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| 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. |
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| RE: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By umccullough on 2012-07-27 17:29:41 |
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> 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? And do you use anything faster than a Pentium III, more than 128mb ram, and larger than a 10gb HD? Just curious... and if you do, why? |
 - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By Bill Shooter of Bul on 2012-07-27 17:40:34 |
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Not a fair comparison. All operating systems commercially available require faster parts than those you listed. So all users need to use faster parts. Unlike motorists needing 300+ Hp. Right now on 6mb dsl, I can stream two shows in HD while two users actively surf the web at normal speed. Some people might need greater speed, but not everyone does at this point. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By LighthouseJ on 2012-07-27 17:50:03 |
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> 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. First of all, I think your embellishing what your family is actually doing at any one time, but somehow you think that is an adequate rebuttal. I think you're pretending everyone does every activity simultaneously. Second, my reply was about the fastest observable speeds in an area like a near major city (that other people won't be able to benefit) as representative of the whole. I was saying who cares about that maximum speed in the nearest city? There are more interesting and alarming metrics like what I mentioned about what's going on in your neighborhood, and in your case of being in a remote area and having to pay more bucks for still slower speeds. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[3]: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By umccullough on 2012-07-27 18:05:45 |
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> Not a fair comparison. All operating systems commercially available require faster parts than those you listed. So all users need to use faster parts. Unlike motorists needing 300+ Hp. And internet bandwidth has nothing to do with horsepower either. If I need to download a Linux DVD-ISO - are you suggesting I must wait all day for that to occur? Should updating 3 windows computers in the same house render an internet connection useless during that process? > Right now on 6mb dsl, I can stream two shows in HD while two users actively surf the web at normal speed. Some people might need greater speed, but not everyone does at this point. 6mbit DSL would be great! And I'm still waiting to find out if I can get that at this house. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Stuck with cablevision monopoly here |
| By tanzam75 on 2012-07-27 18:08:13 |
| Satellite is the broadband access of last resort. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Times change |
| By tanzam75 on 2012-07-27 18:19:03 |
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> 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. Ironically, the poor state of Internet access in the dialup era happens to be one of the reasons that you have good broadband today. It gave your country a goal to surpass, an incentive to invest. The US had an adequate broadband infrastructure for 2002. It skimped on investment over the next decade, and ended up with an uncompetitive infrastructure for 2012. Other countries had pathetic broadband in 2002. So they invested a great deal and now have good broadband in 2012. And it's not just broadband. Leapfrogging happens a lot in tech infrastructure. For example, China had a patchy telephone landline network, but it now has an excellent mobile network. Edited 2012-07-27 18:24 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE: Who cares about the fastest residential speeds? |
| By earksiinni on 2012-07-27 18:52:49 |
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Dunno why this got downvoted so much. It's not clear to me that fast residential speeds are that important. I have a few handkerchiefs to lend to those poor souls who can't watch Netflix while their children torrent the latest episode of Gilmore Girls and stream YouTube. On the other hand, as a principle, innovation occurs when there is opportunity. Imagine if when you grew up there was no practical difference between a SATA connection and an Internet connection. What would you have come up with, how might you have hacked differently? Instead of becoming a _______ developer, who might you be today? On the other other hand, the absurdity of software patents shows that invention in software does not require the same kind of investment in resources that other fields do. That is why I am skeptical about the necessity of ultra-broadband. Rolling out a 500 KB/s to rural America would be enough. (Besides, for all the hype about South Korea's broadband saturation, they still have a rather insular intranet, and as far as I can tell the U.S. still leads the way in terms of creating important web apps.) |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: Times change |
| By fretinator on 2012-07-27 19:42:24 |
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> Funny thing is that only started to get better when regulators stepped, and quite offensively for that matter. We don't need any of that kind of talk - the Job Creators will hear you! |
| - Score: 3 |
| Both in Minnesota and Wisconsin it's the same. Limited |
| By TinMan on 2012-07-27 19:57:12 |
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I have lived in a very large metropolitan area (2.5-3 million people when you factored in the suburbs) for most of my life and we had perhaps 3 viable broadband options. Luckily one of them was Time Warner Cable which is fantastic both from the customer service side and the functionality side, but I was lucky. Currently I live in a much smaller metropolitan area (around 150k people) and we have 2 options here, AT&T and Charter. Again, very lucky, Charter has 100 Megabit Service, but their customer service sucks (thankfully haven't needed it). More options would be nice. I have friends here that are only a few miles outside of town and they can only get a 1.5 Megabit dsl connection. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Lazy bums! |
| By jefro on 2012-07-27 20:19:21 |
| Why do people need to have free highspeed access. I already pay $3 a month so some lazy bum can get free phone. I then pay another $3 a month so some lazy bum can get free internet. The job of the government is not to give away free stuff to people who won't work. There is no basic need for internet by the way. Not even a right to have a phone. One can do without those. |
| - Score: -1 |
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