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

Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

corp.sonic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 70 posts

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#51

Post by nitrogen »

cooldeal wrote: post #19
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.

Can you fathom how much it will cost to dig up the streets, lay fiber and fill them back in? Will cities even allow that, due to the impediment to the traffic?

It's been managed before for fiber deployments in northern Europe. I remember seeing a perspective on Ars Technica from Amsterdam, with a photo of a sidewalk tiles neatly removed and replaced without damage: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how-amsterda...

So, it can be done.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#52

Post by nitrogen »

makecheck wrote: post #21
robterrell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's entirely true that the FCC was under the watch of Republicans when the telecom act was defanged and shared access to customer copper was rolled back. Maybe you don't remember, but ten years ago you could get various providers on the copper you had -- I had DSL from a local company over my Verizon-provisioned phone line. My dad had earthlink service over his time-Warner cable line. There was a price differenc…

I didn't say the Republicans' involvement was untrue, I said it was irrelevant. When an article points out a political party in this way, the publication is implying that the outcome is because of that party (something that simply can't be known from the facts). I suggested that they leave this out because it is more important to report on exactly what the FCC did and exactly what the outcome was. It allows people to…

I didn't say the Republicans' involvement was untrue, I said it was irrelevant.

IMO the constant flip-flopping between the extreme policies of either party is a significant contributor to our country's lagging Internet speeds (and a number of other problems in the US), so I consider the party association highly relevant.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#53

Post by bane »

shmageggy wrote: post #30
bane wrote: post #22

The interesting bit is that I'm not sure in many cases it matters. I'm lucky to have FiOS (25down/5up), and I have many times the bandwidth I can manage. I can be downloading a couple torrents, my wife and I can both be streaming a movie, our phones can both be updating, I can forget I left Pandora running, and a friend can be in another room doing goodness knows what, and web sites still load more or less the same a…

Unfortunately, due to the duopolies described in the article, most of the rest of us are stuck dreaming of such a fibery heaven. Verizon has said explicitly that they won't be coming to my area. Ever.

I should have probably been more clear. There are consumer level DSL and cable connections that are >5mbps. Except for very very heavy usage, I doubt that somebody on a ~5mbps connection would see an appreciably different Internet than I do.

Or look at it another way, I wouldn't consider it a major penalty to move someplace without FiOS and "only" a 5mbps connection. My day job has 2 paired T-1s and I only notice a slight slowness compared to my fiber home connection.

Either way, I wait about as long for a youtube video to queue up, and I can watch hulu without problems in the meantime. I supposed it'd really matter if I wanted to stream 1080p HD. But there's really not a ton of that sort of content on the web anyway that's streamable.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#54

Post by arethuza »

cageface wrote: post #36

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.

There are state-run organisations that are fairly efficient - the UK NHS, which is pretty much the epitome of a large socialistic undertaking, is actually pretty economically efficient. The fact that it has problems being largely because we don't spend much money on it, not because it isn't efficient in using what money we give it (at least in comparison with other healthcare systems).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most...

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#55

Post by rimantas »

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).

Just tested my connection (fiber): Download Speed: 54.13 mbps (6.8 MB/sec transfer rate) Upload Speed: 51.97 mbps (6.5 MB/sec transfer rate)

The price? $20/month. But I am not in USA.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#56

Post by watty »

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?

First off, caps are not "virtually unheard of". Secondly Comcasts cap is 250GB/month. Who would use that in a few days? The biggest bandwidth eater I can think of is Netflix and a user would have to watch 108 movies in the best quality to reach that number.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#57

Post by microtonal »

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?

My guess is that bandwidth caps are only used when there is virtually no competition. Because in practice, most people will only saturate there connections for very small amounts of time. But it's a nice way of squeezing more money out of your customers.

I have had 20MBit downstream for at least six years and now 120MBit, with no bandwidth caps (The Netherlands). There is a lot of competition in this area, with at least a dozen DSL ISPs, plus cable.

Mobile internet is completely the opposite. We only have three major carriers. My previous phone subscription had no caps for mobile internet, my current subscription has an 1GB cap, and the caps are now being lowered. It's an oligopoly, so they can force caps down everyone's throats.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#58

Post by giardini »

cageface wrote: post #36

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.

The "Western capitalist dogma" to which you refer applies to competitive situations. But cable and phone companies are not competitive in the U.S.A., they are monopolistic.

Read that section of a western economics text that explains monopolies for further enlightenment.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#59

Post by Bo102010 »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #37
Bo102010 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but what of the charge that the FCC has consistently given preference to well-monied lobbyists (e.g. the National Association of Broadcasters vs. Low Power FM radio operators) when handling spectrum rights? Is there a way of managing spectrum that is more efficient for businesses and more beneficial to consumers? We don't know, because the FCC is governed by increasingly antiquated rules.

Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow

#60

Post by tomgallard »

cooldeal wrote: post #19
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.

Can you fathom how much it will cost to dig up the streets, lay fiber and fill them back in? Will cities even allow that, due to the impediment to the traffic?

In the UK there've been some pilot deployments of fibre using sewers ( e.g.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7202396.stm ).

Avoids the need to dig up roads and keeps the cost of deployment low

Post reply on HN