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Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

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Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#31

Post by w1ntermute »

saosebastiao wrote: post #22
mahyarm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why does broadband in other countries not have this problem, like Scandinavia, or Korea & Japan?

Sprawl makes infrastructure investment orders of magnitude more expensive. For example, a small business [1] provides the fastest consumer access in the city of Seattle, but they refuse to do business outside of extremely high density buildings. There is no way a small business could do the same in McSuburbia. In the sprawly world outside of the US's dense cities, only municipal governments with a lot of political wi…

That doesn't explain why internet speeds suck in NYC.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#32

Post by rictic »

marknutter wrote: post #23

I have gigabit fiber internet and it doesn't feel all that much faster than my old Comcast 20Mbs connection because the bottleneck isn't my connection, it's the servers I'm asking for content from. For some things it's blazingly fast (downloading updates, torrenting, etc) but for general web surfing the benefit is barely noticeable. I think that's why fiber adoption is slower than broadband adoption was. There's not…

A bit of a chicken and egg there though. Who's going to build services that use >20mbps in bandwidth if almost no one has that much?

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#33

Post by jfasi »

chimeracoder wrote: post #17
jfasi wrote: post #4

I view the broadband industry as a fascinating example of what happens when an infrastructure industry meets the technology industry. TWC and friends were established to enact a business plan that's been viable and profitable for centuries: laying down expensive infrastructure is economically feasible if most of the cost comes up front and you can charge rents on it for decades. Stability is crucial. This is the econ…

> I view the broadband industry as a fascinating example of what happens when an infrastructure industry meets the technology industry. I don't disagree with your comment, but your argument would seem to apply to the rest of the world, whereas in fact the US is in a fairly unique situation among developed countries. Most of the current situation can be explained by the fact that broadband is currently the only unregu…

I disagree in terms of regulation: there is plenty of regulation on broadband internet, except it tends to discourage competition against broadband providers.

This isn't a problem that is going to be solved by placing regulations on the industry. Your example of past subsidies provides an excellent argument for this: given the political clout these entities hold and have in the past used to stilt legislation in their favor, what leads us to believe we're going to do any better with new regulations?

At the end of the day, the market is demanding better internet service. While telecommunications providers are certain to wage war against the injection against honest competition into their sector, things are actually looking pretty good in my mind. The FCC sees market demand and is working to tear down anti-competitive legislative barriers [1]. Smaller efforts such as Google Fiber are doing the hard work of convincing the public that better service is within reach.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/20/fcc_s_pla...

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#34

Post by skywhopper »

One of the biggest missed opportunities of the 2009 government stimulus was a failure to heavily invest in new infrastructure that would pay dividends for the next 50-100 years. A government project to connect every household in America to gigabit Internet connection is more than doable, and would pay enormous benefits for individuals and corporations alike. It's not too late, although it would be much much harder today.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#35

Post by dublinben »

insuffi wrote: post #25
saosebastiao wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sprawl makes infrastructure investment orders of magnitude more expensive. For example, a small business [1] provides the fastest consumer access in the city of Seattle, but they refuse to do business outside of extremely high density buildings. There is no way a small business could do the same in McSuburbia. In the sprawly world outside of the US's dense cities, only municipal governments with a lot of political wi…

I don't have direct experience with the state of the internet in the U.S., but isn't it terrible in large, metropolitan cities as well? I'm really just using the anecdata I've been reading on HN. Furthermore, afaik many small towns even in eastern europe(while making great strides, no particularly huge cities) boast 100 mbit connections. Assuming both of those statements are true, It doesn't seem to me like the econo…

You're absolutely correct. Population density is a red herring in this issue. The broadband situation is no better in the major cities of the U.S than it is in the rest of the country. Major cities in the rest of the developed world have much better connections somehow.

One of the first deployments of gigabit fiber in the U.S. was in Chatanooga TN, with a population density of 471.9/km2. New York City has a population density of 10,640/km2. Romania's third largest city, Timișoara, with population density of only 2,446.58/km2 is considered the city with the fastest internet in the world.

http://www.romania-insider.com/romanian-city-comes-out-first...

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#36

Post by Moru »

mahyarm wrote: post #9
jfasi wrote: post #4

I view the broadband industry as a fascinating example of what happens when an infrastructure industry meets the technology industry. TWC and friends were established to enact a business plan that's been viable and profitable for centuries: laying down expensive infrastructure is economically feasible if most of the cost comes up front and you can charge rents on it for decades. Stability is crucial. This is the econ…

So why does broadband in other countries not have this problem, like Scandinavia, or Korea & Japan?

Sweden here: 15 years ago we were happily renting a 1.5Mbps internet connection in a very small village in the desolate areas of northern sweden. The network was fiber though and was quickly upgraded to 10 and 100 Mbps. Cost was about $60 per month in the start, now it is $38 per month. No limits the last 10 years.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#37

Post by dublinben »

saosebastiao wrote: post #22
mahyarm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why does broadband in other countries not have this problem, like Scandinavia, or Korea & Japan?

Sprawl makes infrastructure investment orders of magnitude more expensive. For example, a small business [1] provides the fastest consumer access in the city of Seattle, but they refuse to do business outside of extremely high density buildings. There is no way a small business could do the same in McSuburbia. In the sprawly world outside of the US's dense cities, only municipal governments with a lot of political wi…

Population density is a complete red herring in this context. It is the excuse that telecom and cable companies rely on for their lack of investment. See my comment below for the hard numbers of how this is simply not true.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#38

Post by dragonwriter »

praxeologist wrote: post #30
seventytwo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Monopolies ARE capitalism run rampant.

Nonsense. Leftists conflate "state capitalism", cronyism or corporatism with real, free-market capitalism. Internet monopolies like Comcast or TWC enjoy are state-granted monopolies, not "natural monopolies" (which have never existed).

> Nonsense. Leftists conflate "state capitalism", cronyism or corporatism with real, free-market capitalism.

Leftists -- specifically, socialists -- created the name "capitalism" as a name for a real system which existed in the developed world in the 19th Century, in which the economic order was actively managed to favor the interest of the capital-holding class. The idea that this was system had something to do with "free markets" was part of the propaganda of defenders of that real, very much crony, system in response to that critique.

Its kind of weird to call the real thing which actually existed that "capitalism" was coined to refer to as anything other than real capitalism, while referring to amorphous, ill-defined, fantasy as "real capitalism".

"State capitalism" is a different thing entirely -- it usually shows up in critiques by leftists, particularly non-Leninist socialists, of Leninist(incl. Stalinist/Maoist)-style "Communism".

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#39

Post by insuffi »

marknutter wrote: post #23

I have gigabit fiber internet and it doesn't feel all that much faster than my old Comcast 20Mbs connection because the bottleneck isn't my connection, it's the servers I'm asking for content from. For some things it's blazingly fast (downloading updates, torrenting, etc) but for general web surfing the benefit is barely noticeable. I think that's why fiber adoption is slower than broadband adoption was. There's not…

Agreed; the difference between downloading a movie in 10 minutes and 1 minute is rather miniscule.

Additionally, I don't think even streaming sites would generally require more than 50 mbps to watch comfortably. Not even talking about regular apps/static content.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#40

Post by lkbm »

praxeologist wrote: post #30
seventytwo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Monopolies ARE capitalism run rampant.

Nonsense. Leftists conflate "state capitalism", cronyism or corporatism with real, free-market capitalism. Internet monopolies like Comcast or TWC enjoy are state-granted monopolies, not "natural monopolies" (which have never existed).

Given that network effects and economies of scale are real things, on what grounds to you claim that natural monopolies don't exist?
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