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But, see, the US can't install broadband because the population isn't dense enough; we're too spread out here.
Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
61–70 of 70 posts
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cost. I would also say that most of the 'cable' is laid inside conduit, but conduit with limited space and owned by a particular carrier who has no incentive or regulation dictating that he share that conduit.
Now i can't help but wonder, would it be wise for the government (likely local) to lay pipe and license room in it to ISPs? Much of it could even be done when working on sewers and roads, I'd imagine. (Cue complaints of government interfering with business.)
You might find your answer in the history of municipal network projects. But I'm strongly biased against the incumbents, so I'll avoid leaving any details here.
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#63Switched 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).
I have AT&T U-Verse (fiber to the end of the block, copper to my door), and I get 18mbps down, 1.5mbps up for $55/mo (internet only, no landline). I was paying $99/mo for 15mbps down, 2mbps up with Time Warner (internet only, no TV/phone).
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#64Not 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.
I think your Netflix number must be wrong, because I work at an ISP and there are a lot of subscribers going over 250 GB/mo on Netflix. Anyway, one movie a day (or 3 TV episodes) on 4 computers is 120 movies/month.
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#65Not 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?
Are bandwidth caps really that common? I was under the impression Comcast was the only major ISP in the US that imposed caps.
FWIW I just signed up for Grande's fiber service in central Texas -- 40Mbps/4Mbps (though I have not dropped below 70+mbps down) for $56 a month. They seem to be sticking by their "no caps" policy: https://twitter.com/#!/iansltx/status/94395597351698432
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#66Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is tons of dark fiber, due to the economics of laying cables. Digging a ditch is expensive. The fiber you put in the ditch is cheap. So if you are already digging a ditch, you load it up with 100x as much fiber as you imagine yourself ever needing in the future. This is vastly cheaper than digging a second ditch 5-10 years down the line.
Yeah, but aren't we talking about the "last mile" problem, not about dark fiber? I thought that most of the dark fiber was in long inter-city/state runs, not running down my neighborhood street. I thought he was referring to dormant fiber that the telco owns that used to be available to third-parties at wholesale rates.
That's exactly what I was talking about.
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#68The conclusions are interesting, although I think they give government intervention way too much credit. If other product lines are any indication, people can become pretty content pretty quickly; they may not demand more even if they might achieve it. I suppose life is just too short and people move on to more pressing concerns. If tomorrow all TVs in the world stopped working and shows could only be watched online,…
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…
On the other hand, Verizon didn't upgrade our copper to make DSL possible until the requirement to share it was eliminated. And I lived in a very high population density area.
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#69Having just moved (and thus done my shopping for a new internet connection), I found it pretty galling that I was pretty much expected to either get a $30 land line or a $50 cable-TV package if I wanted to get internet. Technically I didn't need to get the bundle, but they didn't even list prices for an internet-only connection. I have line-of-sight to our local water tower, though, so I was able to get a wireless in…
Hey, as a WISP employee myself, thanks. It is really frustrating sometimes that potential customers have been trained that the duopoly the article mentioned is reality. In truth, there is a vibrant, resourceful, and outspoken group of entrepreneurs out to take all of the incumbents marbles. But, like the article says, we have to fight at every turn for access that telco's and cable co's take for granted.
Except wireless ISPs don't come close to the offerings of a copper connection, let alone the connectivity provided by a fiber connection.
Harp all you want about how "awesome" wireless is, but until it can push 40ms across the US and back consistently at high bandwidths, you're screwed.
Re: Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
#70Having just moved (and thus done my shopping for a new internet connection), I found it pretty galling that I was pretty much expected to either get a $30 land line or a $50 cable-TV package if I wanted to get internet. Technically I didn't need to get the bundle, but they didn't even list prices for an internet-only connection. I have line-of-sight to our local water tower, though, so I was able to get a wireless in…
You think 2.5Mbit is "not bad"?
This is what's wrong with the country.
2.5Mbit is dogshit slow. Your freaking bluetooth wireless mouse is faster than that.
Now think about that for a minute.