Jwobot
join:2002-08-14
Utica, MI | Not shocked at all
I'm not surpised the U.S. is not on the top-ten. |
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Yauch
join:2005-06-24 | I'm a little surprised. Considering we have more "wire" than the rest of the world. I'm not sure how were not the most "wired". |
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xenophon
join:2007-09-17
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
edit:
February 15th, @05:31PM
| The US is the most sprawled of countries, it's not surprising.
However if you consider that EVDO is rolled out to a broader population base than any broadband network, it's not as poor as it appears.
Sprint/Alltel combined (they roam EVDO to each other) cover 230m population out of 300m in US, that's 75% of the US population that can get EVDO.
This map is a bit old, there is more EVDO coverage than this.
»content.alltel.com/business/enha···rage.jsp |
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Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
 ·North State Commun..
 ·Corporate Colocation
| said by xenophon  :The US is the most sprawled of countries, it's not surprising. However if you consider that EVDO is rolled out to a broader population base than any broadband network, it's not as poor as it appears. Have you used EVDO? It's barely better than dial-up. |
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AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to Jwobot
said by Jwobot :I'm not surpised the U.S. is not on the top-ten. Who cares.
I could move to Japan and enjoy some smoking 100M to the home...yet I'd STILL be speed-screwed as most of the content I'm interested lies on US servers.
1 GB/s (or whatever) means bubkiss when you're sharing a fiber line with half of a continent to access your files. I'd have a b*tching connection to my neighbor's movie stash though. |
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xenophon
join:2007-09-17 | reply to Matt
Yes, I've replaced my cable modem for EVDO. I typically get about 1Mbps and up to 2Mbps, much better than dialup. Even 1xRTT is better than dialup at 100-144Kbps. |
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rawgerz
In Debt we trust
Premium
join:2004-10-03
Grove City, PA
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| reply to Jwobot
Who would be surprised. All that source shows is population to subscriber ratio. It doesn't take in account the old people who don't have computers, want computers, or even internet access.
As far as I'm concerned these days, the less ignorant people with Windows machines, the less spam and malware floating around 
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You can't make all the people happy all of the time. But it should be common sense to shoot for the majority. |
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Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
·Corporate Colocation
| reply to xenophon
said by xenophon :Yes, I've replaced my cable modem for EVDO. I typically get about 1Mbps and up to 2Mbps, much better than dialup. Even 1xRTT is better than dialup at 100-144Kbps. Maybe Sprin't EVDO implementation is way better than Verizon's then. It feels like dialup when viewing webpages. I also speed test at 1Mbps most of the time, but web pages take ages to load and the initial response to even start downloading the page is glacial. |
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koitsu
Premium
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
edit:
February 15th, @03:51PM
| reply to Jwobot
Am I the only one who remembers how physically large this country is? Especially in comparison to those in the top 10? (I'll get to Canada in a moment). Let's compare sizes and population densities, shall we?
United States -- 5659858 square km, ~30 persons/km
1. Denmark -- 43094 square km, ~128 persons/km
2. Netherlands -- 41528 square km, ~392 persons/km
3. Switzerland -- 41384 square km, ~176 persons/km
4. South Korea -- 99538 square km, ~480 persons/km
5. Norway -- 385155 square km, ~12 persons/km
6. Iceland -- 103000 square km, ~3 persons/km
7. Finland -- 338145 square km, ~16 persons/km
8. Sweden -- 449964 square km, ~20 persons/km
9. Canada -- 9970610 square km, ~3 persons/km
10. Belgium -- 30528 square/km, ~341 persons/km
I'll address Canada separately, so ignore it for now.
Most of these countries are European. Every European country on the list has a government-managed telecommunications network. South Korea -- the same.
Taxes in all said countries are significantly higher than the United States. I don't care to go and look up numbers for average taxation amounts in all of said countries, but I do know about Sweden -- where almost 50% of a citizen's income goes to taxes. South Korea? Almost 40%. Put two and two together.
Canada is a bit odd. As part of North America, it's quite large. However, most of Canada's populus exists in 5 major metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Winnipeg. Thus, it's safe to say Canada is on the list simply because those areas are wired, while I'm sure if you live in Greater Sudbury your broadband choices are ass.
Personal taxes in Canada are around ~32% per person (21% per married household). Again, do the math.
The geographic distribution applies to some of the European countries, like Norway and Sweden. Who the hell lives in western Norway or Sweden? No one. Thus, again, provide broadband to major cities and voila.
For comparison: I don't see Russia on that list, do you? One doesn't even need to discuss the financial situation over there (as a whole) to determine why their broadband is equivalent to ours.
The HowStuffWorks article discusses all of what I've said here on page 1, so I'm not talking out of my ass.
Wiring this country will require incredible sums of money, none of which any commercial company has -- sums which no citizen in this country wants to pay. Everyone on BBR/DSLR would bitch to high heaven if our taxes increased two-fold just to pay for a nation-wide government-owned telecommunications network. But the same people would continue to bitch about lack of broadband capability.
What I'm trying to say is that we'll never be on the top 10, simply because our country is too physically large. Ask anyone living in Europe, or better yet New Zealand, what they think of the United States. "You're too physically big" is what they'll tell you.
The sooner this country becomes an archipelago the sooner we'll have broadband. Don't worry, California will be the first participant when that happens I'm sure.
P.S. -- I'd love to hear about Hawaii and Puerto Rico's broadband capabilities. |
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Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
·Corporate Colocation
| 
Looks Pretty Dense to Me |
said by koitsu :Am I the only one who remembers how physically large this country is? Especially in comparison to those in the top 10? (I'll get to Canada in a moment). That is such a bogus argument. Over half the country is desolate, which drops that number dramatically.
Why don't the cities that have huge population densities have access to the absolute best broadband options? |
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rosco
Lumbergh
Premium
join:2003-11-10
Catskill, NY
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :said by xenophon :Yes, I've replaced my cable modem for EVDO. I typically get about 1Mbps and up to 2Mbps, much better than dialup. Even 1xRTT is better than dialup at 100-144Kbps. Maybe Sprin't EVDO implementation is way better than Verizon's then. It feels like dialup when viewing webpages. I also speed test at 1Mbps most of the time, but web pages take ages to load and the initial response to even start downloading the page is glacial. Sounds like you have a latency problem in your area then...I use my verzon evdo connection when I can't find a regular wifi signal anywhere...I download torrents at around 70KB/s and browsing feels about the same as 768kbps DSL some of my friends have.
IMO, not bad for a cell phone. |
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NotSoMuch
@uscourts.gov
| reply to koitsu
You make some valid points, but you're grossly exaggerating how much it would cost to wire most of the country that isn't already. Increase taxes "two-fold"? Come on.
In fact, it would really be a drop in the bucket for the federal government. Want to call it $100b? Yawn. That's a couple of months in Iraq.
Not to mention this is legitimately something that the government could do far more cheaply than any private entity. The chief reason for that is it would be effectively unencumbered by right-of-way concerns, franchises, etc. |
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mbraynard
@covad.net | reply to xenophon
Who provides your EVDO? |
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Wrong_way
@charter.com
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :said by xenophon :The US is the most sprawled of countries, it's not surprising. However if you consider that EVDO is rolled out to a broader population base than any broadband network, it's not as poor as it appears. Have you used EVDO? It's barely better than dial-up. That's patently false. I can believe you wrote that. It works great in some areas, and okay in other areas. It's as good as slowish DSL on average. Perfect for basic internet. |
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koitsu
Premium
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
| reply to NotSoMuch
said by NotSoMuch :
You make some valid points, but you're grossly exaggerating how much it would cost to wire most of the country that isn't already. Increase taxes "two-fold"? Come on. "Come on" is right -- be realistic. You know as well as I do how the United States government works: slow and expensive. A 1% increase, or even a 5% increase, in personal taxes would not suffice.
The existing wiring of this country is in no way sufficient. Do you realise how many centralised points of failure there are in the existing topology? Do you realise how oversaturated existing links already are? I deal with this kind of bullshit on a daily basis at my job. The existing backbone infrastructure is in no way shape or form reliable -- it's broken, 24x7x365, and I am in no way exaggerating. Internet2 supposedly addresses both of these things, but until it makes an appearance mainstream, is just a pipe dream.
Regarding providing broadband to the people: existing infrastructure is horrible. In the easy majority, it's all copper -- very VERY old and decrepit copper. Old copper == unreliable copper == faulty. Copper degrades over time due to weather and usage. The existing conduits in many cities which run copper are falling apart, and some regions don't even use conduits at all.
Why do you think Verizon is digging up peoples' lawns out east? Because no one else is doing it.
But then again, wait a minute -- aren't we already paying personal taxes on broadband deployment to rural areas, schools, libraries, and cities via USF? Oh right, that's a programme which is entirely corrupt at this point...
In fact, it would really be a drop in the bucket for the federal government. Want to call it $100b? Yawn. That's a couple of months in Iraq. God, I knew some jackass would bring Iraq into this -- please don't. There are much more applicable comparisons between cost of national broadband deployment and existing programmes which are costing Americans lots of money. Iraq is the most recent, which is exactly why everyone talks about it. We could start with the overall cost of D.A.R.E., a completely worthless program, which has existed since the early 80s. |
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xenophon
join:2007-09-17
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
edit:
February 15th, @05:34PM
| reply to mbraynard
Yes, I'm using Sprint EVDO. Can't wait for WiMAX... 3-5Mbps and much better latency than EVDO. But I really don't miss cable modem too much using EVDO. Can't do HD quality streaming video or VoIP but otherwise it's a reasonable replacement for cable/dsl depending on your needs. WiMAX will be able to do VoIP and higher quality video but probably not streaming HD. |
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koitsu
Premium
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :That is such a bogus argument. Over half the country is desolate, which drops that number dramatically. I beg to differ.
Why don't the cities that have huge population densities have access to the absolute best broadband options? I'd explain it with 3 answers:
1) Most of the existing broadband infrastructure used in the States is copper -- copper, in (I would say) the majority of areas laid in the 20s or re-deployed in the 60s -- which is falling apart, faulty, or downright unreliable. Copper is not going to be sufficient for what people want, nor is it effective for long-term deployment (compared to fibre).
2) Highly-populated areas lack the overall network capacity that our existing infrastructure can provide. More people means more want/desire, which means more need for capacity, which means more money. Money people in this country either a) don't have, or b) don't want to pay. (Both are fair/realistic conditions, so I'm not passing any judgement on those who don't have money.)
3) Cost of deployment in metropolitan areas is supposedly very high, from what I understand. It's not as simple as "hey, buy some office space and make a new central office for our network there!" If it was, I think people would be doing it (I think Verizon with their FIOS project is, but that's costing them tons of money out of pocket).
Cost of deployment in lightly-populated areas appears to be cheaper, as is confirmed by the fact that every time there's a new technological deployment by existing broadband providers, its done in bumf*** Alabama or Kentucky somewhere -- populous of maybe a few thousand.
Why do you think we in Silicon Valley are always last to get broadband upgrades, and why do you think our existing network infrastructure is entirely copper-based?
It all boils down to money, just like everything in this country does. Let's hear it for our wonderfully successful capitalist ideals... |
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AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :Why don't the cities that have huge population densities have access to the absolute best broadband options? Eh, I haven't seen anyone living anywhere around the cities be entirely broadband-screwed. However, what I don't get is, even in some of the *most* population-dense areas, there isn't any competition to be seen.
Sure, a good chunk of the nation (ie. 50%+) has broadband access capabilities...but broadband optionS, that's a different percentage entirely.
And no, satellite does not count as broadband, sorry. |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| reply to koitsu
said by koitsu :Taxes in all said countries are significantly higher than the United States. I don't care to go and look up numbers for average taxation amounts in all of said countries, but I do know about Sweden -- where almost 50% of a citizen's income goes to taxes. South Korea? Almost 40%. Put two and two together. Please it would cost next to nothing to wire every household in the US to broadband. It would be less than the stimulus package. Maybe 2% of the federal budget if you paid for it all at once.
As far as Europe having higer taxes? If you're talking solely income taxes maybe, Americans also pay FICA taxes, and sales taxes, I pay 9.75%, gas taxes. Except for internet access everything else has some tax or fee. Phone, cell phone, water, electricity all have "fees"( another name for TAX) and taxes. Property taxes. etc etc
I would guess if you added up all the money you paid out in ALL taxes in a year it would equal 40%. |
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SSidlov
Other Things On My Mind
Premium
join:2000-03-03
Pompton Lakes, NJ
·Cingular Wireless
 ·Optimum Online
 ·Optimum Voice
·Cingular Wireless
| reply to koitsu
If you take the Metro NY Area, as defined by the census from lower Connecticut to Northern NJ, it's the most comparable to density in the US to 'foreign' countries with extreme speeds, such as korea and tokyo (well not quite tokyo).
Please refer to my posting from a couple years ago on Korea's bandwidth: »Re: All ISPS Marginal and it's conclusion based on the information at that time that we were comparable to anywhere.
However, these items would have changed at this time:
1. the dollar is severely devalued against all world currencies, up to 50% since I wrote it, therefor we would be paying more than our counterparts.
2. Cablevision's stats are now much higher with more than 80% of all of the footprint they cover participating and significant more numbers using internet (voice IP or digital TV) than when I wrote that originally.
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»www.Warpstock.org |
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