US Falling behind in Broadband

[Clark Kent]

US Falling behind in Broadband
By BlueDragon1981 - Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:31:46 GMT
Originally Posted at: Nephrites Citadel
====================

<div>The United States is falling behind in broadband services. Not because it does not have the technology or the money to provide good broadband to the home but because the companies are hording it and the lack of competition is making it so they can pretty much do what they choose to do. It is an oligopoly of sorts. A select few power houses have the broadband market and the US congress denied smaller ISP's the right to use broadband lines of phone companies.

The powerhouse companies do not have to do what customers want. In a way they can do what they want and the customer has to suffer. In some rural areas you have no choice. You go with the one company that is offering service in that area. I have seen the results of this myself. They simply don't care. They send a tech out only if the line is completely down pretty much. The worst company to fix a problem is Time Warner and the very close second is Verizon.

The average speed in the US is 1.9 megabits per second. It is 61 mbps in Japan, South Korea has 45 mbps, Sweden 18 mbps, and Canada 7.5 mbps. Now a small amount has to do with land mass they have to cover but mostly it is due to competition. Out of all the contries with fiber to house the US ranks 11. It trails a great deal of Asia and Scandinavia.

In mobile broadband the U.S also falls way behind. Only 15 percent of mobile users use it in the US and the reason cited by most is the cost of the service and the cost of the gear. In Japan 60 percent.

(I got this from a pc world article. December 2007 issue page 15. Harry McCracken (

 

[AceHBK]

US Falling behind in Broadband
By BlueDragon1981 - Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:31:46 GMT
Originally Posted at: Nephrites Citadel
====================

<div>The United States is falling behind in broadband services. Not because it does not have the technology or the money to provide good broadband to the home but because the companies are hording it and the lack of competition is making it so they can pretty much do what they choose to do. It is an oligopoly of sorts. A select few power houses have the broadband market and the US congress denied smaller ISP's the right to use broadband lines of phone companies.

The powerhouse companies do not have to do what customers want. In a way they can do what they want and the customer has to suffer. In some rural areas you have no choice. You go with the one company that is offering service in that area. I have seen the results of this myself. They simply don't care. They send a tech out only if the line is completely down pretty much. The worst company to fix a problem is Time Warner and the very close second is Verizon.

The average speed in the US is 1.9 megabits per second. It is 61 mbps in Japan, South Korea has 45 mbps, Sweden 18 mbps, and Canada 7.5 mbps. Now a small amount has to do with land mass they have to cover but mostly it is due to competition. Out of all the contries with fiber to house the US ranks 11. It trails a great deal of Asia and Scandinavia.

In mobile broadband the U.S also falls way behind. Only 15 percent of mobile users use it in the US and the reason cited by most is the cost of the service and the cost of the gear. In Japan 60 percent.

(I got this from a pc world article. December 2007 issue page 15. Harry McCracken (

You know, I go to a lot of messageboards and various sites where people in other countries say how they have these huge download speeds and I always wonder how in the world do they get speeds like that while over here in the great and powerful U.S. of A. you pay a arm and a leg for just 3MB/s I think I have around 5 or 6 which to me is great.

It shocks me to see other countries be able to get speeds of that fast but not as much as it does that we over here in the U.S. are nowhere near close to anything of that nature.

Same could be said for cellphones. We are way behind in terms of cellphones technology than other countries.

Is it plainly about power and money??

 

[Carol]

Power and money has some to do with it, but there is also the question of consumer demand and legacy infrastructure.

In nations such as India, the "landline" copper plant is in terrible shape. In some areas it is not uncommon to see fallen telephone lines simply lying in the road. As the country's economic might has improved, they have simply skipped trying to optimize its copper plant and instead gone straight to wireless communications as their main source of transmission.

Similarly in areas like Japan and Scandinavia, there are many areas where, if they had telephone or cable TV service at all, the service was provided on an outdated copper plant. Rather than improving the existing copper, the copper was replaced by large bundles of fiber that were lit up according to customer demand.

Unlike cell phones in general, there hasn't been as big of a demand for wireless broadband in the U.S. Cost is one factor, slower speed is a factor, interest is another. Not all Americans want to be plugged in to the net wherever they go.

 

[Shicomm]

Size matters !
It's not that tough to get a small country fitted with high speed cable/dsl ( and even here we do have some 'dead' spots )

It would cost a fortune to get good dsl all across the US.
As with the cell. network ; the US should have dumped the analog network ages ago... gsm is way better... and with new digital wireless networks coming up...