One of the more absurd parts of America's broken telecom policies is that we've been achieving an internationally respectable level of broadband penetration in part by defining broadband down, such that 200Kbps -- which is far too slow -- qualifies. In a bit of good news, though, the FCC has decided to boost the figure to the not-nearly-as-inadequate 768Kbps. This still leaves us wondering why consumers in Japan and South Korea can get 10+ Mbps service for less than what we pay for much lower speeds.
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Broadband Upgrade
20 Mar 2008 04:26 pm
Comments (32)
What J.B. said. I don't wonder why that is, and I doubt that you do, either, Matt. Snark is all well and good, but I suspect that in this case, it's slid over into disingenuousness.
768kpbs? That's a lot of tubes, but it will make the Google a lot faster.
If you haven't seen Rick Karr's coverage of this issue you should. It lays out step by step how this travesty happened.
Re "This still leaves us wondering why consumers in Japan and South Korea can get 10+ Mbps service for less than what we pay for much lower speeds. "
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Probably because half of Verizon's bandwidth goes into mirroring our emails and internet messages over to NSA.
That's the nice part about a "Regulated public utility" -- it doesn't have to actually serve the public but it damm well better do what the White House wants.
I would think that the size and population density of Japan and S. Korea help (especially as BB is a capital intensive business).
This still leaves us wondering why consumers in Japan and South Korea can get 10+ Mbps service for less than what we pay for much lower speeds.
There are two quick major reasons for this.
1) Size and population density. Japan and South Korea are both much smaller than the United States (145883 sq. miles vs. 38492 sq. miles vs. 3,794,066 sq. miles) and have MUCH higher population densities (873 people per sq. mile vs. 1274 vs. 80). As a consequence, the amount of linear feet of broadband cable per number of customers in the United States is a much, much higher ratio than it is either Japan or South Korea. Consequently, the costs to provide broadband service to customers are higher in the United States vs. Japan or South Korea as a sheer matter of population density.
2) Regulator Fragmentation. In Japan and South Korea, a 20 mile span of cable will typically only involve obtaining permitting or licensing from one government agency. In the United States, it's not impossible for a 20 mile span of cable to involve obtaining permitting or licensing from five or more government agencies (municipalities, county governments, state and federal agencies, etc.) This increases the costs of laying down fiber, which also gets passed on to consumers.
There are other reasons for the price discrepancies beyond those two above, but they're the biggees.
This also might have something to do with it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
Re: This still leaves us wondering why consumers in Japan and South Korea can get 10+ Mbps service for less than what we pay for much lower speeds.
Everytime this subject coems up I wonder what on earth people (individuals not businesses) need with that speed. It's rather like German auto companies bragging that their cars can go from 0 to 140mph in two minutes flat. Well and good, but most of don't need to drive 140mph and most of us don't need 10+ Mbps service. The connection I have is perfectly fine and when problems arise it's due either to the limitations of the PC or the website. And to pick a bone here does anyone know why the Atlantic website is so appallingly slow at posting comments? The site and its pages come up in a flash, but when I post this I will probably go start dinner since it will take a minute or two before the page refreshes.
most of don't need...10+ Mbps service
Most of us don't "need" most of what we have, but 10Mbps is certainly much better than 768kbps for, say, streaming HD video. I'd love to be able to hook up a computer to my TV, click a button, and immediately stream broadcast-quality (or better) video and audio.
Density... the last refuge of the American broadband-scolded
Let's compare apples to apples:
Matt sits in Washington DC, I in Munich. not Seoul or Tokyo.
I took the cheap broadband (2Mbps) 2 years ago 25€/m inclusive phone line, because I don't need so much (not an on-line gamer, no videos).
My provider offered me the upgrade to 16 Mbps for 0€ - Zilch - nada of extra costs.
The concurrent was offering it as standard...
I tell you, I still don't need it. Buuuut: to be able to see Trailers or videos is really nice. And those comments of Atlantic are so fast...
Don't even try to take my 16Mbps back!
And keep your FCC, that sorry excuse for a regulation authority.
Low Population density is not the reason.
Please watch Rick Karrs reporting. He lays out in great detail how the telecom companies promised to put in high speed lines in exchange for tax breaks and other concessions and just never delivered.
They should be sued.
Oops... should have been
My provider offered me 3 months ago the upgrade
Aaron hits the nail on the head, we may not need the bandwidth today, but for On-Demand high def movies we will.
While our friends in Europe will be watching the latest movies streamed real time we'll still be using a bunch of gas to send DVDs back and forth in the mail to Blockbuster and Netflix.
We've had 100 Mbps optical access for more than 8 years, and a choice of several competing carriers plus dozens of providers. Don't need all that bandwidth? How about living in a home with four always-on PCs and family members who actively seek out video content? How about downloading the complete Vista SP1 in a couple of minutes, without slowing down the other users? And starting in April, NTT is upgrading to the next-generation network that will have HDTV on demand, among other bandwidth-hungry services.
OK, no one *needs* it, but it sure is nice.
Re: Most of us don't "need" most of what we have, but 10Mbps is certainly much better than 768kbps
Let me repeat myself: the problem for most people isn't the lack of high speed connection, it's slow PCs and/or crappy websites, like this one here that takes a geological age to post two sentences.
And if it's TV and movies you want, why not use a TV set? That's what it's made for you know.
Upgrade implies that something is actually being improved. A more accurate word is "redefined".
A customer who's paying for 200 kbps "broadband" dsl is still going to have 200 kbps dsl, it just won't be called broadband anymore.
JonF reminds me of the Commodore guy would couldn't imagine what people would do with more than 64 K of computing power. Believe me, if we suddenly had 10Mbs widely available in the US, the content of the internet and the graphics capacities of the average computer would change overnight.
To relate it to another of Matt's hobby horses, the burbs don't grow until the highways are built.
About population density: The vast majority of Americans live in dense areas, which as of yet do not have the broadband speeds of our counterparts in the advanced world.
Although I do wonder this: What is the PC ownership rate between the US and other advanced nations? Having a lot of bandwith but low PC ownership and usage does not get one far. Does anyone know?
About population density: The vast majority of Americans live in dense areas, which as of yet do not have the broadband speeds of our counterparts in the advanced world.
Although I do wonder this: What is the PC ownership rate between the US and other advanced nations? Having a lot of bandwith but low PC ownership and usage does not get one far. Does anyone know?
About population density: The vast majority of Americans live in dense areas, which as of yet do not have the broadband speeds of our counterparts in the advanced world.
Although I do wonder this: What is the PC ownership rate between the US and other advanced nations? Having a lot of bandwith but low PC ownership and usage does not get one far. Does anyone know?
The character of our nation's telcos...which historically has been pretty poor...is also a factor. Surely the bogus "fiber swaps" between Global Crossing and Qwest were a factor, no? The collapse of Worldcom?
Is it possible that runaway corporate greed might have more to do with it than other factors such as geography and population density?
Am I the only one who remembers the talk of the "fiber glut" from just a few years ago? And what about the millions of miles of dark fiber in the ground?
I'm not saying that corporate greed is the ONLY factor, but I believe it is a factor.
Yeah, I can personally attest to the dreadful state of US broadband standards. I live in South Korea now and my home connection is SLOW by South Korean standards--but is shockingly fast compared with ANYTHING I could ever hope from America. I'm downloading whole albums from the iTunes music store in something around thirty seconds. I reckon this is purely a problem of infrastructure--and America's poor boradband coverage is akin to America having poor roads or poor water. But then again I'm maybe part of the one percent of the population who LIVE on the internet. What difference to our national productivity will we see if consumers can download a movie in two minutes or in twenty?
Broadband? What broadband? My parents live in the country and all they can get is dial-up. There isn't cable TV on many roads in their area, and they are too rural for DSL. And they are a 20-minute drive from a major university town, not in the middle of Alaska.
Somehow I can't quite feel your pain. 768kbps, boo hoo, try spending 10 minutes just to check your email because all of the clients are designed for people with much faster connections.
Sarah: Your scorn is pretty seriously misplaced, given that the reasons that Matt (or whomever) can't get better than 768kbps are pretty much the same reasons that your parents can't get non-dialup at all.
There's a weird thread of 'Stop whining, don't you know how good you have it, back in my day...' running through this comment thread. Given that we know for a fact that US telecom companies are basically evil, and that we know for a fact that the FCC is a regulatory agency in thrall to obsolencent technologies and legacy money, and that we know for a fact that other countries are doing a much better job of bringing the most important technology of the late 20th century to their citizens, I really can't understand why people are happy with their horse-and-buggy-style Internet connectivity.
In France, where I live, ADSL speed is generally 20 megabits per second or higher, and for only about 30 euros a month. And that includes VoIP phone service with unlimited calling in France and unlimited calling to the US, and several dozen TV channels.
The reason it's so cheap? Competition (something that's rare in the US). There are probably a dozen or more ISP's in France, and they all offer high speeds, TV and phone service.
The reason it's so cheap? Competition
Well, actually in Europe it's a mixture of competition and, gasp, government regulation. The traditional telecoms have been forced to let resellers use their infrastructure, thus you get high-speed ADSL for chump change. Some people seem to be incapable of understanding the principle that ensuring true competition involves a certain amount of regulation and thus they revert back to rationalizing the crappy service they get from ancient monopolies at high prices - it's quite amusing to watch.
The reasons stated above concerning size, population density, and regulatory fragmentation are all equally valid for explaining why Americans don't have electricity, phone lines or running water.
mickslam, Do you have a link to any of Rick Karr's articles?
Open access to the local loop (a.k.a. unbundling). This really isn't complicated.
That's just wrong. Local loop unbundling for the mass market has existed in the United States since 1996, when the FCC issued the first Local Competition Order.
Quick Google for "Rick Karr broadband" found this:
The Piper Wants to Get Paid
October 13, 2006
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2006/10/13/03
And this:
The Net at Risk
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/index.html
THE NEW DIGITAL DIVIDE
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/usworld.html
Obviously, while population density explains why Americans in Idaho don't have 10Mbps broadband, it doesn't explain why San Francisco doesn't have it.
I tried to upgrade my 1.5Mbps AT&T connection (back when it was still SBC). They upgraded it to 3Mbps. Then I checked the speed and it was barely 10% over 1.5. So I called and got referred to the techs at their provisioning partner. The tech told me bluntly that I was over 10,000 feet from the Central Office and that 3Mbps was not possible. All cranking it up to that speed would do would make the line unstable and eventually it would go down and stay down.
Therefore, what we have is a company offering a service they cannot deliver. That's a class action lawsuit waiting to happen. And in fact somebody said a couple of law firms were looking into that.
At the time I tried to upgrade to 3Mbps, I was told by the SBC sales rep that they were going to roll out 20Mbps in the next year. How the hell can they deliver 20Mbps when they can't deliver 3? You'd have to be fifty feet from the Central Office to get 20.
It's fraud - it's that simple. It took them YEARS to get DSL to be stable enough to even offer 1.5 or 3Mbps. Go back and look at the telecom industry journals for the 90's. Until you have fiber to the home, it's not happening. And the telcoms have no incentive to spend the money for that build-out while everybody is happily downloading at 1.5Mbps or even 768Kbps or even 512Kbps at $20/month.
I'm still paying $36 a month for 1.5Mbps. At least it's stable and I get that full 150-160KBps download speed.
Look at the cost of Comcast Cable Net access. It's faster - but it's shared. And it's expensive as hell.
A "regulated industry" is an industry that owns its "regulators."
We'll just have to wait and see what happens with Wi-Max and the new FCC auction. It's beginning to look like a bunch of independent wireless providers and Google data centers all over the country are the only hope for ever having higher speed broadband in this country.
Comments closed April 03, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
This still leaves us wondering why consumers in Japan and South Korea can get 10+ Mbps service for less than what we pay for much lower speeds.
Open access to the local loop (a.k.a. unbundling).
This really isn't complicated.
Posted by J.B. | March 20, 2008 4:46 PM