. Of course not. But it doesn't mean you should give up.

------
dkokelley
Did I miss it, or did that article not explain how it somehow cost $600 more
per American home to upgrade here than in Japan? They touched on competition,
but it seemed like that was only for the final service, not necessarily for
the supplies. I thought maybe homes were more compacted so it was easier to
upgrade multiple homes.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
I would assume that the combination of denser residentials and fewer suburbs
in Japan has everything to do with the cost difference. When you can upgrade
10 homes in Japan with the same space of 1 home in the US, and there are no
sprawling suburbs to lay long runs of cable, it's easy to grasp that per-
person price gap.

That's still no excuse for the floundering broadband speeds in this country. I
live in Rochester, NY, where Time Warner announced that on top of the "10Mbps"
that I never get as it is, they'll be introducing capped plans, with a
_maximum_ cap of only 40GB! And I _can't_ just take my money elsewhere,
because the city granted them a monopoly; my only other options are horrible
DSL that has a 25GB cap, ClearWire broadband at 1/10 the speed I have now, or
dial-up. There's absolutely no competition!

It's no wonder Time Warner chose my town for second-round "evaluations";
nobody can leave Time Warner because of this policy, so _of course_ they'll
"find" that people are "happy" with the caps. It disgusts me!

~~~
jrockway
_my only other options are horrible DSL that has a 25GB cap_

I don't think this is true. If you can get a loop to your house, you can get
some sort of business DSL plan, which definitely won't have a cap. I use
Speakeasy for this. Expensive, but worth it because I have an unlimited pipe
that I can use for whatever I want, and they have actual people (who are
native speakers of English) that I can call when something goes wrong.

Anyway, you aren't looking hard enough, or you aren't willing to pay for more
than 40G a month.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
I live in an apartment. I have no other options...

------
iamelgringo
Why is it that in Silicon Valley, the fastest consumer connection that I can
get is 12Mpbs? And that costs me $60 a month.

Sharpen the pitchforks and light the torches.

~~~
Mazy
Comcast recently rolled out (last month) 50 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up, they call
it Extreme 50, it's $140/mo.

~~~
barredo
That's a joke in Japan, South Korea and Escandinavian Nations

~~~
umjames
I can't attest for South Korea and Scandinavian countries, but Japan's
internet access was unbelievable when I was there for a week on vacation. From
what I understand, they're working on getting 1GB of bandwidth to the home
over there.

Meanwhile I see more Comcast commercials here telling me how good we have it,
but no comparable service to back it up. Torches and pitchforks indeed.

~~~
barredo
FTTH, right?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises#Fiber_to_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises#Fiber_to_the_premises)

------
dkasper
I would gladly pay the $100 to get my home upgraded. Doesn't it seem like
individuals or even communities should be able to round up the money to pay
for the upgrade themselves? It's basically like we are at the mercy of the
cable/telcos until they decide it's cost effective for them to upgrade people.
It's not like a hard drive where you can pay extra money to get something
better, you have no options.

~~~
wmf
The $100 is probably an amortized number, assuming that your whole
neighborhood gets upgraded. e.g. It costs $50,000 to upgrade your cable node
which serves 500 customers. If only 50 people round up the money to pay for
the upgrade they'll need $1,000 each, which isn't as palatable.

~~~
kd5bjo
Amortize that $1000 over two years, though, and the upgrade costs less than
$50/mo, which starts to sound reasonable again. If all 500 customers paid, it
only takes a price increase of $5/month to pay off the upgrade in two years.

~~~
wmf
Yeah, I'm a believer in the concept of customer-owned broadband, but the ISPs
are stuck in a model where they think they have to accept all the risk of
upgrades.

