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

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

#61

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:16 PM UTC

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #51

mkempe wrote: 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…

Hmmm. "All-white like Sweden", is a poor way of describing Sweden.

"As of 2011, Statistics Sweden reported that around 19.6% or 1.858.000 inhabitants of Sweden had foreign background, defined as born abroad or born in Sweden by two parents born abroad." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Immigr...

That said, I think that the fact that the Swedish regulatory and legislative process isn't captured by commercial interests in the same way it is in the US, is the key thing that has allowed Sweden to move ahead with good broadband.

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

#62

Post by sitkack » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:17 PM UTC

quink wrote: post #57

sitkack wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hate selling bandwidth first So we pretty much agree then. They might not get to 1Gbps but the 50 Mbps I currently get (latency is horrible) is derived from a handful of channels. There is at least 600Mhz of more bandwidth sitting there. They could uncap the local network and allow other providers to tap into their last mile for a fee.

What? No. Comcast has their network reliably built out to 750 MHz. If you think there are 600 MHz unused on that, you're left with 150 MHz. Which is about enough space for about 20 NTSC channels and the FM band. I can assure you that there's basically no HFC/CATV provider in the world, never mind the US, with 600 MHz unused just sitting there.

I use the term "sitting there" very loosely, meaning TV channels that no-one in my neighborhood is watching. From my completely unscientific poll of people on my block that I interact with (selection bias) most do not use the channels, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, torrents, etc. The only person I know that actually uses a TV does so with terrestrial signals, but she is 5 std dev away from normal.

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

#63

Post by sitkack » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:19 PM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #45

sitkack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unconstrained corporatism.

literally state sanctioned monopolies there was a website posted to HN a while ago that described the hurdles for municipal fiber in each state, i don't have the link any more, but it seems very relevant to this discussion

I think state sanctioned monopolies are _probably_ ok if regulated well. Natural Gas falls in that category here and I think they do a pretty good job. I'd say Comcast falls into state sanctioned monopoly-power-abuse which is different.

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

#64

Post by Zirro » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #51

mkempe wrote: 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…

I know you meant no ill by saying it, but I have seen the claim of homogenity in the Swedish population brought up in several discussions over the past months and being Swedish myself it does sting a bit. Sweden has a long tradition of accepting refugees, wherever they may come from. Along with Germany, we are currently receving far more than other EU countries and many more are expected over the next few years due to the current unrest in the world.

Sweden being all-white, all-Scandinavian is an outdated image. Many cultures thrive together here, bringing new food and traditions. Almost thirty percent of the current Swedish population is foreign-born or have foreign-born parents. Studies show that the average Swede has become increasingly positive to immigration.

I am certain that if something is holding back the progress of Internet connections, it's not minorities. If this post can change the image of Sweden as "all-white" in just one person on HN, typing it will have felt very worth the time.

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

#65

Post by jedberg » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #49

msandford wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess part of it is that there's the idea here in the US that everyone should have access to certain things like power, water, telephone, etc. There are a lot of universal service laws about these utilities and the internet is fast becoming another utility. Worse is that with the internet you have to be hooked up to the central grid or else it's useless. A farmer in a rural part of Kansas who's tired of not getting…

Without power or water your basic standard of living drops significantly. Without high speed internet you....don't get netflix? I don't really see why lumping all these things together in the same category makes sense.

I can make a living with my water off. I can't with my internet off.

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

#66

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:27 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #65

harryh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without power or water your basic standard of living drops significantly. Without high speed internet you....don't get netflix? I don't really see why lumping all these things together in the same category makes sense.

I can make a living with my water off. I can't with my internet off.

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by Retric » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:28 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #60

oostevo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any place that I've lived in the US which has consistently worse broadband performance than DC and Northern Virginia. This is especially sad given Northern Virginia's density of large tech companies and history as 'internet alley'[1]. [1] http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/internet-alley

If D.C. and Virginia were countries, they'd be in the top 5 in Akamai's data, between Japan and Switzerland.

According to speedtest.net I have a 58 MBit download and 39 MBit upload. Yet, Netflix is basically unwatchable at around 6PM on weeknights. I literally get a better connection on my parents DSL than with Verizon Fios in Northern VA.

Remember Netflix maxes out at 3MBit/second and use useable at .75MBit/second so I am getting ~1-2% of my theoretical connection speed.

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

#68

Post by rayiner » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:29 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #67

rayiner wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If D.C. and Virginia were countries, they'd be in the top 5 in Akamai's data, between Japan and Switzerland.

According to speedtest.net I have a 58 MBit download and 39 MBit upload. Yet, Netflix is basically unwatchable at around 6PM on weeknights. I literally get a better connection on my parents DSL than with Verizon Fios in Northern VA. Remember Netflix maxes out at 3MBit/second and use useable at .75MBit/second so I am getting ~1-2% of my theoretical connection speed.

That's an issue specific to Netflix, as far as I'm aware, and implicates a wholly separate issue. I'm fully willing to concede that U.S. telecom policy gives infrastructure companies more leverage over content companies.

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

#69

Post by tim333 » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:32 PM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #13

jgalt212 wrote: post #6

I remember the day in US when the consumer was king, and its interests were second to all others (govt, big business, etc). Sadly that day has passed. Without getting too political, the root cause is unrestrained campaign giving.

When was this glorious time? Certainly doesn't seem like that would have been anytime since the 19th century, at the latest.

I remember 30 years ago in the UK being envious of US telecom regulation. The US had free local calls - unheard of in the UK then and you could connect modems to the phone line. In the UK that was banned as the lines were all owned by the government monopoly and could not be touched so you had to put an acoustic coupler on the phone handset, believe it or not. Now the UK surprisingly seems to have better telecom regs than the US.

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

#70

Post by rayiner » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 10:36 PM UTC

mkempe wrote: post #44

rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.