US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's For 101 Years 708
An anonymous reader writes "Internet speeds of users nationwide shows that the United States has not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year, and if the average US Internet speed continues to improve only at the same rate it did from 2007 to 2008, the country won't catch up with Japan's current download speed for another 100 years, according to findings released by the Communications Workers of America's (CWA's) Speed Matters campaign." With enough statistical mangling, nearly anything can be presented as plausible, but that's not enough to cover up my envy of Asian broadband speeds.
oook (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, like shorter work weeks, better insurance coverage, universal health care, more vacation time.
Really, people, lighten up!
Spin This So Action is Taken! (Score:5, Insightful)
US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's for 101 Years
Uh, could you somehow spin (regardless of truth) this as related to war and/or military prowess so our administration will mindlessly throw money at it instead of mindlessly ignoring it?
Like:
US Cyber Attacking Infrastructure Embarrassingly Lags Japan's
Japanese Identify US Broadband as "Ripe for the Pickin'"
Cyber Pearl Harbor Imminent
US President's Netflix Downloads 1/10 as Fast as Japanese President's
US Administration Idles as US-Japanese Broadband Gap Widens
Come on, these things basically write themselves! Turn it into a dick measuring contest or it's meaningless.
Better Comparison. (Score:1, Insightful)
And you wish to compare the entire USA, with it's HUGE wilderness areas to Japan?
You are surprised that a country that includes Alaska, a place so wild they have to pay people to live there, has a lower average broadband connection than a small, civilized, advanced Island nation.
Let me make this clear: It is a GOOD thing that the US is not moronic enough to wire our large, open country to the same extent that a small, island country can.
Next thing, someone will complain that Japan eats more fish per capita than the US does.
Geography (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Or like better beer, a rich regional culture and history, better cuisine, better wine.
Re:Japan is a lot smaller than the U.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
Red Herring Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Not the old "but America is rural!" chestnut again. Scandinavian countries have lower population densities than we do yet have much better access. And the "rural" argument might make sense for why you can't get good access on a farm in Kansas, but then why don't we have 100 Mbps consumer connections in San Francisco or Manhattan?
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not the prediciton is statistically shaky, the fact remains that there is a huge gap between the US and many other, quite dissimilar countries. The big question is "Why?" Japan and Korea aren't the only ones that far outclass American broadband speed, though they do have quite a speed lead.
Chart of Broadband Speeds by Country [worldpoliticsreview.com]
And sure, in the US you can get FiOS at 30Mbps, but it will cost you $200/month and you have to live in a very limited area. You can get 50Mbps from Comcast only if you live in the Twin Cities (right now), but it's still $150/month.
I could point to the geography of the US, saying how its a much bigger area than the smaller countries at the top of those charts. Sure, Japan and Korea have an incredible population density. But not Finland, Sweden, France, etc. They have population densities several orders of magnitude smaller than even cities like Houston, Miami, Phoenix, or Chicago. Why aren't these cities more like those countries?
I could also try it from the angle of regulation/free market/competition. But I'm pretty sure those countries at the top aren't all the same in that regard.
Is it because our companies tend to each have local monopolies over large areas? That seems less likely considering how just about everyone in a metro area can get cable. So they have two companies, phone and cable, to compete with each other.
Is there something unique about our infrastructure? Did we make some horrible mistake that seemed like a good idea at the time but is now haunting us?
Is the US just in a perfect storm of craptitude where all these factors come into play?
Re:Japan is a lot smaller than the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a nice argument, but kind of falls apart when you figure that even places like New York, which has some of the highest population densities in the world, have crap internet. If the free market and unregulated business practices was going to provide good internet at competitive rates it would have already materialized, at least in select markets.
Re:Red Herring Comparison (Score:1, Insightful)
There are a lot *more" rural areas in the U.S. Look at the physical size. Population density is only half of the problem, physical size is the other.
Thanks.
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
Scarcity (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer to why we don't have faster broadband speeds is simple: scarcity pays.
It is not in the interests of U.S. telecom providers to roll out high-speed bandwidth all at once. Thus we have a tiered service model, with people paying a little for 1Mb connections and substantially more to get higher speeds, regardless of what the telecom carriers' networks can handle.
Granted, some of the scarcity may be real and based on telecom companies dragging their feet on upgrading, but even if they could carry 100 times the traffic the can now it still would be in their corporate interest to artificially create a bandwidth scarcity to keep prices high.
Re:Better Comparison. (Score:1, Insightful)
As has been said before, it's not about wiring up everyone to the internet at high speeds. Most of the US population lives in cities or relatively dense suburbs; we generally don't have comperably fast (and cheap) service even in areas with similar population density.
What I would like to see is the ease (or difficulty) of getting "good" service in various countries. By "good", I mean fewer restrictions - net neutrality, symmetric upload/download rates, minimal port blocking, no protocol censorship.
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bu-Bu-But the free market rules! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're blaming government-granted monopolies on the free market?
Re:Japan is a lot smaller than the U.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
you know, it could simply be that there isn't a demand for it. Premium services are offered, and mayhaps the ISPs simply don't see an actual demand.
I know that it might seem like a silly argument that you don't want to deal with, but really...why would 99% of the population care about anything higher than the 16Mps that is already pretty commonly available (with 45Mbps in some areas)? My content is already not waiting on the pipe between me and the provider, it is waiting on my client (at least, when I'm using my old laptop), or the server trying to generate the dynamic page.
That being said, the convo has been heavy on residential connections...the place I work would love 10x the speed, business rates are just horrible and it would be too expensive. That's a different ball of wax, though.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
They pay a little less, but get a lot less out of their government.
Personally, I'd like to pay even less and get even less from government.
Canadians also benefit from having very low military spending compared to the size of the territory.
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
The lack of fast internet in America is crippling all the business that relies on fast internet speeds. Sorry to burst your bubble but the Internet is actually used for more that just surfing the web. If America is supposed to be moving away from a manufacturing economy and toward a service economy (specifically an information service economy) then we need to have the infrastructure to handle the demands of that economy. Just like when we invested tons of money in the railroad infrastructure in the beginnings of the Industrial revolution and then again on our highway system in the 50â(TM)s for trucking; we need to invest heavily in our Internet infrastructure. If we donâ(TM)t then we will surely fail as an Information Economy. Iâ(TM)ve had direct experience with this as I worked for a Medical ASP and we were constantly crippled by crappy Internet speeds that would not have been an issue in most of Europe and much of Asia. Itâ(TM)s shameful how our economic growth is being hampered by a few very greedy Telco companies.
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
In the meantime, we've got areas with Fios, and 50/50Mbit symmetrical fiber connections to the 'net. So instead of moving to Japan, you can move to Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, or Texas
Specifically, move to a limited amount of affluent, white suburbs in those states. Don't bother with big cities, either. Yes, there are areas with crazy-fast FiOS service, but Verizon is really only rolling it out in the areas that require less work: rich suburbs. More folks that are willing to pay for the service (and higher-level service), and stringing up fiber to individual homes is a bit simpler than dealing with apartments. Everywhere else they're seriously dragging their feet.
Lots of nerds praise FiOS and recommend it all the goddamn time, but it really isn't as available as it is often made out to be.
So why is Finland so much better? (Score:5, Insightful)
So how come, even in Silicon Valley, I can't get a consumer connection faster than 5Mbps? In 2008? Yet, when I moved to Japan in 2002, the *slowest* most *basic* package I could get (excepting dial-up, which was being phased out) was 12Mbps.
Fine, we get it, the US is huge. That's no excuse. The simple fact of the matter is that the telcos are much happier to sit there and overcharge for crappy service, as they have no compelling reason to upgrade. If population density and geography alone were the only limiting factors, US residents would still be able to get decent high-speed connections in the urban areas. But they don't exist. I mean, jebus, FINLAND has better download speeds, by a factor of almost 9x (2.4Mbps US vs 21Mbps Finland), despite a population density of about half the US (31/sq km US vs 16/sq km Finland).
So quit the hyperbole, and look at the basic facts -- we're getting shafted in the name of telco profits.
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Or like better beer, a rich regional culture and history, better cuisine, better wine.
The United States doesn't have rich regional cultures? I guess you've never been to New York City or New Orleans?
And the rest of those are purely subjective. Most of the mass market European beers (Heineken comes to mind) are just as crappy as the mass market American beers. Start talking about microbrews though I think you'll find a few American beers that stack up favorably. American wine came of age a long time ago and competes successfully on the world stage. And 'better cuisine'? Cuisine varies so much between regions (even within small countries -- ever traveled across Italy?) that I'm really interested to hear how you define "better".
Re:Thats ok... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not at all! We are probably the first generation that has a serious chance of living to a Thousand...
Re:oook (Score:5, Insightful)
Replying only because you made this on topic :)
Ahem. China? India? Heck, Brazil?
All have far more robust economies than the US at the moment, if national budgets are anything to go by. The US government has long considered its ability to tax its citizens as an unlimited line of credit. They (you?) are about (in the near future, near being used on the historical timescale) to find out that there is no such thing as an unlimited line of credit. The US citizens' willingness to be frogboiled into paying for more and more of their income to their government's siphon-wealth-to-the-rich program is wearing thin.
If you're cynical enough, you could postulate that the destruction of the US education system is no a political misadventure, but a deliberate act to keep the working class in a poorly educated state. This would ensure that they lack the insight to interpret political reality for themselves, instead relying solely on pre-digested conclusions drip fed to them via the mass media.
But that's a position you'd take if you were cynical enough. I'm obviously not :)
second helping of Red Herring (Score:2, Insightful)
Since you ignored it the first time:
Scandinavian countries have lower population densities than we do yet have much better access. And the "rural" argument might make sense for why you can't get good access on a farm in Kansas, but then why don't we have 100 Mbps consumer connections in San Francisco or Manhattan?
Your post didn't answer the first point, and ignored the second. Finland [wikipedia.org] has 5.3 million people in 130,000 square miles. Wisconsin [wikipedia.org] has 5.7 million people in 65,000 square miles. So, obviously Finland is gong to have a lot more open areas than Wisconsin, yet it has a median download speed of 21 Mbps, [nwsource.com] compared to less than 2 Mbps for the United States. I don't have figures for Wisconsin, but what do you think the chances are they will be remotely close to Finland?
And I have yet to see any apologists offer a reason why you can't get access in densely populated American cities like Manhattan to match what Europe is able to deliver to their people in the sticks.
Re:oook (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, I thought you might have a point until you started going into the uber-right-wing whacko talk. U.S. tax rates are relatively low for a first world nation - and your assertion of it being considered an unlimited line of credit seems ill-timed considering the whole reality of taxes being reduced repeatedly over Dubya's term. If you want to go into a full libertarian rant about how the state shouldn't do things like pay for schools or roads or the military or protect the environment, then fine - at least that would be logically consistent.
I'd at least argue that so long as we receive services, we should probably pay for them. I'd also argue that our society is better served by counteracting class disparity - especially as brought on through the mechanism of inheritance - similar to how we are best served by tempering or breaking up monopolies. Somewhat intelligent peoples such as Warren Buffett take a similar stance.
As far as the mentioned alternatives, they have a long way to go yet. India and China will overtake us in sheer total numbers, but will remain far behind us in per capita terms and other things like standard of living. If you look at them, they're are nations in upheaval and while growing their middle class, they also have levels of poverty unimaginable to the vast majority of Americans. It's entirely possible for the wind to blow another direction and eventually every great nation crests and declines, however thinking one of these nations will be ready to become our successor in a matter of years instead of a matter of decades shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the state of the world.
Re:Japan is a lot smaller than the U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a 20/20 fiber connection available to me for cheaper than what I'm currently paying for 1/0.25 ... how lame is that?
You have a far faster connection available to you but you continue to pay higher prices for vastly inferior bandwidth? That is incredibly lame -- switch already!
Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid (Score:1, Insightful)
Access to a waiting list is not access to health care
Existing taxes could finance decent preventive medicine, but that would mean getting rid of the congressional pork trough, subsidizing industries that don't need it, canceling useless weapons systems and insuring property in areas prone to disasters.
Re:oook (Score:1, Insightful)
And broadband speeds also means faster downloads of penetration videos.
The fact that this was modded "Informative" is a bit unsettling.
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:oook (Score:5, Insightful)
nah (Score:3, Insightful)
No budget is in irretrievable deficit when you have missiles large enough to level any bank that tries to get back what you owe them :)
You can always find statistics to make one country look bad. This happens to the US far too often.
There's one fairly simple measure of a country's success, and that's how willing its occupants are to leave if they get the chance. You could offer free emigration to all US citizens, and I bet hardly any would take up the offer.
Sure it has problems, and to be honest, for the country that 'invented' the internet, your connection speed is a joke, seriously.
On the other hand, and American can get in a car and drive thousands of miles without crossing national borders or having their right to travel questioned.
That's a pretty big thing in my opinion, something to be proud of in fact.
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you aware of the history of public schools in the US? There really is no prior system that this one devolved from. Except for central control by the Federal Government, public schools today are essentially identical to the public schools of last century. The curricula may change slightly here and there, but the goals are identical. We have a "lowest common denominator" school system because that was the intent from the beginning. That this results in keeping the "working class" stupid is merely an unintended consequence of government meddling.
If we want to fix our schools, the first step must be to return it to local city and county control. In the long term however, we must get government out of the education business, or our schools will continue to crank out sheeple.
Re:Better Comparison. (Score:3, Insightful)
The key difference between network connectivity and electricity or telephones is that you're not used to having decent internet connectivity yet. I see your comment as being basically the same as having said that electricity was an unnecessary luxury back in the 1930's.
We don't really need high quality VoIP telephony, and we didn't really need electric lights because kerosene lamps worked fine. We don't really need video conferencing and real-time video presentations, and we didn't really need refrigerators because iceboxes worked fine.
Infrastructure advances like electricity or high speed internet don't result in revolutionary changes overnight. First they make existing tasks much more efficient - which makes the economy much more productive overall. Only much later do they allow for revolutionary breakthroughs (e.g. electricity allowed for modern computers).
The key thing here isn't that VoIP telephones are going to make everyone a millionaire tomorrow. It's that in 30 years when Asia and Europe have modern infrastructure and all the benefits thereof and the USA doesn't the USA will be a backwards country of poor people who can't compete in the modern economy. If we want to avoid that, Manhattan better keep up with Tokyo and Boston better keep up with Helsinki. Right now we're about a decade behind.
Re:oook (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason Japan has done so well is that the government decided broadband was something they wanted, and took a lead role in making it happen. In the UK and US, telecoms and cable companies have just been left to their own devices and so the market has driven them to offer as little service as possible for as much money as possible while spending as little as possible on upgrades. As individual consumers there is nothing we can do, only the government can speed things up.
Bad research? (Score:3, Insightful)
US data is taken from speedmatters at 2.3Mbps
International data taken from theInformation Technology and
Innovation Foundation at http://www.itif.org/files/2008BBRankings.pdf [itif.org]
This report shows US at 4.9Mbps
A significant difference in findings between the two. Ill let you draw the conclusions
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
which was his entire point.
No, his point was that the "low population density" of the U.S. vs. Asia (laughing now 'cause I'm an Aussie) will give the former an advantage over the latter for wireless internet. It won't, because the actual available bandwidth of the single shared wireless medium is significantly less then that of the multitude of wired and optical media, and always will be.
I mean, do you really expect the nations of Asia to dig up their extensive high speed wide band network infrastructure simply because a newer, sexier technology becomes available? Asians tend to be a little more practical then that.
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
look back to his analogy. he mentions the futility of trying to use a cell phone after a concert because there are thousands of people all trying to call on the same 2 or 3 cell sites, so depending on the technology only between about 6 and 20 people will be able to connect.
Take this back to his comment about higher population densities in Asia and you'll see that he's saying in the wireless medium America being more spread out means fewer people per channel using the same wireless networks, equating to higher speeds.
However, you do have a point that they aren't likely to get rid of the wired infrastructure, so his premise is flawed, but he was actually saying essentially the same thing as you wrt wireless limitations.
Re:oook (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that the government owns 35% of France Telecom, and has made it it's business to ensure fast broadband for everyone and strong investment in the required tech: http://www.bbwo.org.uk/broadband-3053 [bbwo.org.uk]
Re:oook (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, so what about Sweden? With a population density of 19/km^2, you'd think we'd be communicating with smoke signals, no? Of course, the government did make it their business to provide some optical fiber cables, but once the snowball started rolling... well, let's just say the telecom companies are investing in even heavier stuff right now.
Adam Smith was a hack. An invisible hand will never jerk you off. And whatever good the analogy has done, it is important to realise that there is no law of economics as there is a law of thermodynamics. You can't expect the market to do anything.