openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
 ·AT&T Southeast
| reply to PolarBear
Re: That's nothing.
According to census statistics, the population of the US is ~305M people, with ~72% being over the age of 19. Using an estimate of 70M broadband suscribers and ~111M occupied housing units, it looks like the US is doing better with broadband penetration than you alluded to. If you're going to call out Martin, you should limit your usage of statistics to US data. |
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tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
 ·Hollis Hosting
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..
| As others have posted it is important not to confuse broadband connections with number of users. As openbox9  posted a better metric is broadband service as a percentage of households.
70 Million broadband connections for 110 million US households is not too shabby. That is poor solace to those who want broadband and cannot get it but much better stat then as a percentage of total US population. Our household is probably typical, we've had broadband connectivity for years shared by all four members.
Given how revolutionary Internet connectivity is this represents pretty rapid adoption. Most folks did not know what the Internet was a decade ago and world wide web which is what most people think of as the Internet, which it is not, is less then 20 years old.
/tom |
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PolarBear
The bear formerly known as aaron8301
Premium
join:2005-01-03
 ·CableOne
| Very good point. I did not consider multiple users per household. In that case, penetration percentage IS higher than what I stated.
I still think it's ridiculously low, however, and I fail to understand why. I live in an extremely mountainous and rural area of Washington, and the WISP in our very large county covers over half the population. The only people it doesn't reach are the people who intentionally live in extremely remote areas in order to isolate themselves. If we can do that in this mountainous area, why not the rest of rural America?
And the Martin comment was simply to rant that he IS part of the problem, albiet only in the US. If I knew who or what was responsible for lack of broadband penetration in other countries, I'd bitch about them too! 
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There comes a point in your life when you get tired of fixing everything and wiping everyone's ass. But it’s not giving up. It’s realizing that you don’t need certain people and the bullshit and drama they bring to your life. |
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Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA
| said by PolarBear :I still think it's ridiculously low, however, and I fail to understand why. I live in an extremely mountainous and rural area of Washington, and the WISP in our very large county covers over half the population. The only people it doesn't reach are the people who intentionally live in extremely remote areas in order to isolate themselves. If we can do that in this mountainous area, why not the rest of rural America? Those who use the excuse about how hard it is to provide rural broadband in such a large country never seem to mention that Alaska has one of the highest broadband penetration rates of the 50 states. |
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