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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

#81

Post by warfangle »

w1ntermute wrote: post #31
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…

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

My internet speeds are pretty spiffy here in NYC; granted, not fiber spiffy.

Of course, I'm with Cablevision - when most of the city is limited to TWC.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#82

Post by reversi_online »

saosebastiao wrote: post #50
dublinben wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 populatio…

Density is not something that can be described adequately in a single number. It is entirely possible to have high residential densities in cities with remarkably low average densities. Moscow is a great example of this...their plazas and parks drive down average density way beyond the density that the average person experiences. Everybody talks about the last mile being the most expensive part of infrastructure, but…

That still doesn't explain why there's no gigabit FTTH in NYC, with its high average density.

It sure as heck doesn't explain why there's no gigabit FTTH in Manhattan proper--by your reckoning the borough should have a residential density even higher than its overall average would suggest by virtue of Central Park taking up so much of the upper half.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#84

Post by logfromblammo »

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).

Natural monopolies do exist, it's just that not all businesses claimed to be natural monopolies actually are.

If you can, imagine a watershed. The river, along with its tributaries, covers the most efficient downhill route from every point in the watershed to sea level. The natural monopoly on precipitation drainage is everywhere you see flowing water. Installing a second river does not work. Wherever you try to put it, the natural tendency is for the second river to drop right down into the original watershed. You end up with just one river again.

If you turn that idea into a graph, replace the ocean with the Internet, the power plant, the potable water and sewage treatment facilities, the highway system, or some other common resource, and replace raindrop targets with homes and businesses. There is only one optimal routing for roads, pipes, wires, and fibers. The surface path following that route is the natural monopoly. You can cram an awful lot of stuff on top of it if you wanted.

Once poles are up and tunnels in place, the hard part is over. If a second cable company runs a second cable, that's not a waste. The customer can now buy either of two cable service packages, or both. If there's already a hamster tube up on the poles connecting the house to the municipal rat supply, and someone wants to run another for squirrels, that's not a waste. People might not want their rats and their squirrels from the same tube.

So when people say cable and phone service are natural monopolies, they are wrong. It's the space those wires run through.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#85

Post by jbooth »

coldtea wrote: post #54
praxeologist wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The actual nonsense is the existance of the mythical " real, free-market capitalism", that nobody has ever seen in practice. The "free market" that does exist is based on subsidies, bailouts, state protection, monopolies, a huge army, bullying, and resource grabbing (and past 300+ years of colonialism). Heck, the "free market" is even more mythical than the laughable "really existing socialism".

Not to mention, taking an econ 101 supply and demand graph based on a quote 'widget factory' (actual textbook quote) and applying those ideas about marginal cost to utility economics where you build the grid once and then charge on subscription. Unironically. Earnestly, even.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#86

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

brenschluss wrote: post #78
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea also has highly invasive internet censorship. Would you like that as well? Oh of course not. We want the great parts but to leave the bad parts. Sometimes it's a package deal. I'll take what we've got, thank you very much.

South Korea's internet censorship has very little to do with their internet speeds. Saying "Well, if you want fast internet, it'll have to be censored" (as if our internet isn't fully monitored) is a false equivalence of the highest order.

Monitoring =/ censorship

If the gov't views the internet as it's possession, then it can make sense for it to be both fast and censored.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#87

Post by res0nat0r »

dublinben wrote: post #79
res0nat0r wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: I know my dissent in pointing out that gigabit internet for $30/month everywhere in the USA isn't going to magically happen isn't popular around here, but you shouldn't down vote something you disagree with.

You're being downvoted because you're wrong. Density is a red herring that can be easily demonstrated by looking at comparative examples.

A single city in another country is apples and oranges, it is wrong to assume that since a single city in another country can do it, then it should be simple to implement across the USA or in cities which are wholly different politically in the US.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#88

Post by reversi_online »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #73
klenwell wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What leads me to believe we'll do better with new regulations? The belief, as chimeracoder suggests, that regulation can done right. One point that caught my attention in an NPR report[1] on this dispute last week: IHS's Broughton says there was a similar dispute in South Korea a few years ago, and it was ultimately arbitrated by the government. I don't know the details of the South Korean dispute but I understand So…

South Korea also has highly invasive internet censorship. Would you like that as well? Oh of course not. We want the great parts but to leave the bad parts. Sometimes it's a package deal. I'll take what we've got, thank you very much.

Some things never change. I remember a article on South Korean broadband in Businessweek 15 years ago that ranted on about Seoul's paucity of elevators.

I'm guessing that package deal means we'll also be having to eat pickled cabbage and end our sentences with verbs if we want decent Internet speeds? I just hope we won't have to drink bubble tea, that stuff is gross.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#89

Post by saosebastiao »

reversi_online wrote: post #82
saosebastiao wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density is not something that can be described adequately in a single number. It is entirely possible to have high residential densities in cities with remarkably low average densities. Moscow is a great example of this...their plazas and parks drive down average density way beyond the density that the average person experiences. Everybody talks about the last mile being the most expensive part of infrastructure, but…

That still doesn't explain why there's no gigabit FTTH in NYC, with its high average density. It sure as heck doesn't explain why there's no gigabit FTTH in Manhattan proper--by your reckoning the borough should have a residential density even higher than its overall average would suggest by virtue of Central Park taking up so much of the upper half.

High density doesn't eliminate millions of other reasons that a given city doesn't have it. It just provides a floor for cost competitiveness, and a major input into ROI. Even in Kansas City, google has stated they won't roll out FTTH to every neighborhood, even in the long term...and in the short term, they have focused on the neighborhoods with the fastest ROI. I'll let you guess whether the high density or the low density gets built first.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#90

Post by saosebastiao »

dublinben wrote: post #77
saosebastiao wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Density is not something that can be described adequately in a single number. It is entirely possible to have high residential densities in cities with remarkably low average densities. Moscow is a great example of this...their plazas and parks drive down average density way beyond the density that the average person experiences. Everybody talks about the last mile being the most expensive part of infrastructure, but…

Density either prevents better infrastructure in the US, or it doesn't. My use of statistics was merely to show that density has no relation to the existence of fiber internet infrastructure. The US cannot be too sprawling for fiber if areas with lower density in other countries have better internet. Major cities cannot also be too dense when cities with higher densities abroad also have better internet. This is a co…

Your use of statistics is meaningless because average density is meaningless. It suffers from the same resolution problem as the coastline paradox [1]. I'm an example of this: If you measure density by the block, I live in a density of 120,000 persons/km2, but if you measure density by the city, I live in a density of 1720 persons/km2, and if you measure density by the MSA, I live in a density of 168 persons/km2. I have gigabit, and the fact that I live in an MSA with 168 persons/km2 is in no way a refutation of the fact that density matters for infrastructure costs.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox

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