Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 145 posts

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#101

Post by derobert »

willwagner wrote: post #4

I'm mentioning this from a point of complete ignorance but why can't this sort of proposal be used for cable operators as well (both for broadband and television)? Getting to choose from several competitors on who gets my tv and broadband service would I expect create better plans than the current "pay for 100 channels but only use 3" that most if not all US consumers currently get.

Currently, in my area, there are at least four different choices: FiOS, Comcast, DirecTV, DISH Network. At yet all four offer similar programming packages (big blocks of channels). This seems to be evidence against your hypothesis.

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#102

Post by wmf »

biturd wrote: post #71

Where can I find out more about the "last mile" wireless links near the end of the video? I will be moving to an retirement area that has a summer population of a few hundred and a winter population of many thousands. There is no internet currently aside from cellular. I wanted to look into long link wifi, but only have found expensive point to point solutions that are multiple thousands of dollars. I don't even know…

Start here: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/wisp/2_How_to_start

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#103

Post by wtallis »

russell wrote: post #70
w1ntermute wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the phone companies were Ma Bell, which had a government-sanctioned natural monopoly from 1936 to its breakup in 1984. If it was natural, why was a government sanction necessary?

Why government regulation? To prevent price gouging, favoritism to particular customers, killing off rivals. Prior to the Carterphone Decision you could not attach any third party equipment to the phone lines, including phones and modems. There was a huge battle for MCI to attach their long distance phone lines to the AT&T system. Common carrier status was invented to allow people to use their phones as they wish. Wh…

The concept of common carrier status had been around for a very long time when it was first used to apply to telecommunication services. These days, phone companies and many kinds of physical transport services are common carriers, while ISPs have only the benefits of common carrier status, and none of the limitations.

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#104

Post by daleharvey »

tzs wrote: post #43

In the "Need to Know" version of this story they talked with a BT representative about how things had worked out for BT after they were forced into local loop unbundling. It worked out great for BT. They make more money leasing out the lines and leasing out space in their switching centers for the third party ISP's equipment than they were making providing monopoly ISP services directly. It truly is a case of everyon…

It isnt truly a case of everyone wins, consumers still need to pay ridiculous reconnection fees (these are typically £100 - £300, despite the fact there was an active line before you moved in)

As well as being forced to pay line rental (£8-£15pm) for a bt phone line despite no intention of ever making any calls.

BT definitely won out of it, not sure anyone else did.

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#106

Post by naner »

An issue that appears to be overlooked is that the US is much less densely populated and has a much higher overall population and land area to cover. I favor the way many European countries are able to handle things like this (and healthcare, and transportation, etc) but the US is hardly similar to any of those countries. We're operating at a completely different scale here. Not to mention political and cultural differences and issues of states' rights versus the federal government's rights.

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#108

Post by dalke »

maxharris wrote: post #68
Apocryphon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article actually mentions that point: Meanwhile, the size of the U.S. may be a red herring. Most of the region between Boston and Washington is as densely populated as most of Europe and the UK. So is the California coast between San Francisco and San Diego. And so is the region of the Midwest centered on Chicago. Those areas are home to about a quarter of all Americans. In other words, we live in a big country,…

I don't buy that. One reason is that the article fails to account for the taxes that are put on phone bills that subsidize rural telecommunications. Another is that the regulations that force American telcos to support low-density projects have direct effects (someone subsidizes folks in Wyoming, and that invariably ends up being people living elsewhere) as well as indirect ones (regulating a business changes its cul…

The Federal USF Surcharge is what, US$1 per residential line per month? That's the only nationwide subsidy program I know of. Even if it's more - $5/month? $20/month? - that's nowhere near enough to account for the disparity in network performance in the Northeast seaboard states compared to, say Sweden.

I'm an American living in Sweden. I'm in a city and can get 200Mbit/s for US$80/month. Checking Comcast for Boston and I don't see any option above 105Mbit and that costs US$105/month. That's not a simple difference in subsidies.

In any case, Sweden is not a densely packed country. It's about 54 people/sq. mile and the US is 83 people/sq. mile. Massachusetts is 830 people/sq. mile.

Why doesn't Boston have better internet service than here? It can't be subsidies for universal access for a far-flung population since the surcharge isn't that high. It can't be population density since otherwise Boston or any other large US city would have better connectivity than here.

The point of the survey is to analyze those reason, and you drew your conclusion after only reading a summary of it.

The objections you raise come up every time there's a cross-national comparison of internet access. They are accounted for, and the US is still behind, and falling further behind.

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#109

Post by masklinn »

americandesi333 wrote: post #94
masklinn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, European telecom companies are allowed to charge extra for higher bandwidth usage. These are getting rarer and rarer these days. And the countries which raced ahead dropped quotas early, or never had quotas in the first place (France for instance, second ADSL market in Europe, standard ADSL contracts are all unmetered and metered never represented any significant portion of the market). Even Belg…

Masklinn, If my first point was not correct, then why is there so much lobbying effort and dollars being spent on the 'net neutrality' issue? Also, just out of curiosity, want to know why the 'No' for the two barriers and if you identified something different that would change the landscape.

> Masklinn, If my first point was not correct, then why is there so much lobbying effort and dollars being spent on the 'net neutrality' issue?

Net neutrality has nothing whatsoever to do with quotas.

> Also, just out of curiosity, want to know why the 'No' for the two barriers

The first one simply does not make sense, the second one is at best irrelevant and at worst counter-productive (countries using quotas are historically the worst ones in terms of penetration and improvements over time, they're solely a way for carriers to fuck with above-average customers)

> and if you identified something different that would change the landscape.

Bundled line sharing (mandated at acceptable prices by regulations), they let new isps start out as purely virtual and ramp up their operation by building their physical network over time (DSLAMs and local loop unbundling) instead of having to front these, and affordable local loop unbundling.

Those are what triggered internet access improvements in european countries with a former telco monopoly (just about all of them). As well as policy and explicit political drive for increased competition in the sector.

Re: Why is European broadband faster and cheaper? Blame the government

#110

Post by masklinn »

naner wrote: post #106

An issue that appears to be overlooked is that the US is much less densely populated and has a much higher overall population and land area to cover. I favor the way many European countries are able to handle things like this (and healthcare, and transportation, etc) but the US is hardly similar to any of those countries. We're operating at a completely different scale here. Not to mention political and cultural diff…

> An issue that appears to be overlooked

It wasn't overlooked in the article, you overlooked it in your reading:

> Meanwhile, the size of the U.S. may be a red herring. Most of the region between Boston and Washington is as densely populated as most of Europe and the UK. So is the California coast between San Francisco and San Diego. And so is the region of the Midwest centered on Chicago. Those areas are home to about a quarter of all Americans. In other words, we live in a big country, but a lot of it is relatively empty space.

> The argument that the U.S. is too spread out is nonsense, according to Herman Wagter, one of the Netherlands' most prominent evangelists for next-generation broadband. He thinks there's something else going on in Verizon's and AT&T's opposition to competition at home: They're afraid of it.

Post reply on HN