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

Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

online.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 126 posts

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#91

Post by reversi_online »

saosebastiao wrote: post #89
reversi_online wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Then why did you bring up density in the first place?

Unless you're saying that urban and suburban America each lack FTTH for their own wholly unrelated reasons, an explanation that seems rather lacking in parsimony.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#92

Post by brenschluss »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #86
brenschluss wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well perhaps this may be the case in some scenarios, but that doesn't mean that the internet can't be censored when internet infrastructure is private, either. p = internet is public infrastructure q = censorship for some (but not all) p -> q for some (but not all) ¬p -> q q -> irrelevant

It's irrelevant to the question of fast internet.

To reiterate, you're saying that censorship and fast internet are a package deal, and if we want fast internet, we have to deal with censorship, amirite?

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#93

Post by venomsnake »

quokka wrote: post #29
gress wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google Fiber was widely available Google would be the one controlling traffic priority.

That is true, and why to the solution to the US's slow internet providers isn't "get Google fiber to everyone". It should be "make it easy for new companies to provide service, even if another fast service is already available".

Throw a couple of billions to create fibre last mile to every home in the USA that would be owned by the homeowners and it would go a long way to solving the problem. As a side effect it will also create that king of blue collar jobs that US needs right now.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#95

Post by brenschluss »

saosebastiao wrote: post #90
dublinben wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Saying average density is meaningless is like saying, because of the coastline paradox, even a small island's coastline is the same length as a large continent's coastline -- they're both infinite!

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#96

Post by anigbrowl »

skywhopper wrote: post #34

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 to…

I agree, but the problem was that it would have run into a wall of local and state regulations, and the majority of such deployments would be getting fought over in court.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#97

Post by foobarqux »

rayiner wrote: post #80
foobarqux wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers are lead users for internet usage, they predict what others will want in several years. And even average users would become upset if they found out how much more they are paying than Swedes.

The U.S. beats Sweden in Akamai's study, so are we paying more to get more?

The US allegedly beats Sweden in average broadband speed which is a poor measure for most purposes. I don't think you will find any Swedes telling you that the US has better broadband.

From the FCC: "The United States is 26th out of 32 countries in the 15-25 Mbps speed tier (advertised) with an average stand-alone broadband plan price of $56.50. The lowest advertised price for stand-alone services is in Slovakia at $18, while the highest charges are found in Switzerland at $180"

Although they don't summarize the findings above 25 Mbps the story looks much worse.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#98

Post by c0ur7n3y »

rayiner wrote: post #67
chimeracoder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your whole post is based on a false premise, which is that customers have a problem with the status quo. I think internet companies have a problem with the status quo. They want somebody else to build the fat pipes crucial to their business. That's why Google fiber is a marketing and lobbying tool and not a real business.[1] But I don't think consumers here are any less happy than in other places. According to Akamai…

"Your whole post is based on a false premise, which is that customers have a problem with the status quo. I think internet companies have a problem with the status quo. "

I recently had Google Fiber installed. Every single person I've talked to about it has responded with something similar to "Oh man, I wish I had that!" (That includes my tech-illiterate mom and the guy who came to install it who lives in a different city.) Of course consumers want faster, cheaper Internet connectivity.

"They want somebody else to build the fat pipes crucial to their business. That's why Google fiber is a marketing and lobbying tool and not a real business."

So, Google actually does the thing you said they don't want to do, and your response is, "well sure, but they don't really mean it?"

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#99

Post by kbolino »

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".

The free market does not exist because the government stands in its way. To then go on to chide free market advocates for actions they do not support is disingenuous at best.

Businessmen are not interested in ideology, if they can use the government as a cudgel against their opponents, or a crutch to sustain them in hard times, they will.

Every time the government's power over the economy has been expanded, advocates of the free market have pointed this fact out and been ignored.

You can't break my spine and then blame me for being paralyzed.

Re: Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly

#100

Post by reversi_online »

rayiner wrote: post #72
reversi_online wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you can't have it both ways. Either population density helps or hinders a fiber rollout--if it helps, then why is the urban U.S.A. just as far behind as the rest? If it hinders, then why do HK and SK have it when NYC doesn't? As for the remainder--well of course they're not making use of a service that they have no way to buy in the first place...and your insinuations remind me of the people in the early 19th c…

The urbanized parts of the U.S. aren't behind in general. If the east coast states were countries, a number would be top-5 on Akamai's list for highest average bandwidth. As for HK and SK: there is only one city in the U.S. as dense as Hong Kong or Seoul, and that's NYC. And it has FIOS. So why does everywhere in NYC not have FIOS? Is it because of lobbying? No, its because building infrastructure in dense places req…

I must say your dichotomy between lobbying and political priorities is positively Martian.

And I haven't noticed the U.S. public rallying in horrified opposition to faster internet speeds in a big way. Or at all, really.

Post reply on HN