| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |
| U.S. Broadband Access Lags |
| By Howard Fosdick on 2012-07-27 02:57:32 |
| A free, new report from the New America Foundation compares cost, speed, and availabilty of internet connectivity in 22 cities around the world. The report concludes that U.S. consumers face comparatively high, rising connectivity costs, even while the majority have very limited choices -- often only one or two providers. The report argues that U.S. broadband policies need to change, otherwise consumer choice will continue to deteriorate. |
|
| Comment by ilovebeer |
| By ilovebeer on 2012-07-27 06:25:25 |
| Yup. It's pathetic. |
 - Score: 3 |
| So true |
| By kateline on 2012-07-27 06:33:07 |
|
This report is so true. The USA has some large rural areas (as opposed to central Europe, say), in which you'd expect only 1 or 2 ISP's. But even its urban areas lack choice of carrier. I'm in a large city and I've got all of two (Comcast and AT&T DSL). We need true competition and customer choice, it's vital to our economy and future growth. |
| - Score: 6 |
| RE: So true |
| By l3v1 on 2012-07-27 08:21:04 |
| Agree +1. Where my relatives are in the US (and me, when I happen to be there) there are 3 options basically (at&t, verizon and cox), and each have ridiculously high prices compared to almost anywhere in Europe (let alone comparing the number of options to choose from), but not just that, it's also high if you look at what you get for the price. It's a joke really. But if you look at where they seem to be headed, it doesn't seem funny at all. |
| - Score: 4 |
| Akamai's survey agrees, US behind |
| By benali72 on 2012-07-27 08:46:30 |
| Akamai's "State of the Internet" survey also shows the US to be behind many other nations in broadband. See a good summary of findings at -- http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,... |
| - Score: 4 |
| Times change |
| By dsmogor on 2012-07-27 09:05:55 |
|
I remember when people angrily pointed out how one could have a month worth of unlimited broadband access for the mere cost of a few hamburgers in the US, while at the same time in my country, you could spend 0.5 of average wage on excessive dialup cost (to a monopoly telecom) your kids generated if you weren't carefull. Broadband (Leased line was the only option) was out of reach. Now one can easily choose from multitude of offers including LTE, cable and phone companies offering as little as $15 for 50mbit. Hell, you can get basic EDGE access for absolutely free! (no strings) Funny thing is that only started to get better when regulators stepped, and quite offensively for that matter. Times change indeed. Edited 2012-07-27 09:06 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By LighthouseJ on 2012-07-27 12:19:13 |
|
This topic usually comes up on the Internet in order to belittle the US when compared to other countries. Why are maximum speeds to residential customers really important? It's like being obsessed with having the car with the most horsepower. When are you, the car owner, ever going to need all of that top speed? If you won't (and you're like most of us), then perhaps it would be better spending money on a car with more torque, if you like that, better handling, more features, etc... I wish the article had been focused the price to get broadband access (per FCC FTA) around the world so as to raise awareness about getting poorer peoples on-line. I also wish the article spent more time noting that few large companies are rounding up all of the resources. |
| - Score: 1 |
| Rural |
| By OMRebel on 2012-07-27 13:23:58 |
| I live "in the sticks" (slang for outside of a town in the middle of nowhere) and the only option for DSL is through a small telephone company. The max we can get at my house is 1.5Mbps. It sucks, but it is consistent at that speed, so we can still watch movies on the Roku - but only one at a time. Of course, we have to have a landline with them as they don't separate their internet service at all. We fork out roughly $40/month for that. It really is ridiculous, as there are no other options for us. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By OMRebel on 2012-07-27 13:35:44 |
|
> Why are maximum speeds to residential customers really important? It's like being obsessed with having the car with the most horsepower. When are you, the car owner, ever going to need all of that top speed? If you won't (and you're like most of us), then perhaps it would be better spending money on a car with more torque, if you like that, better handling, more features, etc... . Why are speeds important? That's easy. I have a teenage son is that usually watching Youtube videos, playing games, listening to music, etc... You know, stuff that does take up a bit of bandwidth. Meanwhile, if my wife and I want to watch a movie over Netflix or Amazon Instant Video. Now, if my son is hogging up even half of the small amount of bandwidth that is even offered to me, then my wife and I can't watch Netflix or Amazon Instant Video - the quality would be way too crappy. If we were living in a larger city, then that wouldn't be a problem, as we'd have much more options. But as it stands now, we have no options and it sucks. Our one and only ISP isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. |
| - Score: 6 |
| Stuck with cablevision monopoly here |
| By Alfman on 2012-07-27 13:50:05 |
|
The internet suffers from reliability issues. They are a total broadband monopoly. Next option is dialup. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By cpuobsessed on 2012-07-27 14:24:39 |
| I'm not even two miles from the closest city (about 40 miles east of Lexington,KY) and have no options other than dialup or sattelite. ATT have said "oh we're expanding coverage all the time", yeah right, they've said since I moved here in 2003. Guess what, still no DSL for me; neighbor has it and the fastest speed he can have is 3Mbit. They have no plans to increase coverage or reliability because we're out here and not in a populated area like Lexington or even Winchester. It's really disgusting because as we move forward it will become more and more necessary to have internet access. Not just for entertainment but job searches, education, news, etc. |
| - Score: 2 |
| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |