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US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

theguardian.com

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Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#101
post #70
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop bringing up this kind of measurement as if it were an excuse. Sweden's population density is 21 inhabitants/km2 -- about 54/sq.mile. Finland's population density is lower. Both countries have much better, and cheaper Internet connections on offer than the US.

Sweden and Finland are only sparsely populated on paper. Nearly 75% of Sweden lives along the coast, compared to only 40% of the U.S. 18% of Swedes live in the country's four largest cities, versus only 5% of Americans.

The 5 largest American cities all have larger populations than urban Stockholm and 4 of them have higher population density. None of them have better broadband.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#102
post #81

Ugh. The answer is not municipally owned ISPs. Sure it's easy for a municipal ISP to have "cheap" rates when you consider that they are taxing authorities and don't have to run a profit. How exactly would this service be put into place? It would take a massive capital investment by the municipality, full of opportunities for fraud. I live in a fairly small, highly liberal town and yet in the past few years we've had…

While I don't really disagree with most of your above points, I will say that when it works (Chattanooga) it really is fantastic. Their internet arm is already profitable all on its own and they've apparently leveraged it to MASSIVELY improve the quality of their electric grid as well. If there's a better ISP anywhere else in the US I'd love to hear about them since I currently believe they do not exist.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that you compare population densities without comparing population distributions. The comparison with the Scandinavian countries is less unfair than you claim: "almost everyone lives on the coasts, unlike in the U.S." Over 50% of the US population lives in the largest 20 cities, and > 75% live in cities, mostly near coasts and rivers and the great lakes. The centers of population in the US are…

Comparing population distributions makes the distinctions even more stark. 80% of the U.S. population lives in an "urban area" but that definition includes towns of 2,500 people. My friend in rural Georgia that has to drive several hours to get to an international airport technically lives in an "urban area" according to the Census Bureau. The population of the 20 largest cities (New York down to Memphis) is 33 milli…

The easy way to account for problems with the non-uniform definition of urban area is to consider population density. As I said in another comment there are several cities in the US that have a larger density (for whatever defined area) and larger population.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#104
I'm all for people owning their own last mile for all kinds of services, if that's what they wish to do. Cooperatives are a great thing.

And the marketplace where these coops buy their internet access, electricity or water can still be competitive. It would actually be MORE competitive than the monopolies handed out by governments that you cannot easily leave.

And the decision to grant such a monopoly or revoke or allow an increase would not be in hands of the few. It would be in many different collections of hands and be much harder to pay off all those hands for some sweetheart deal.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#105
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone) By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's ( http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i... ). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18). On Ookla's ranking, the…

I have challenged you about this topic several times and backed it up. I still think the best public data is the FCC international broadband survey and report which I have previously referenced. The Ookla "promise" figures can be used to validate the advertised speeds in that dataset versus actual speeds. The issue is not merely of availability of very high speed (>25mbps) connections but its price, an area in which…

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Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#106
post #38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see north east US, Main = 14 MBPS or 0.1 MBPS faster than Mongolia woot! Comparing nations to states is ridiculous. However, if you read the report it's damming with faint praise. "the average connection speeds seen in the United States and Mexico remained more than twice as fast as the next fastest country" Sure, if you discount everyone that's better than you then you can call yourself #1 at anything. PS: Not…

Maine has a population density of 43 people per square mile, less than 1/10th the density of the U.K. or Germany. Maine is just Northeast's version of Montana.

That justifications has been shot down multiple times.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#107
post #22
post #19

I think by now it's hard to deny that Comcast & friends are stifling the progress of the US economy. The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone), consumers and businesses are complaining across the board about high pricing, bad service, and lack of options. These companies do the country and its inhabitants a big disservice. I think the only reasonable option f…

> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone) By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's ( http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i... ). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18). On Ookla's ranking, the…

Ookla lists the US as #26. Akamai does not rank the US as a country.

But stifling the economy is not only a matter of speed. It's also a matter of how much you pay for that speed. Let me explain. I am a Comcast customer. When I look at a Netflix movie, Comcast gets money from three sources for that movie: my monthly subscription, the 200% overage fee that I pay, because - basically - I watch Neflix instead of one of the crappy channels that come with my subscription, and from Neflix.

The fact that Comcast gets paid three times makes internet pretty expensive for me. Because Netflix will have no choice but increasing their subscription costs.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing population distributions makes the distinctions even more stark. 80% of the U.S. population lives in an "urban area" but that definition includes towns of 2,500 people. My friend in rural Georgia that has to drive several hours to get to an international airport technically lives in an "urban area" according to the Census Bureau. The population of the 20 largest cities (New York down to Memphis) is 33 milli…

The easy way to account for problems with the non-uniform definition of urban area is to consider population density. As I said in another comment there are several cities in the US that have a larger density (for whatever defined area) and larger population.

There's two separate issues:

1) What's internet services like in the U.S. at large levels of granularity?

2) What's internet service like in the U.S. in specific cities?

Re: 1, I think the available data shows that, at a large granularity, we can say that, e.g. the average speeds in big European countries like the U.K. and Germany, factoring in their rural and urban areas together, are comparable to U.S. cities that have similar density, like New York or Connecticut. I think that shows that the overall structure of our telecom market is not inferior to that in the U.K. or Germany or France.

Re: 2, the question is why certain European cities have much faster internet than comparably dense U.S. cities. And I think the answer to that is the same as the answer to: why do certain European cities have much better public transit than comparably dense U.S. cities?

The status of Stockholm within the political structure of Sweden, or the status of Warsaw within the political structure of Poland is very different than the status of New York or Chicago within the political structure of the U.S. Large U.S. cities don't have the political pull to get national-level infrastructure investment.

I've never been to Sweden, but I'm familiar with Bangladesh, where Dhaka (10% of the national population), is the center of political life. I imagine Sweden similarly views the infrastructure of Stockholm as a point of national competitiveness. That's not at all true of American cities. The bulk of the polity of the U.S. views our large cities with skepticism and derision. Instead of viewing investment into urban infrastructure as a point of competitiveness, the heavily-suburban American polity views it as a boondoggle to get poor urban votes.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#109
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop bringing up this kind of measurement as if it were an excuse. Sweden's population density is 21 inhabitants/km2 -- about 54/sq.mile. Finland's population density is lower. Both countries have much better, and cheaper Internet connections on offer than the US.

Agreed. However, having gone down that rabbit hole too often, the arguments devolve. One particularly puzzling exchange devolved from my position of "Japan and Korea has ultra high speed Internet, why doesn't the US?" to "population density" on the other side, then to this same argument about Sweden's density, then to "cultural homogeneity" on the other. That made me pause. "Cultural homogeneity?" I asked. And, the d…

> And, the debate devolved into how there are too many minorities in the US and because of that, no one in any position of power wanted to allow everyone universal access because minorities (which I assumed to be Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc.) would need too many handouts to get the same speed, which no one would want to pay for.

If anything it's probably the other way around. It will be a long time before it's cost effective to run fiber to every farm and and shack in the woods in America. But if you let the telcos decide who to serve then you end up with $50/month for gigabit fiber in rich and middle class neighborhoods and $20/month for some tin can on a string in poor neighborhoods, where "poor neighborhoods" include most of the predominantly racial minority neighborhoods, which makes it a political quagmire.

So the telcos end up saddled with build out requirements which means no gigabit fiber for anybody. Which is really quite unfortunate because the justification doesn't require the remedy. Most of the urban poor neighborhoods might not be profitable but they're at least close to break even. The problem is the universal service requirements passed to make sure they get served also require providing service to sparsely populated areas that are a pure money pit.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#110
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden and Finland are only sparsely populated on paper. Nearly 75% of Sweden lives along the coast, compared to only 40% of the U.S. 18% of Swedes live in the country's four largest cities, versus only 5% of Americans.

The 5 largest American cities all have larger populations than urban Stockholm and 4 of them have higher population density. None of them have better broadband.

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