2008 International Broadband Rankings

itif writes to let us know about a major new report, released yesterday by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, showing how the US and other countries compare in terms of broadband access, speed, and price. The rankings (PDF) place the US 15th, this country having fallen every year since 2001. Here's the full report (PDF). According to the report's executive summary: "The US broadband policy environment is characterized on the one hand by market fundamentalists who see little or no role for government, and see government as the problem; and on the other by digital populists who favor a vastly expanded role for government (including government ownership of networks and strict and comprehensive regulation, including mandatory unbundling of incumbent networks and strict net neutrality regulations) and who see big corporations providing broadband as a problem. Given the policy advocacy and advice they are getting, it is no wonder that Congress and the Administration have done so little."

Re:Government provided broadband?

[JPriest]

What have terrorists done to fix the U.S. government?

Re:Lack of competition is the biggest reason

[Daniel_Staal]

Why do some of us think the current situation will never change? Economics: It is economically unfeasible for anyone to run extra lines to every house, get their own link to the Internet backbone, and start up as a competitor to the current telcos. And that is what it would take for a new competitor to enter the market.

On the occasional small-scale this isn't always true: A mid-sized town could wire themselves if they wanted to. Note that this is local government doing the job at that point.

The US telecom/television/broadband market is in free-market monopoly status, with the barrier to entry enforced by both government regulation and the sheer size of the initial install. Ask any economics professor; once a market hits that status it takes either government intervention or a major technological change to break out of it.

There is one chance of a major technological change: Wireless Internet access is starting to spread, and may reach equal speeds. But at this point you either have to have the government break the monopoly or hope the cellular companies do a better job soon.

Re:Government provided broadband?

[Shakrai]

Bin Laden has actually done LESS damage in the last ten years, than a single congresscritter in the same timespan.

That's a retarded fucking statement and you know it.

What Congresscritter killed 3,000 Americans, drove a major industry (the airlines) to the breaking point and inflicted billions of dollars of measurable damage (loss of the twin towers) and who knows how much unmeasurable damage? (post 9/11 economic fallout)

As a New Yorker let me be the first to tell you to go fuck yourself for that stupid bombastic comparison. Let me further purpose that we need a Godwin's Law for offtopic terrorism/Al Quada references.

Re:Government provided broadband?

[djinnn]

Although I don't agree with the "terrorists fixing governments" claim, the parent's "keeping the government's hands out of as many things as possible" claim is arguably stupid too.

After all, this is what has been the leading motto of American politics for 25 years (let's say since Reagan), and it lead exactly to where we are now: less power to governments, more power to big corporations, and eventually more crony capitalism.
How long does it have to fail for you to realize it's a dead-end?

Less power to the government has never been, is still not, and will never be the way to protect and enforce democracy.
Take the matter in your own hands, people: learn about politics, be informed, get involved, protest, *vote*.
It's as simple as that, and definitely nothing new.

Less power to the government is just a lazy way of not having to do anything to keep it honest. If you don't stand for your own interests, others will for their own. How can that be a surprise, seriously?

Re:take that.

[CompMD]

No, it really is that we're falling. After all, we did *invent* the Internet (and the personal computer, microprocessor, and transistor...). We had connectivity before any other country. Now other countries have had the technology handed to them and have surpassed our broadband connectivity. How is that "rising" when all the fundamentals were developed in the US? Its obvious that we have in fact fallen, and unfortunately for us here in the US, the biggest reason is greed.

You could have been far more insightful without showing your hatred of America.

Re:How many countries...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

How many countries subsidize telcos with tax dollars to create their infrastructure? I'm curious. I know we are a spread-out nation here in the US, but there is no reason why cities with people living on top of each other (LA, Boston, New York, etc) can't easily have the infrastructure that the rest of the world has.

We've paid more per person in tax subsidies than many other nations. Take Sweden, for example. Their population density and median population density are both about the same as the US. Their subsidies, however, had legal teeth that required the telcos to actually provide something in exchange. They also had a huge embezzling scandal where much of the money was stolen. They still have significantly faster internet at significantly lower prices than the US, in exchange for a smaller per person tax.

The high speed internet problem comes down to pretty much the same thing as many other problems in the US. Politicians are willing to give private companies billions is subsidies, in exchange for hundreds of thousands being returned as campaign contributions. So long as this legalized bribery is allowed, companies will simply pay off politicos in exchange for subsidies or for not having to fulfill the agreements they made when the subsidies were given.

Re:Yeah.... AND??

[Stephen Ma]

That is twice the bandwidth required. That means the "pipes" have to be twice as big to deliver the same level of service as Sweden. Which stands to reason that maybe the cost will already be twice the cost of Sweden?

Nonsense. If Florida has twice the population of Sweden in about the same area, then it also has twice the potential revenue, even before factoring in the higher U.S. average income. So the infrastructure costs should be about the same per capita -- and this is a conservative estimate.

You also assume that the costs of the bandwidth are entirely limited to Florida. What about the fiber linking Florida to the rest of the US?

What about the fiber linking Sweden to the rest of Europe?

Face it, there is really no excuse for such horrible Internet service in the supposedly richest country on earth.