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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Greed. One word: Greed. 
Why give people what they want for less money if you can squeeze dollars out of them by giving them a lousy connection?
The United States of America is great when it comes to developing technology, but when it comes to applying them other countries often take the lead.
A few examples:
- NO American Airline has adopted Boeing's Connexion, which is broadband access on board of their flights, with Lufthansa adopting it first (Germany's main airline) and several other Asian and European airlines now are using it too.
- Most European Cable providers (and I am not even talking about Japan or Korea) started to change their upload speeds along with the download speeds when their broadband battles raged. Not just the download speeds such as here in the US. My parents in The Netherlands has a 1 Mbit/s upstream connection and 4 Mbit/s down, and they are on the "budget" plan. Getting 1 Mbit/s up on DSL (there is a technical limit there) or 2 Mbit/s on Cable isn't all that difficult in Europe. In the US, you may be grateful if you end up with 384 kbit/s up or 512 kbit/s up, and only a few markets surpass that. And often only when there is FIOS.
- I can purchase a usenet service with unlimited downloading for EUR 7.50 in Europe. (and good speed, 30 day retention) American services such as Giganews often charge that amount for a limited connection, such as 10 Gb download only, and you will have to whip out $25 a month for the unlimited version.
- DSL2 and Docsis 2.0 are being widely deployed. The UK announced their nationwide DSL2 network in 2005, and so did The Netherlands and France, albeit in the last case not quite nationwide yet, but they plan to upgrade their areas that are still on DSL1 to DSL2 soon.
- Japan and Korea are way ahead of the US in fibering up the homes. Europe is somewhat behind on the speedy delivery of fiber by Verizon, but unlike Verizon who seems to only deliver in rich areas first, there are several European cities currently deploying a citywide fiberoptic network. For everyone. Although it will take a few more years to be operational.
In general, the U.S. and U.S. companies are lagging behind in broadband deployment, the prices for it, and the speeds with which broadband is delivered. And in my humble opinion, it all comes down to one single word: Greed.
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"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein." - Bush, May 2004. | |
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Scott W
Premium
join:2003-08-09
Beaverton, OR
| Re: Greed. said by maartena  :Japan and Korea are way ahead of the US in fibering up the homes. While I agree with your accusations of greed on the part of the American Broadband companies, don't forget that Korea and Japan have houses that are a lot more densely packed in the cities and it's a lot easier to reach more homes more quickly with fiber. While lots are getting tiny and houses more numerous in metro areas here, we still are spread out compared to typical Japanese and Korean situations. | |
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rit56
join:2000-12-01
New York, NY
| Re: Greed. no he is right with his greed argument ESPECIALLY due to your statement. based on what you said why are American teleco's only wiring "rich" areas and not major cities? due to density as you state New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia etc, etc should all be wired at this point with fiber because we live so close together. we will likely be the last to get it. sorry my friend. it is pure greed. | |
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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by Scott W :said by maartena :Japan and Korea are way ahead of the US in fibering up the homes. While I agree with your accusations of greed on the part of the American Broadband companies, don't forget that Korea and Japan have houses that are a lot more densely packed in the cities and it's a lot easier to reach more homes more quickly with fiber. While lots are getting tiny and houses more numerous in metro areas here, we still are spread out compared to typical Japanese and Korean situations. I have heard this argument time and time and time again about Japan and Korea, and although you are right about the amount of people they pack in a square kilometer, it doesn't mean deploying fiber is a whole lot cheaper.
In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles, at least they are in most of the greater Los Angeles area, except for the downtown areas of some cities because there is no more room for poles. Not having to dig to deploy your fiber makes deploying it actually significantly cheaper.
On top of that, there are areas that are fairly rich (such as downtown San Francisco or downtown New York), have a density equal to a city in Japan with their highrises, and even if a highrise appartment building in New York wants to fiber up their own residents at their OWN COSTS, they often get hassled by telecom companies because they claim to be deploying new technologies "soon" for years now. There's a few appartment buildings in downtown New York that got tired of waiting, placed a satellite dish on the roof, fibered up their own building, and connected it to a leased line just so they can get something faster then your average DSL or Cablemodem. Essentially, those buildings are starting to be their own ISP, and you often even can't GET DSL anymore because their building has been fibered up, and DSL doesn't run through that. But their internal digital phone system does.
Point is, in a large metro area like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York or Houston, just to name a few.... fiber CAN be deployed for an amount of money that would give them profit after a number of years.
Furthermore, I don't want this to become a political topic, but I will just bring it up to compare:
The esitimated costs of fibering up the whole city of Paris, France (est. 6 million or so inhabitants) will cost about 1 billion euro, or about $1.3 billion dollars. The estimated costs of fibering up Amsterdam, The Netherlands (est. 1 million or so inhabitants) will cost about 300 million euro or about $400 million dollars.
The war in Iraq has cost us about $350 BILLION dollars in tax money. Now I am NOT advocating the federal government should deploy fiber, but even if it would cost TWICE as much to fiber up a city with the same amount of inhabitants of those two European examples, in the amount of time that this war has been going on, we could have deployed fiber in the 100 largest cities in the United States, assuming it would cost 3.5 billion dollars per city to deploy. And that is a very conservative estimate, because it would probably cost less and be more comparible to a spread out city like Paris is.
People always defend Japan's and Korea's broadband with being less costly because of population density. They also pay a lot less for that broadband, so in the end it should work out just fine deploying it in large urban areas in the U.S.
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The Republican Party is a party of BAD ideas. The Democratic Party is a party of NO ideas. Every now and then a Republican stands up in congress and says: "I got a really BAD idea!", to which a Democrat reponds with: "And I can make it shittier!" | |
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SamsungSucks
Infinita Tristeza
Premium
join:2004-12-31
Japan Inc.
| Re: Greed. said by maartena :In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles Wrong. In japan, most of the cables are placed on poles, not underground.
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SamsungSucks.us | Sea of Japan | The egocentric Captain Han-guk | |
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rideboarder
welcome to the social
Premium
join:2003-07-28
Snohomish, WA
clubs:
| Re: Greed. said by SamsungSucks :said by maartena :In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles Wrong. In japan, most of the cables are placed on poles, not underground. His argument still stands correct as far as Europe is concerned. | |
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Cuchulainn
The Roar of the Masses Could be Farts
join:2000-11-09
Chevy Chase, MD
 ·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Greed. said by rideboarder :said by SamsungSucks :said by maartena :In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles Wrong. In japan, most of the cables are placed on poles, not underground. His argument still stands correct as far as Europe is concerned. Uh...not as far as the UK is concerned.
1. Cable upload speeds still crap. I'm sitting on 10 meg down, 512k up and that's currently the best that Cable in the UK can offer.
2. Usenet access is crud too. Most relevant newsgroups are blocked. Sure you can get alt.obsessive-fan.jamiroquai.s**ks, but as for Usenet anyone actually reads, it's poor.
3. Gov't/BT (same bloody thing) have announced a lot but they rarely deliver.
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Why should the Israelis care about a brain-dead leader? Bush is in his second term! NO Bush NO Sinn Fein/IRA | |
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rideboarder
welcome to the social
Premium
join:2003-07-28
Snohomish, WA
clubs:
| Re: Greed. said by Cuchulainn :said by rideboarder :said by SamsungSucks :said by maartena :In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles Wrong. In japan, most of the cables are placed on poles, not underground. His argument still stands correct as far as Europe is concerned. Uh...not as far as the UK is concerned. Well the UK is a mini USA anyways. I'm talking about the real Europe here. | |
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Cuchulainn
The Roar of the Masses Could be Farts
join:2000-11-09
Chevy Chase, MD
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Greed. said by rideboarder :said by Cuchulainn :said by rideboarder :said by SamsungSucks :said by maartena :In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles Wrong. In japan, most of the cables are placed on poles, not underground. His argument still stands correct as far as Europe is concerned. Uh...not as far as the UK is concerned. Well the UK is a mini USA anyways. I'm talking about the real Europe here. Your argument still doesn't hold any water, no matter how cute you try to be. 
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Why should the Israelis care about a brain-dead leader? Bush is in his second term! NO Bush NO Sinn Fein/IRA | |
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maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| said by SamsungSucks :said by maartena :In Japan for instance, (and most of Europe) cables are placed into the ground, whereas in most of the US the cables are placed on poles Wrong. In japan, most of the cables are placed on poles, not underground. I will give you that. I have lived in Europe for 28 years though, have been to MANY big European cities including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich, Edinburgh, Bordeaux, Bern, Geneve, Milan, and god knows how many more other cities, and they only place I have seen cables on poles was in the Scottish northern highlands.
If European Cities can do it, so can American cities. But since greed is also responsible for the Los Angeles Metro to stop THREE MILES BEFORE the Airport, I would not be surprised if big telecom companies would keep cities from deploying. God knows they are trying in small communities, I betcha corporate HELL would break loose if the city of Chicago would announce a city wide fiber network funded by the city.
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The Republican Party is a party of BAD ideas. The Democratic Party is a party of NO ideas. Every now and then a Republican stands up in congress and says: "I got a really BAD idea!", to which a Democrat reponds with: "And I can make it shittier!" | |
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