U.S. Broadband Access is Even Worse Than You Think

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Guess what? The Slate says that, despite recent claims made by major telecom executives , the U.S. broadband adoption rate (and penetration) is actually far worse than you think.

In the same way that it's useful to know the processor speed, screen size, amount of RAM, and hard drive space of a computer before you buy it, broadband measures such as latency, jitter, and uptime are key pieces of information needed to know whether you can run a growing number of online applications, even if they sound complicated at first. For example, if you use Skype, stream NetFlix movies, play World of Warcraft, or use any other of the countless real-time applications, metrics like latency and jitter affect your quality of service.
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The decentralized nature of our country's population makes EU/Japan/Korea type penetration harder to realize, which stinks because out here in Western Oklahoma the best speed we get is around 6.0 Mbps.

Broadband over power lines would be a good solution, but there are apparently issues with radio transmissions, and being out here where it's windy all the time and power lines go down a lot might make for more nightmares.
 
That's what I have been saying. While the ISP's are barreling down the road trying to be faster everything else about the connection is going to hell. I recently had a problem with internet service that took me a month and a call to corporate to get it fixed by Comcast. Speed is only a part of the solution.
 
I find it interesting that going ten to fifteen years back, when phone modems were the norm, the typical cost would be comparatively cheaper in USA and Canada that used flat rate, than in for example Sweden where we were charged by the minute. (I calculated that downloading a 450 MB "free" game during cheap hours cost me 245 SEK (~USD 75) in uptime costs.)
 
Torquemada XP said:
The decentralized nature of our country's population makes EU/Japan/Korea type penetration harder to realize, which stinks because out here in Western Oklahoma the best speed we get is around 6.0 Mbps.

Broadband over power lines would be a good solution, but there are apparently issues with radio transmissions, and being out here where it's windy all the time and power lines go down a lot might make for more nightmares.
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I am impressed that you can get 6Mbps. I figured you to be around 1 at most.

20Mbps here in NE Oklahoma is better, but I expect more than that already. of course 2Mbps up is my main complain. Wife does a lot of photo printing/sharing/etc Slow...

I will also state that the bigger problem is that the backbone and infrastructure of the US sucks. Even Goggle and and other "1st tier" sites are getting slow. Lots of network issues out there.
 
By way of comparison, Taiwan already has near-universal access to
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It's been said before but...

seriously can we look at a map, maybe compare the size of Taiwan to the US?
 
I'm doing ok with my comcast business, 16 statics, and 10 down 2 up internet for ~ $95. I could get 10/50 or 20/50 (or something like that) but no way I'm paying double for it.

On top of that comcast plans to start testing ipv6 natively...can't wait!
 
sfsuphysics said:
It's been said before but...

seriously can we look at a map, maybe compare the size of Taiwan to the US?
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Granted; but under that same logic every major city in the US that has population density equal to or greater than Taiwan should have the same level of service/penetration correct?

That is not the case in any city in the US so the logic falls through...
 
FallenMystic said:
Granted; but under that same logic every major city in the US that has population density equal to or greater than Taiwan should have the same level of service/penetration correct?

That is not the case in any city in the US so the logic falls through...
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I'm glad someone finally said this. I hate people saying "OMG IF WE WERE SMALL IT WUD RULE HERE 2". Some of our cities have populations that rival entire smaller countries and the internet access still sucks comparatively. Living in a cow town of 10,000 people I wouldn't expect Asia or Sweden quality access, but living in a metro area of 4,000,000 I do.
 
FallenMystic said:
Granted; but under that same logic every major city in the US that has population density equal to or greater than Taiwan should have the same level of service/penetration correct?

That is not the case in any city in the US so the logic falls through...
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I'm not familiar with any US city that has population densities in the major cities anywhere near modern Asian cities.
 
in canada im paying 35 bucks a month for 7.5mb download. win
 
SilverSliver said:
I'm not familiar with any US city that has population densities in the major cities anywhere near modern Asian cities.
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NYC:
Population (July 1, 2008)[2]
- City: 8,363,710
- Density: 27,440/sq mi (10,606/km2)
- Urban: 18,223,567
- Urban Density: 5,435.7/sq mi (2,098.7/km2)
- Metro: 19,006,798
- Metro Density: 2,828.4/sq mi (1,092/km2)
- Demonym: New Yorker

Taiwan:
Demonym: Taiwanese
Population: 23,046,177 (as of 2009)
Density: 668 /km2 (1,730 /sq mi)

per their respective wiki entries.
 
FallenMystic said:
NYC:
Population (July 1, 2008)[2]
- City: 8,363,710
- Density: 27,440/sq mi (10,606/km2)
- Urban: 18,223,567
- Urban Density: 5,435.7/sq mi (2,098.7/km2)
- Metro: 19,006,798
- Metro Density: 2,828.4/sq mi (1,092/km2)
- Demonym: New Yorker

Taiwan:
Demonym: Taiwanese
Population: 23,046,177 (as of 2009)
Density: 668 /km2 (1,730 /sq mi)

per their respective wiki entries.
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did you just compare an entire country to a city? cuz fail
 
SilverSliver said:
I'm not familiar with any US city that has population densities in the major cities anywhere near modern Asian cities.
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I'm not familiar with any European cities that match Asian densities either, but they still have better service.

Anyway, if it were only based on density, India would have the fastest internet in the world.
 
Locally I have 12Mbps down, 768K up for $48 a month (the price hasn't chanced in 10 years and back then it was 512K down and 128K up) although unfortunately the old phone lines in my area top me out at about 6-8Mbps.

The next plan down is 3Mbps down, 768K up for $38 USD.

Could it be cheaper, sure but I don't think I have anything to complain about.
 
FallenMystic said:
Considering that was the initial talking point... yes; yes I did... could try reading before reacting, just as an FYI...
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just so you know, Taoyuan City has a higher pop density then NYC. i took it as comparying an apple to an orange. not really directly comparable.

What was your point by the way?
 
Sikkyu said:
just so you know, Taoyuan City has a higher pop density then NYC. i took it as comparying an apple to an orange. not really directly comparable.

What was your point by the way?
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my point was in my initial statement:

Me said:
...under that same logic every major city in the US that has population density equal to or greater than Taiwan should have the same level of service/penetration correct?

That is not the case in any city in the US so the logic falls through...
Click to expand...
 
FallenMystic said:
Granted; but under that same logic every major city in the US that has population density equal to or greater than Taiwan should have the same level of service/penetration correct?

That is not the case in any city in the US so the logic falls through...
Click to expand...

I don't think that analogy is a fair one, for the simple fact that something small like Taiwan EVERYTHING is squeezed into a tiny little area. Where as worst case scenario a NYC, people commute in and out of that city, food isn't grown anywhere close to the city, hell water doesn't even come from the city. So the fact you can go outside that "large density" means your service will necessary average out as the companies who make it happen spread things out.

I'm not saying there's no part in ISPs and local municipalities preventing these speeds, I mean the technology is there. However the fact that there are the Verizon FIOS service shows that level of speed does exist, just the rest of the country really brings the whole average down. Try unrolling a something huge in NYC? Holy shit the fees and permits that would be required just to make the suggestion would make any company not want to do business there, where as other countries not so much.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I don't think that analogy is a fair one, for the simple fact that something small like Taiwan EVERYTHING is squeezed into a tiny little area. Where as worst case scenario a NYC, people commute in and out of that city, food isn't grown anywhere close to the city, hell water doesn't even come from the city. So the fact you can go outside that "large density" means your service will necessary average out as the companies who make it happen spread things out.

I'm not saying there's no part in ISPs and local municipalities preventing these speeds, I mean the technology is there. However the fact that there are the Verizon FIOS service shows that level of speed does exist, just the rest of the country really brings the whole average down. Try unrolling a something huge in NYC? Holy shit the fees and permits that would be required just to make the suggestion would make any company not want to do business there, where as other countries not so much.
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Three in lies the problem though ultimately, businesses being too greedy, no competition driving things forward, local governments charging the ‘pleasure of doing business with us’ tax ultimately leads to the current state of things.

Again I’m not talking about anything beyond broadband, (pulling everything else out of the equation.) You would think that the larger cities in the US would at least be within striking distance… what is the best we have in cities now, (in the US)? I haven’t heard of anything beyond 50/50, (residential availability,) and that is not a very wide spread availability; all due to the way the industry is being run.

The ultimate view from my prospective is that this is freaken pathetic for what is supposed to be the ‘wealthiest’ nation in the world.

Message to the industry/government(s) lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way; stop holding technology back because of profit margins.
 
FallenMystic said:
Again I’m not talking about anything beyond broadband, (pulling everything else out of the equation.) You would think that the larger cities in the US would at least be within striking distance… what is the best we have in cities now, (in the US)? I haven’t heard of anything beyond 50/50, (residential availability,) and that is not a very wide spread availability; all due to the way the industry is being run.
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The thing is look at how much it cost Verizon to roll out FIOS? Something like 20 billion? Economically its really not in their interest to go there.
 
sfsuphysics said:
The thing is look at how much it cost Verizon to roll out FIOS? Something like 20 billion? Economically its really not in their interest to go there.
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To me that reeks of excuse; the costs could be easily deferred by partnering with either municipals or private companies, (think Corning, one of the largest manufacturers of fiber optics.) Not to mention the cost could be recouped in fairly short order. At this point if there is a cost issue in laying lines it's due to short-sightedness when the initial infrastructure was setup/designed and or greed, (be it at the corporate or governmental levels.)
 
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