American Broadband: Outclassed → Very true!

I'm saying this for long time...

They are stealing our grammar as well!

Bastards...

I guess MIT,Harvard,Yale,Northwestern etc... are all runing on dialup. Wake me up when Japan or S. Korea have a greater GDP than USA .

Especially if we are immmigrants, of course...

Which has nothing to do with the original post. Thank you for your contriubution.Ummm what GDP has to do with taking the technological edge?
Wake me up when you've posted something meaningful...

The point is that broadband availability and technological availability are unrelated to GDP.

»www.cia.gov/cia/publicat ··· ank.html

The per capita GDP of the USA(#4) is far above that of Japan(#22) and South Korea(#51). Japan and SK both have had better broadband options (and a more direct availability of things "higher tech") than the USA for awhile, but this has not resulted in either country overtaking the USA in per capita GDP.

»www.cia.gov/cia/publicat ··· ank.html

The total GDP of the USA is also greater than... well... everyone

Article states that lack of universal broadband will basically hurt financially. I have no idea how old you are but I've been hearing that Asians countries are going to eat us up for the last 20 years. Hasn't happened. Yea mega speeds at low price would be nice but it is not the end of the world if everyone in the US doesn't have the option of getting cheap, ultra broadband service. The reason I stated some Universities is because that is where a lot of breakthroughs happen and most of these schools are running on the so called Internet 2 with super dooper speeds. Hope that helps.

edited for spelling

I'm with you I've been saying this for "MANY" years now.

The US GDP might be high right now, but beware... America's ability to outproduce may very well suffer in the future if the country's last mile networks stay at their current subpar level. Not that its a bad thing, but its something to keep in mind.

I think you are missing the point of the article. The author argues that broadband is a utility because more and more services will be delivered over broadband connections in coming years. This isn't about having the fastest connection so you won't lag in CS. In other words its not about having superior connections to Japan etc, its the fact that there are many people in the US who have no access to broadband at all. (And no, Direcway is NOT broadband!)

Do you have any studies or proof to back this up? Please provide evidence to this, white papers, publications, peer reviewed journals, anything?
Then compare this to the next generation communications that are rolling out right now and their impact on "last mile" penetration. (EVDO, 1/2/3xRTT, Fios)
Then balance that versus the US population density per square kilometer against the target countries.
I await your response.

Edit: Sorry to single you out amongst the many who are claiming basically the same thing.

1. There are no studies on this topic yet... The last mile network problem hasn't become a major issue yet.

2. READ what I posted... "America's ability to outproduce may very well suffer..." That's not a statement that says it WILL suffer, but that our anemic last mile networks may affect the next generation of services and tools that haven't come out. Strange factors have affected the economic progress of nations in the past before.

Which still has nothing to do with the more advanced technological standpoint. yes.

OTOH you can have better GDP yet piss-poor people with not enough job etc etc. GDP proves nothing here, FYI.

Well, if one watches the technology that's in the works, like IPTV, home automation, etc and realizes that those technologies, in combinations with the emergence of VoIP and IPTV, are going to need some hefty connections, one can see how the last mile network's condition may affect the marketability of those technologies down the line. If it doesn't work, people aren't ging to buy it until it does.While I admit there is some conjecture on my part, its an educated and informed observation... I'm merely taking a look at what the future in technology holds, like outlined above, and being a system/network admin, I'm aware that bandwidth needs are going to starting to grow. You put them together and you have a problem where available bandwidth prevents the development of new services and markets.

Ummm. By the time Japan or S. Korea are beating the US in GDP, it'll be way too late to do anything about it. If you don't act before it happens, then you're screwed.

Take a look at China, for example--imagine where they will be in 10 years compared to the US.

ROFL, EVDO as somthing advanced thing? LOL... Compare it to Europe: even former Commie countries have similar speeds available for long time - in some you can already order 10-20Mbit ADSL2+ or cable connections, unlike here.

Generally speaking US is clearly behind most of the developed world (ie West EU, Japan, Korea) - if somebody don't see this, he's living in denial. : we have an awkward, anti-competitive monopoly in most of the US markets and that's why we are waaaay behind.
Heck, there's no other country where a corporation would dare to try to openly block muni developments, not to mention no state legislation would block competition by law... and let's not get into the totally rotten and corrupt big business-employee, the FCC's actions...This is probably the most ridiculous excuse and pro-corporate, pro-monopoly guys love to post it.
To shortly rebuke this idiocy, two things:
1. according to 2004 census daTA, over 80% of US population live in metropolitan areas which are the perfect places for en masse broadband deployment
2. look at Canada

I await your response... FYI: I expect you to prove me somehow magically that 80% already have *real* broadband (real = not the artifically inflated, laughable broadband definition of FCC)Sorry to single you out amongst the many who are claiming basically the same false crap.

The main reason that I don't agree with this assessment is that there are many areas like inner cities, certain poor rural areas and the like which do have high speed Internet access but are still in the same wretched economic state that they were in prior to getting broadband.

Broadband is being sold as some sort of panacea for every little problem out there when it really isn't.

You are correct in that it is not a panacea. There is no "silver bullet" that will magically lift an area from abject poverty to Trumpian wealth overnight.

Having said that, broadband, I think, is fast becoming a precondition (along with transportation, good education, good government), that enables an area to begin to make the transition. A prerequisite, but as you note, not a guarantee of success.

Someone needs to look up what "per capita" means.

Even large cities in America don't have Asian/European like speeds available for average consumers.

Well, that's because you are only looking at broadband in relation to their economic state... You examination of how they are related is flawed. Broadband isn't going to lift people out of poverty by itself. So to say that the discoonect between wired areas and their economic state is some sort of proof that broadband doesn't have economic influence is fallacious.Indeed. But that doesn't change the fact that America's lagging position in the broadband world may very well hurt the economy.

Do you have any studies or proof to back this up? Please provide evidence to this, white papers, publications, peer reviewed journals, anything?
Show me how we are falling behind as a result of this and not conjecture.

You know DSLR eds day isn't perfect without a good America Sucks news item.

Unfortunately I could not format the columns, instead I use comas. The data comes form ITU for broadband per 100 (2003) and the GDP per Capata (2004) and GDP growth rate (2005 est.) comes from the world fact book. It seems the idea that Increase broadband results in increase GDP is busted. Interesting is Korea, while fist in broadband it last in GDP in this list.

Broad band Ranking,Country,Broad band per 100 (2003),GDP Per Capata,GDP Groth Rate

1, Korea (rep) ,23.3, $19,200, 3.7
2,Hong Kong China ,18 ,$34,200 , 7
3, Canada ,14.8 ,$31,500 , 2.8
4, Iceland ,14.5, $31,900, 5.9
5, Taiwan, 13.4, $25,300 , 3.6
6, Denmark,13.1 ,$32,200, 2.2
7, Belgium ,12.4, $30,600, 1.5
8,Japan,11.7,$29,400 , 2.1
9, Netherlands,11.6 ,$29,500, 0.6
10, Switzerland ,11.4 ,$33,800, 1.2
11 Sweden ,10.6 $28,400, 2.4
12 *Singapore, 10.1, $27,800, 4.5
13 USA, 3.8,$40,100 , 3.5
14 Israel, 3.6,$20,800, 4.3
15 Finland , 3.6 ,$29,000, 1.7

Or perhaps someone still has to grasp that 'per capita' doesn't mean equal distribution too?

Umm WTF are we talking about, seriously? Go and search for available services in Japan, Korea, France, Sweden, Holland, UK, Germany or even Hungary or Poland.
It's not rocket science, no need for "whitepaper" and "peer reviewed journals" (What an idiocy: 'peer review" on actual service offerings! ROFL!) - if you weren't kidding, then obviously you have zero knowledge on this industry.
Apparently you're not only ignorant on this particular subject but also too lazy to do a search, right? :P :P

This is the original post in this part of the thread that I was responding to.
I never contended that service offerings were different.
Why dont you actually take the time to read before pressing the reply button.
My contention is no one knows just how much (or little) any differences in network accessibility is hurting (or not) the US. I see many making conjecture but nothing more. It is easy to scream the sky is falling, is it, how much, what truly are the implications.Try reading, its not rocket science.

Broadband Internet access is recognized as a critical component of our global communications infrastructure, and significant public policy reforms and proactive programs are in place and under consideration to ensure continued investment to make broadband services competitively available to all U.S. citizens. There is an on-going debate regarding whether there is a broadband digital divide, whether emphasis should shift from concern over service availability to usage (penetration), and whether markets or direct government interventions would most effectively promote broadband growth.

To date, these discussions have suffered from a lack of solid empirical data measuring the
economic impact of broadband. This is not surprising given the daunting data and methodological challenges with measuring the economic effects of information technology generally (e.g., the “Solow Productivity Paradox") and of broadband, in particular. Assembling good comparable data on the economic effects of IT is difficult, and on a microlevel (firm or community-level data), data sources are quite limited.17 The problem is further aggravated by the lack of appropriate data to measure the extent of broadband usage. The FCC's zip-code data on broadband availability since December 1999 offers the best publicly available community-level indication of the extent of national broadband deployment. Unfortunately, penetration data is only available at the state-level which we believe is too aggregated to offer reliable estimates of broadband's economic impacts.18 Finally, at this early stage in the growth of broadband and the inevitable lag in publishing reliable economic performance data, it has been too early to be able to produce empirically sound estimates of broadband's economic impacts. While it is still early, this paper offers some preliminary estimates utilizing the economic data in the biennial business Census from 2002 (the most recent date for which data is available). We match this with earlier Census data and with the FCC data on broadband availability to produce a panel data sample with which to identify potential impacts of broadband on economic activity (employment, wages,
and industry structure).

The analysis we present here supports the view that broadband access does enhance economic growth and performance. We find that between 1998 and 2002 (see Table 15), communities in which mass-market broadband was available by December 1999 experienced more rapid growth in (1) employment, (2) the number of businesses overall, and (3) businesses in IT-intensive sectors. In addition, the effect of broadband availability by 1999 can be observed in higher market rates for rental housing in 2000. This analysis is perforce preliminary because additional data and experience are needed to more accurately address this important question; however, the early results presented here suggest that the assumed (and oft-touted) economic impacts of broadband are both real and measurable.

There are several clear implications for policy-makers. First, all of those who have been spending their time worrying about promoting broadband should take comfort that their efforts are not in vain.

Second, while the initial evidence suggests that there are significant economic impacts, more research is needed to enhance the quality of these measures. An especially pressing problem is the need for better microdata on how broadband is being used and on the quality of broadband. The current definition of what constitutes broadband sets a pretty low threshold that does not adequately distinguish between services that are only marginally better than legacy dialup and real next generation broadband services that offer data rates of multiple MBps. Additionally, knowing that broadband is available is not as useful as knowing whether and how it is being used, or the state of broadband competition (which also will require better data on pricing and market shares). Such data is inherently sensitive to collect, and so conducting rigorous empirical analyses with which to inform public communications policy debates is challenging. Nevertheless, such work is important and needs to be done if we are to frame effective policy. Cross-national studies of broadband, more case studies, and multidisciplinary research that jointly considers technical, business, and policy issues are needed to understand this critical aspect of our global information infrastructure. The good news is that as researchers we anticipate having an important agenda of issues to address into the future.

Measuring Broadband’s Economic Impact

Do a little bit of searching and well look what we find!