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Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

corp.sonic.net

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Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#31

Post by jbri »

ck2 wrote: post #27

Not sure what people are going to do with 20mbps+ broadband when they will certainly set caps that will be used up within the first few days of your billing cycle? Sonic apparently has no cap but that's virtually unheard of today. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/05/... Which would you rather have, unlimited speed with a 150gb cap or 6mpbs with no cap?

I'm not sure if you missed it, but this article is actually written by sonic. You know, the people providing 20+mbps without any cap.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#33

Post by soult »

baltcode wrote: post #18

Why doesn't another big company step up and lay down its own copper/fiber into homes? Sure, it will be a BIG investment but the return should be awesome. I am sure it will be worthwhile in at least some areas like NYC, Bay Area, Boston etc.

Because as soon as a new player wants to connect a town with fiber (or the town decides to lay fiber on it's own) suddenly the big telcos are very interested in also laying fiber in that town, ruining any chance of profitability. There are even cases of telcos suing towns that tried to lay their own fiber.[0]

I know this is an unpopular view in the United States, so please do not downvote me for stating my opinion, but I believe that phone/internet service should not have been privatized in the first place.

0: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/telco-to-town-wer...

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#34

Post by lr »

Switched to Sonic.net about 2 months ago and love it! Twice the speed (getting over 6 megabit now) of AT&T and for 1/2 the cost ($40/month vs. almost $80).

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#35

Post by jeffool »

Potentially silly question: Why did we dig ditches and bury cable? Why didn't we dig ditches and bury pipes that you can snake cable out of and into as needed? This makes our Internet seem less like a problem of feasibility, and more like a complete engineering fuck-up.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#36

Post by cageface »

The Western capitalist dogma is that state-run economies like those of China are inherently inefficient. But it seems to me that more and more recent evidence suggests that it may be that the partisan gridlock of Western democracies, dominated by monied interests and their lobbies, is more detrimental.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#37

Post by aaronblohowiak »

Bo102010 wrote: post #8
prpatel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bait taken. What exactly has the FCC done recently (seeing as how it's a gov't agency) to protect the interest of consumers?

I might even strike the "recently" from that question. (I'm not being facetious)

The regulation of spectrum benefits consumers by specifying who can broadcast under what circumstances/conditions/amplitude. This prevents interference, which enables surprisingly reliable communication over such a noisy technology.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#38

Post by nostromo »

lr wrote: post #34

Switched to Sonic.net about 2 months ago and love it! Twice the speed (getting over 6 megabit now) of AT&T and for 1/2 the cost ($40/month vs. almost $80).

Hmmm, is that considered fast? On Comcast in SF I get about 20Mbps down and I never really thought of it being particularly speedy.

edit: Someone should create a website that both tests your speed, but then also shares that result with the world (anonymously). I'd love to pop up a list of ISPs in a specific city and see exactly how accurate their listed speeds are before buying.

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