WSJ's Mossberg Calls For a Tougher Broadband Plan 332
GovTechGuy writes "Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg thinks the FCC's national broadband plan is long overdue, but he criticized it for being vague on the details and too focused on expanding access into rural areas. Mossberg pointed out that what passes for broadband in the US wouldn't even qualify as such in many other developed countries. He also noted that Americans pay more per unit of broadband speed than our competitors. He called on the government to devote time and resources to making sure Americans have the broadband access they need to stay competitive in the 21st century global economy."
Re:Right on (Score:3, Informative)
>>>we should be leading in broadband speeds, not following.
We're not leading but we're not exactly falling behind either, when compared to other continent-spanning federations. #2 isn't a bad place to be:
Russian Federation 8.3 Mbit/s
U.S. 7.0
E.U. 6.6
Canada 5.7
Australia 5.1
China 3.0
Brazil 2.1
Mexico 1.1 Mbit/s
And if you prefer to look on a state-by-state basis of the EU, US, and Canada then you get:
1 Sweden 13 Mbit/s
2 Delaware, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12
3 Washington,Rhode Island 11
4 Massachusetts 10
5 New Jersey,Virginia,New Hampshire,New York 9
6 British Columbia,Colorado,Connecticut,Arizona, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
Re:Right on (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure where you'd have to live in Washington to get 11 megabits - when I lived in Seattle (Queen Anne) the only two providers were Comcast and Qwest - and with Qwest it was DSL 3 megabits (and a slow DSL at that - I never saw that kind of performance).
Now that I live in Oregon - 3 megabits is par for the course unless you want to spent a lot more money :( - and again - it rarely ever goes that fast.
However when my parents were living in Scotland (South Gyle Wynd to be specfic) they got 30 megabits/cable tv/phone for about 100 dollars a month - and it was very fast.
Yeah everywhere I've been to visit and stay with friends (mostly Europe) they have it much much better and are paying far less for more service.
Re:Right on (Score:1, Informative)
Since when did the European Union become it's own country?
And now Sweden is comparable to a US state like Delaware? These are entire countries, not states or provinces.
We pay a lot more (Score:5, Informative)
It's $32/mo. for 3 mbps, $47 for 12.5 (10 with a 2.5 boost) or $62 for 25 (20 with a 5 boost)
Compare that to France's 28 mbps for ~$38 US, 50 mpbs for ~$65 or even 2.5 down/1.2 up gbps in Paris for ~$90
or how about Germany: 6 mbps for ~$26 or 32 mbps for ~$38.
Why are we paying nearly double the cost as other countries? Irvine is in Orange Country ("The OC") and is less than an hour from Los Angeles, so there shouldn't be any complaints that it is too rural for fast, affordable internet.
Re:Right on (Score:3, Informative)
This list seems like cherry-picking. How do you define a "continent-spanning federation"? Not to mention, the United States is a much more coherent entity than the EU. Breaking out the individual US states in the second list is somewhat reasonable since there's obviously a good bit of regional variation, but you're leaving Asia out of the comparison there.
I wasn't trying to say (above) that US speeds suck, but for a nation that I thought prided itself on technical leadership, it should strive to do better.
Re:Right on (Score:4, Informative)
The term "member state" when used in the context of the EU refers to so-called "nation states" as opposed to US states. There are serious cultural differences between the different nations that make up the EU, not to mention that most countries have their own language and a long history of fighting with each other (not like US states who, with a few notable exceptions, have a history of pissing contests over random border lakes and the like).
Yes, there are forces in the EU who want to turn it into a country like the US but it's going kind of slow since even among politicians this is opposed by a lot of people.
Also, the population density of Delaware (top US state in that list) is 170.87/km^2, the population density of Sweden is on average 20.6/km^2 (the region I live in has a population density of 2.2/km^2). Sure, a large number of swedes live in the south but I personally live in the northern half of the country, I have a beautiful view of the mountains and a lake from my living room window and I have a 100/100 Mbps FTTH connection. The vast majority of swedes have access to faster connections than 13 Mbps, it's just that the "average joe" of the older generation generally goes with a dirt-cheap low-speed connection in the 1-8 Mbps range.
Re:Anything faster than Dialup is an improvement (Score:3, Informative)
Do you live in a rural area?
I have many relatives who do and 1Mbps is insufficient for at least one major reason - movies.
Blockbuster put all of the local video stores out of business, and now that they are circling the drain, they are closing all of their non-profitable stores (which apparently includes most of the ones in rural areas). Because of this, a lot of people in rural areas are starting to rely on streaming for their VOD rentals.
Unfortunately, 1Mbps is pretty much the minimum for watchable SD video, and 4-6Mbps is required for decent HD.
Then again, we are not talking about Bobby Joe who lives out on his 40 acre ranch in Idaho and chases off people who stray onto his proppity. We are talking the millions of people in the US who live in towns of 500-5000 people are often as computer literate as the rest of the country, and just want the same basic utilities. The telcos and cable companies got their franchises promising that, and even if it will not be as profitable to deliver their promises, they should be required to do it.
Re:ROI in rural areas; low density = high overhead (Score:5, Informative)
This will probably surprise you (it did me), but Japan's broadband network is almost nothing but DSL. It's because their phone lines are extremely short that they can offer 100 Mbit/s DSL plans. So I say we should just mimic what Japan did.
The reason it won't work for the rural US is because you can go for miles between homes, so it doesn't make sense to slap those DSLAMs (or whatever they're called) in for one or two homes. Just run fiber and be done with it - you can still go to copper just outside the house and save money there. Investing in fiber now is just like investing in electrification in the early 20th Century. If you don't have a fiber network in 2050, you're not going to have an economy worth speaking of either.
Lawrence Lessig (Score:5, Informative)
See Lawrence Lessig on why we failed in broadband compared to other highly developed nations:
http://lessig.blip.tv/file/3485790/ [lessig.blip.tv]
It's not that we over or under-regulated, it's that we got the regulation wrong.
Re:Here's a thought... (Score:3, Informative)
This is already the case in many places in the country. The cable company doesn't have a statutory monopoly, yet there is only one cable company serving a city. There is most often a natural monopoly in the case of Internet access. Let's put it this way: my grandparents don't have cable. They can't get it even if they want it. Is that because the county passed a law stating that no one may have cable in rural areas or is it because no cable company thinks that they could ever profit by building infrastructure out that far?
There is this idea out here that Comcast is begging to be allowed to build infrastructure where Time Warner has lines and vice versa. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why would Comcast bother? They'd be spending tons of money up front to wire up the city and then they'd have to poach customers from Time Warner. When do you think they'd break even? A few years? A decade? Ever? I'd think they're pretty happy with their current arrangement.
Re:Right on (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, it's an abuse of the term average, as while it is an average, it doesn't indicate that in Sweden there's access to a much higher connection speed than here. It also doesn't indicate the cost or the reasons why people choose not to. Around here, you can't get that kind of speed without paying for leased lines, typical home owners can't have it.
Re:True, but.... (Score:3, Informative)
As if in the US it is not subsidized by tax dollars? It is sad that people do not even remember that the govt gave billions to ISP.
Re:No, you're just full of shit. (Score:4, Informative)
$200 Billion Broadband scandal anyone ? (Score:4, Informative)
Odds are this is just another giant telco scam to steal more money from
the American ppl like they did in the $200 Billion Broadband scandal.
http://www.tispa.org/node/14 [tispa.org]
The telco's took the money and screwed it off and used it to pay
stock dividends.
When you count the hideous rural connect speeds that have to go
thru analog loops giving them a max connection speed of 26.4 kbps
then we rank as 16th in the world.
It is pathetic, and if they had spent HALF of the $200 billion on upgrading
the network it would be fine.
When you look at present dark fiber in the ground it is over 90% dark in some areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre#Dark_fibre_overcapacity [wikipedia.org]
As I have said on other forums, we have an idiocy problem, not a money problem.
The pirates are looking to plunder our wallets again in their real life game of monopoly.
Re:Right on (Score:3, Informative)
Without a source for the rates you quote, how do I know that you aren't making these numbers up? In this world of made up facts and subjective reality, we really don't need another unsupported list. And while you're at it, what about Taiwan? What about Japan? What about Korea? Where are they on your unattributed list?
That Texas info isn't quite right... (Score:1, Informative)
> Only Texas has that 'right' due to the peculiar way it joined the US.
Not even Texas has that right, it merely has the ability to split itself into no more than five states.
Re:True, but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually in most of Europe Internet access is not subsidized by taxes.
What's different from the US and the reason why Internet access is cheaper/faster in most of Europe is that in here we usually have laws in place forcing the telcos that own the last mile to open up access to any ISPs at competitive rates. Before those laws came to be, Internet access in all of Europe was slow and expensive.
All that is needed are laws that create an open competitive market on top of a natural monopoly.