said by maartena:said by Fatal Vector:YAWN. Another monts old statistics rant comparing us to all the little BF countries that dont compare to a gnat on our ass in size.
First off, CANADA is beating us in broadband penetrations, and last time I checked its actually bigger then the United States, and people are living a lot more spread out.
Second, it still does not explain that even in very dense populated areas, like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, etc... the average DSL connection is still 1.5 Mbps down, 384 Kbps up.
Its mostly a political and financial issue. Its not that the U.S. cannot do it, but it just doesn't want to fund it. There are government subsidies for broadband in most European countries and in Canada which really help in pushing broadband. Those countries also happen to have..... oooh, trivial things like national health insurance and affordable (sometimes even free) public transport. The United States rather spends 1 billion dollars a week on a war that we can't seem to win, and doesn't want to spend the money on getting broadband out to the less populated areas.
The big telco's aren't spending the money because they won't be making a whole lot, and it will take many more years to pay off the initial investment made.
Bottom line: U.S. doesn't subsidize broadband, and therefore it doesn't get done.
I agree with everythhing that you said except for one thing. The government is subsidizing broadband. AT&T and Verizon are collecting that subsidization and you can see it itemized on your phone, cable and internet invoice. If you have ever ordered a T1 line from a telco and been quoted $500 per month and when you get the invoice there's literally $300 in taxes, fees, surcharges, munis etc so your bill is actually $800! That is subsidization. The really disgusting part is that the telcos recieved the bulk of the money to upgrade the infastructure prior to 2004. They took that money and put it into lobbyists and therebye eliminating their accountability. Hence the reason we have substantially more $ than any other country in the world yet we're in 15th in the world when it comes to broadband penetration.
