Why America Won't Match Sweden's Cheap, Fast, Competitive Internet Services 346
ashshy writes: Swedish Internet services run both cheaper and faster than American ones. For example, many Swedes can pay about $40 a month for 100/100 mbps, choosing between more than a dozen competing providers. It's all powered by a nationwide web of municipal networks in direct competition with ex-government telecom Telia's fiber backbone. The presence of regional government in the Swedish data stream makes many Americans uncomfortable, to say nothing of the very different histories between these backbone buildouts. The Motley Fool explains how the Swedish model developed, and why the U.S. is unlikely ever to follow suit.
not complicated...monopology (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA asks the following question in the headline...
How Come My ISP Won't Increase Internet Speed and Lower My Bill, Like They Do in Sweden?
then asks later....
So why isn't America following the municipal path to high-speed bliss? ... it's complicated
is it?
is ***profit*** for Verizon & other teleco's really that complicated?
they don't lower our rates or give us better service b/c they have a *monopoly* and no competition or incentive to give us anything other than the bare minimum ammount of service that we will tolerate!
Re:not complicated...monopology (Score:5, Insightful)
is ***profit*** for Verizon & other teleco's really that complicated?
Considering that US has private prisons while Sweden is closing its prisons, you have a point I guess...
http://www.theguardian.com/soc... [theguardian.com]
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Re:not complicated...monopology (Score:5, Insightful)
The government shouldn't be providing services that can be done by the private sector.
Why? If it demonstratively runs better ...
Cost of government-provided services (Score:2)
Define "it". The Internet service may be better, but that's because it is subsidized by Sweden's considerable taxes.
Which means, the costs are (much?) higher than the bill says — and TFA cites — the difference is paid to the tax-authorities instead of going directly to the service-provider.
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is offset by the fact that it's not contributing to huge corporate profits, and doesn't help pay for ridiculous executive bonuses, or the salaries of lobbyists who get sweetheart deals which only benefit corporations.
Take those two things out of the equation, and it may cost less overall.
And the government run one might actually spend money on maintaining their infrastructure, instead of neglecting it for years and then crying poor and asking for more tax-payer subsidies to deliver on promises they've failed to meet already.
Take the parasites out of the equation, and the economics changes a lot.
Because the for-profit model says "you'll get what we give you, when we feel like giving it to you, and we'll raise your prices any time we wish in order to keep profits up".
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Citation — comparing the profits of American vs. Swede's ISPs — needed.
Citation comparing executive bonuses needed likewise.
Like the bridges [infrastruc...rtcard.org], sewers [washingtonpost.com], and other government-run infrastructure are maintained in the US?
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:5, Interesting)
The European model has long been that because running the cables is a natural monopoly it is best for the government to handle the cable and let private business compete on top of that. The fact that most of Europe has wild ISP competition without impacting provided speeds suggests that their model may in fact be better.
Also attempts at this in the US have had mixed results. Well run municipal broadband has succeeded at providing low cost physical infrastructure and even ISP services without needing any tax money. Badly run ones have been financial disasters wasting both fees and municipal funds. Which honestly is pretty much the same record as most private corporations before the consolidations began leaving us with what is often a dozen monopolies spread across the country who never directly compete.
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sewer/water lines work the same way in every US city and state. It's a shame that most Americans are so ignorant of the services they use every day that their elected representatives ensure work.
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:5, Insightful)
This is less a theoretical natural monopoly as discussed by that economist, and more a physical and political natural monopoly because we would rather not have cables for 50 companies all running through our property. Also from a financial perspective, few companies want to own those physical connections as they cost a lot to lay in the ground or on a pole. So a very real type of natural monopoly emerges in that the public wants a limit on the hassle and bother caused from tearing up their lawn every year or less depending on demand for services.
Also some areas are not deemed as sufficiently profitable and without government involvement may never have any access if left to the companies to decide. I mean this is the cause of limited availability in many areas. A lot of this is not really 'not profitable' it is instead 'it's mildly profitable in the long run, but has a high initial investment'. We are way to focused on short term returns and not nearly enough on benefiting customers.
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me some objective facts to tell me why this is good, desirable, and achieves the outcomes you are ascribing to it.
Not something you believe. Not something you heard. Not something you read in a book. Something which proves the assertion. You can't, because economics isn't a science, it's philosophy with a lot of dodgy math, and inherent assumptions, which may or may not hold true.
Show me some statistics which demonstrates a purely profit driven system provides better outcomes in all cases, or even most cases. And that those outcomes are actually best for consumers overall, instead of just the companies.
I'm not saying government ran is always perfect. I am saying some things are natural monopolies, and the US is so mired in people trying to undermine what governments do that it's pretty much useless to compare the US against anything else.
How does it benefit consumers to have competition if what really happens is infrastructure for each competitor needs to be separately laid, using public rights of way, and public subsidies? You know ... like telecoms, electricity, sewage, water, roads, schools, garbage collection.
Should you have to choose between Bob's sewage system, or Alice's sewage system when you build your house? And if you want to change from Bob to Alice, you have to pay huge sums of money to connect to the different infrastructure, assuming it's anywhere near you. Is this good for consumers? I think not.
That's a series of little disjoint monopolies which instead of having a common infrastructure, becomes a bunch of separate ones.
I reject the entire premise of your questions. Sure, I've read Ayn Rand. I still own her entire collected works.
I've also come to the conclusion she was full of shit.
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a valid argument/question.
The point is that mentalities in the two countries are very different. One country is focusing on "everyone has a chance to be king of the world." which leads to people trampling one over another to reach that coveted position. At the same time pretty much no one gets there. On the other hand in Sweden community based (or government, if you prefer) approach, with healthy dose of transparency and oversight, offers better infrastructure and overall experience for the people who then use said infrastructure.
It is true that taxes in Sweden are much higher than they are in the US. But people there enjoy greater quality of life, with less stress than they do in the US.
Disclaimer: I'm not from either of the two countries, but I've visited both frequently.
Re:Quality of life in Sweden (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.economist.com/news/... [economist.com]
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Re:I'm pretty sure there are people in Sweden... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nevertheless, such "scapegoating" — however unfair it may (or may not) be — is part of the "life satisfaction" and contributes to the index being discussed.
But I only listed it as one of the examples of what might explain the US dragging behind Sweden in "life satisfaction". For another example, the cited Economist article notes, part of the index is trust in public institutions — something, Americans are (and always have been) notoriously "bad" at. Perhaps, for hereditary reasons — it was this distrust that drove many of us and/or our ancestors to move to this continent in the first place.
Either way, the cited index boils down a large variety of factors to a single figure for each country. Like benchmarking computers, operating systems, or web-servers, comparing such single figures to each other is usually meaningless. Using the difference to argue for a single aspect — such as higher taxes — is outright stupid.
Re:Quality of life in Sweden (Score:5, Insightful)
those demography, social and cultural characteristics
Like a superior educational system (free public universities [studyineurope.eu]), a healthcare system where people don't go bankrupt [wikipedia.org], better transit, and free childcare?
You get what you pay for -- divorcing higher taxes from the services those taxes provide is moronic at best.
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That a person who chose to not buy health insurance goes bankrupt when he gets sick, is hardly grounds for mandating such insurance for everyone.
Since you clearly have no idea how hospitals the rest of the world work, allow me to explain. You get sick. You go to the doctor. You go home. There is no "copay" or "insurance you choose to buy into".
I know it's hard for you to understand that "not dying from preventable illness" is considered a basic human right in most other countries or how you can have a h
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Never. When my power is out, it is because the government-sanctioned monopoly keeps using the decrepit electric poles to deliver power to my house. The method fails, whenever there is any significant snow — or even strong wind.
If I had a choice, I would've picked a competitor, who'd run their cables underground, but I don't have a choice...
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:4, Funny)
If only we could put datagrams on bullets, we might at last get high speed internet!
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:5, Insightful)
I pay $45 a month to a company that receives substantial government subsidies (from me, the tax payer) for a 6mb/512kb DSL connection that has never pulled more than 1.2mb down. My only other options are satellite (massive lag), cell (3g), or WiMax (with low uptime performance and significant lag).
There is a tax payer funded fiber line that follows the road right in front of my house, but it was sold/licensed out to a private company who does not service my house nor my neighbors.
At the end of the day, if you look at total communications as a % of GDP and compare the US to Sweden, my guess is that we wouldn't see a significant difference. The total cost balances out between pocket books and tax revenue. But there is clearly a difference in services provided.
And the US tax payers are paying for these networks. Every mile of interstate highway in Wisconsin has a matching mile of 30+ strand dark fiber sitting right next to it, paid for entirely by state and federal taxes. I would expect that every other state has similar programs. Eventually those lines will be lit up and leased/sold to private communications corporations, who will charge us all again for the privilege of using the pipes we paid for.
-Rick
Re:Cost of government-provided services (Score:4, Informative)
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You must have forgotten about the billions of tax dollars that were paid to private corporations in the united states to speed up broadband deployment. Which they simply pocketed.
Not to mention the various subsidies they receive including right of way provided through an exercise of eminent domain.
The only difference is that YOUR tax dollars didn't lower the bill they send you.
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So, is it a monopoly or is it not?
Re:not complicated...monopology (Score:5, Insightful)
The government shouldn't be providing services that can be done by the private sector.
I tend to agree with this point, but there's one big caveat in this case: communications, which are part of infrastructure, should NOT be privatized. We've seen, first hand, what happens when you make infrastructure private. In many places you only have one option for internet access (let alone mobile or POTS access). When that happens, incentive for the provider to compete by offering more competitive pricing, speed, availability, etc. goes down. Since they're a private entity, they have no obligation, beyond whatever the contract says, to deliver service. Infrastructure should never be a "if we feel like it" service.
You are very lucky to have 5, in most small towns I've lived in I've had one, maybe two.
red herring (Score:2)
arguing about definitions is a red herring...aka trolling...
TFA talks explicitly about how teleco's compete on the Fiber backbone
it is in no way the same as a "government monopoly" like AT&T had here in the US
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Monopolies run by private entities are bad unless heavily regulated. Said regulation divides service into 2 areas. Infrastructure and delivery. The infrastructure is regulated heavily to allow common access. Service can be offered by anybody over the infrastructure. Hence you get the best network with the best competition for the
Re:not complicated...monopology (Score:5, Insightful)
What we didn't massively subsidize our telecoms? Wait we did, we just didn't get anything out of those subsidies. So let's see what would I prefer, better internet due to taxes, or increased CEO pay due to taxes?
Re:not complicated...monopology (Score:4, Insightful)
The definition of Monopoly really comes from that 6th company attempting to enter the market:
1. No legal/physical means to provide service in said jusirdiction: Monopoly
2. Not financially feasible entering said market leaving a few dominant players to fight over market share: Ologopoly (this can happen with anything as long as competition exists, this should eventually reach saturation in price conscious markets)
3. Simple boundaries for entry, and good rate of return: Open competition mode, that should arguably not last exceedingly long as continually entering competitors race in and lower prices to entice more business
For Sweden, the stiff steep fixed costs of entry have been largely paid and continually subsidized by government maintainance, which gives a natural benefit to players entering the market in avoiding large capital outlays. This doesn't mean the system is 'bad' or inefficient, or even taking cash from tax payers. They -could- be revenue positive for all we know as many gov corps are, so don't give me that song that all government is somehow intrinsically wasteful (or a bunch of robbers). It just shows your political leanings, not your common sense.
Since the cost of entering the market requires comparitively little vs. an American incumbant, they can and most likely do discount their rates against one another to maintain their position. Its very possible but I couldn't be sure that the gov actually sets pricing guidelines, but for that I wouldn't know. So no, the Comcasts of Sweeden aren't making stupidly large profits, but I'm sure they're in the market because there's enough room to make a desired profit point. Think of it like the days of dial-up. In those days, anyone could be an ISP with a few lines and a bigger pipe paid to an ILEC (or some other provider) and you could get by. You would grow if you had a good service offering beyond just the physical medium (which was by and large the same besides over-saturation).
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The government shouldn't be providing services that can be done by the private sector.
The government should provide the level playing field for private companies to COMPETE. That means rules and regulations on who/what/how. That's a GOOD thing that can be abused, but still a good thing. Otherwise you end up with 4 water supply systems across your town.
Perhaps you should get out of your 'small town with 5+ choices'. The vast majority of the US has exactly 1 choice for broadband, even by the big players pathetic standards of 1-4Mb speeds. Seriously they want to classify slightly better
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Are you defining "Internet access" to include wireless, satellite, dial-up, or DSL? If so, you're including options that are much more expensive or rely on outdated technology.
If you are saying that you have 5 providers of wired, broadband Internet access in your small town, then congratulations. You're better off than most of us are. The vast majority of America has one or two wired broadband ISPs to choose from. I happen to only have one: Time Warner Cable.
Some Americans are even worse off and don't h
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Re:not complicated...monopology (Score:4, Insightful)
So by your definitions package delivery is a monopoly, since even though I can choose between Fedex, DHL, UPS, and USPS they all end up getting to my house on the same government run road.
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sweeden is what, the size of new jersey?? what is the population in sweeden?
Wait... Does New Jersey have fabulous net connections and they just aren't telling anybody about it?
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They should have had fabulous net connections. They gave a ton of money to Verizon to wire up the state only for Verizon to pocket the money, wire some profitable areas, and then declare that expensive wireless/cell phone access was good enough for the rest. When New Jersey's government should have said "That's not what you promised us", they caved and said "Sounds good to us."
In short, Verizon gets a ton of taxpayer money and doesn't need to do much, politicians get some lobbyist cash to "encourage" them
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So use Montana, North or South Dakota or even Wyoming as substitutes. Large states, comparable in size, which are sparsely populated.
What's the excuse for them not having good internet service?
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http://www.nordregio.se/templa... [nordregio.se]
not for a network admin (Score:3)
There is also a hell of a lot more involved.
yes...for a laymen i understand it would seem that way, but for anyone who has been trained in IT or network engineering or telecommunication engineering would see this as just another day at work
are you saying that teleco's litterally do not know how to make a nation-wide network? b/c that's insane...it's workaday t-com engineering
it's not about lack of knowledge or money...it's about Verizon & Co wanting to keep their gravy train running at our expense
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Sweden is a bit larger than California. If you compare with the east coast, you take all of New England, all of New York(the state), all of Pennsylvania, and add a few thousand extra square kilometers, and you match Sweden's size.
Population is a bit over 9M
Thing is, you can get 100/100 in places in Sweden where US people would be stuck with ADSL or satellite at best. Such as in Karesuando for example. Little village almost as far north as you can get in Sweden, 300 inhabitants. Municipal fibre available. II
Screw the Telecom Corporations (Score:2)
Money money money (Score:5, Insightful)
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if you would just stop meddling the invisible hand of the market would provide a solution!
Re:Money money money (Score:5, Funny)
The invisible hand of the market is at work in the US. It's just giving US Internet users the invisible middle finger.
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Uh, Sweden is a socialist hellhole. Obviously you're not a Republican and you hate freedom.
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You are a fool, if you expect more from a politician, who needs only your vote every few years, than from a capitalist, who wants your money to make profit every day.
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Indeed. Sadly, we have no real chance of people getting into office who will do the right thing because it makes them feel good to help their fellow citizens.
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And nobody ever had such a chance. On rare occasion a person might appear combining the desire to do such good with the capacity for fulfilling it and the drive to achieve the necessary power, but any political system designed to expect a sufficient number of such people is doomed to fail.
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The quote I offered does not contradict the problems of monopolies. As soon as the mentioned butcher, brewer, or baker become the sole supplier you can pick, the quality goes down and the prices go up.
Re:Money money money (Score:5, Insightful)
And, quite frankly, you're a fool if you believe that capitalism doesn't devolve into oligarchy, collusion, and people generally not playing by the rules which are intrinsic to the assumptions of capitalism. Because, despite these wonderful assumptions, companies will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate the system, hide information, or generally do anything they can do skew the system in their favor.
Politicians can be voted out. The growing oligarchy cannot, and has no interest in doing anything unless it's on terms they dictate, and not on terms the 'free' market is supposed to provide.
The oligarchy is just the next set of feudal lords.
Over the long run, pretty much any system of government devolves into tyranny ... the only issue is who is in charge. A hereditary ruler like Assad or Kim? Self appointed revolutionaries like Mao? Or cartels of corporations like you're seeing now?
Because, right now, corporations have more say in government that citizens do.
And as long as people continue to believe corporations and capitalism is a system which achieves optimal outcomes for any but a few, it will continue.
In Adam Smith's day, those entities had to compete for your business, and provide a quality product at competitive products. These days, it's whatever the hell we put in the EULA, and whatever the hell we feel like.
As currently practiced, capitalism is a complete lie. As described and pitched, it has never existed, and never will.
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If you will read the whole book instead of the quote you'll see that he went on to point out the necessity of government regulation in the market and that corporate charters are a great danger to civilization and so should be granted only as a last resort.
He understood that the quote you put up only works if Me, the butcher, the brewer, and the baker are on roughly equal footing in terms of financial power. When all of them but me are billionaires, it all falls apart.
REALLY, read An Inquiry into the Nature [gutenberg.org]
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Providing for your citizens is king in Sweden.
No, that's Carl XVI Gustaf.
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it's because of government restrictions
Yeah, those damn laws forcing me to pay people to dig trenches, keeping me from stealing billions of dollars worth of copper and fiber, and stopping me from tapping into the electric poles to run the routers, that's what's stopping me from competing with AT&T. If only the government wasn't forcing me to come up with billions of dollars in capital, I coulda been a contender!
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According to TFA it's because of government inaction. In Sweden, the government created a nice level field for people to compete on and so they compete vigorously.
No need to read TFA ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing "anything which would ever smell like socialism and not guarantee the profits of huge corporations simply will not fly".
Sweden made a choice which will benefit all citizens, and uplift them.
There would be political opposition to anything like that, and some will truly believe not having a corporation making obscene profits and being entrenched monopolies would be immoral.
My guess is, the same people who oppose socialized medicine, would disagree on the same premise. Because they somehow feel society is best left to rot as long as they've got their pile of money.
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Re:No need to read TFA ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm guessing "anything which would ever smell like socialism and not guarantee the profits of huge corporations simply will not fly".
Close.....the actual article suggested that Americans would not be willing to pay tax dollars for that. Which is not a real argument, since we've already spent billions of tax dollars on high-speed internet. The problem there was poor management, with the money mostly being wasted (poor oversight, misplaced trust).
The main difficulty, AFAIKT, is that local governments have set regulations to prevent competition. In places where that's not a problem, there is Google Fiber, for example
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In other places, local governments have tried setting up municipal broadband networks only to be tied up in court by the big ISPs. Many times, those big ISPs actually refused to serve those areas, but didn't want the competition should they one day decide to possibly serve the areas.
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http://www.nordregio.se/templa... [nordregio.se]
The sheer distance makes it exponentially more difficult and expensive
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Government involvement (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Americans would love to see government with municipal broadband. It would save them money despite typical government waste simply because of how much the incumbent ISPs are gouging with their ridiculous pricing structure. We can't have it because politicians are controlled through lobbying to eliminate new forms of competition and it flies in the face of populist "small government" ideology.
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and it flies in the face of populist "small government" ideology.
I'm not sure I buy that. Here in the Bay Area, broadband speeds are crap, even in San Francisco. And that despite the fact that many people around here actually are socialist, not embarrassed about it, and most people are liberal. So there's something more to it than that.........
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I think the idea of hating government roots from an inherent fear of losing control. If you have no idea how to control (or even get involved) with your political process, how can you ever hope to control it? Hint, making the government smaller won't be the magic bullet that will bring happiness to all. It won't fix your disproportionate financial disparity, it won't help the cycle of violence that is now almost institutional in some parts of America.
Maybe instead of bitching about your government , you act
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And it could be setup to be compatible with capitalism.
If the municipal fiber only provides the layer 2 component with layer 3 and up provided by people who buy access so they can sell services, it's hard to see how it would kill whatever passes for innovation in the ISP space. You could even pass a law barring the government from selling services on the municipal network, only providing local layer 2 connectivity to the hub.
It doesn't seem like it would be all that different from roads. Tax dollars build
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I don't want a DMV experience when I need to adjust my service or get support
You apparently haven't had to call Comcast or CenturyLink lately.
Can't take analysis seriously because... (Score:5, Funny)
Motley Fool.
I've read their "analyses" on things I actually know about. You might as well get your advice from Yahoo answers.
Even cheaper than that in Sweden. (Score:5, Informative)
The building I live in in Stockholm has a deal with the ISP Bredbandsbolaget where everyone (ca 200 apartments) pays 15 USD/mo for 100/100. For an additional 10 USD/mo they upgraded my connection to 250/100. My summerhouse in the middle of nowhere has a 100/100 via fiber for about 30 USD/mo.
Sometimes socialist Sweden is nice =)
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I'm so tired of Sweden being singled out as a "socialist" country. Sweden is not more "socialist" compared to its neighbours in northern Europe.
While the local "Labour" party ("Social Democrats") has ruled in most of the last hundred years (because of winning elections), the Labour party of today is not that much different from the Labour party in e.g. United Kingdom. We now have a Labour/Green coalition, since a few days.
The last government was a econoliberal/conservative coalition that rules for eight yea
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You have to take into account that there are no absolutes in politics, except at the extreme ends.
Slashdot is a US website, and most of the people here have a US perspective. From the average person's perspective in the US, Sweden, and most of Europe is socialist.
A lot of people in the US truly believe that Obama is socialist (esp. w.r.t. Obamacare), where as in Europe, Obama is more to the centre-right.
cheers,
Asymmetric download/upload (Score:2)
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For a true Internet, one not dominated by a handful of big name services, we need upload speeds to be close if not symmetric with download.
No, we don't. We just need them to be adequate for most purposes. Colocation and hosting solve this problem. You can get hosting for less than coffee money per month.
We also need the speeds to be adequate, period. The fastest ISP I can get since I live in the sticks and only AT&T has fiber into town is a shitty WISP which promises 5 Mbps down and 1Mbps up and for the last couple months hasn't even been able to provide that.
Population Density centers (Score:5, Insightful)
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And yes, I read the article, and I know it says the exact opposite about population density, I disagree with it.
It would be more interesting to hear why you disagree with it than that you disagree with it.
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While politics and profit, lack of competition all are major factors in our crappy broadband options, we have to keep in mind that the US is vastly greater, and far more spread out then many countries we are being compared against..
Then how come places like NYC don't have internet connections on a par with those in Japan with lower population densities?
Sure you can argue population density in the rural areas, but that does't account for the lack of service in the populous areas.
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Are all costs accounted for? (Score:2)
To start with, I have no idea what the answer to this question is with regards to the Swedish system, but I've found that in many cases of solutions like this the "cost" paid by end users is heavily subsidized in other areas (in the US it's so common it can almost be assumed). So if the $40 / month pays for all of the capital costs, maintenance, depreciation, etc. then wonderful. Otherwise it's just accounting slight-of-hand - put a happy number out for the public, and if somebody digs and puts together re
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On the other hand, in the US most major metropolitan areas (there are exceptions) have sold monopoly or duopoly franchises on internet service, which also distorts prices horribly and in other directions. I live in one of these areas, as do most of the people I know (I get to chose between mostly tolerable but pricey Cox, and utterly abhorrent AT&T - for practical purposes just one choice).
It's _extremely_ unlikely that your area has a legal duopoly or monopoly. Those arrangements have been banned for years now. No doubt, there's a natural (i.e. economic) duopoly, but that's different.
False logic (Score:2)
Just because two systems are structured differently doesn't mean they both can't be efficient. The world is full of many different ways of doing things. And many of them are competitive with each other.
The primary problem in the US is regional monopolies. They don't expand because they have no competition. And they don't lower prices because they have no competition.
So in OUR system the solution would be to increase competition by removing artificial barriers to new competitors which should drive down price
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I'm curious - what are these artificial barriers? In essentially the entire US (with a few very tiny exceptions), if you want to build out your own fiber and offer internet access, you can. You'll need to show financial viability (i.e. you have the resources to do the buildout), so the municipality doesn't end up with stuff strung on their poles rotting away, and half-dug trenches), but you can do it from a regulatory perspective.
The barrier is economic - it's a terrible business model. You're looking at
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One could rightly argue that the 'artifiicial' comes from the fact that many of the fixed costs associated with the build were paid with taxpayers dollars and yet given almsot absolte control over by the providers. This is what you'd call artificial barriers. If said lines were offered access to equally based on subscriber %, you'd at least have an even (or at least much closer to) 'even playing field. I have no problems with a big provider investing $600 or whatever it is to provide service for a household
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If anything, the costs decline for additional providers, since the poles are in place, the conduit (if it's underground plant) is often in place, etc.
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I'm actually extremely well-informed on this topic. You really should look into it, however, since I think you're not understanding the situation. The regulations that have "prevented" Google from building out are regulations that other providers (i.e. cable and Telco) have long had to abide by. So, Google is saying they'll only build out if they get special treatment that wasn't available to the incumbents.
Google has explicitly said that they will only build out in areas that are willing to work with th
you could be one of the first investors to cash in (Score:2)
Apparently Motley Fool is a Stock Pumping organization, and here I though they were just some folks that showed up on NPR once a week
OK, let's watch the video. Turn off the sound; it's a powerpoint anyhow...
Oh my fsm it's still going on will you get to the fscking point! Geez, I give up. Google for it. It's Sierra Wireless (SWIR).
Apparently they make those little yellow balls-on-a-stick that Howard Tayler puts on all the smart devices over at schlockmercenary.com
Oh, and when I try to leave the page, a s
Citizens Vs Shareholders (Score:4, Interesting)
Government owned utilities using tax dollars to massively build out last-mile solutions do not have a "..Fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value."
The Swedish internet model used taxpayer money to build out a massive national network providing excellent last-mile broadband, which all private competitors are now entitled to ride over.
I remember the first time I visited Gothenburg in 2001, and people had full Video On Demand, digital cable and bundled services. Thirteen years ago.
Combination of history, loggyists and geography. (Score:3)
Even without the historic spaghetti of regulations and the lobbyists for the big players there is a fundamental difference that makes Sweden much easier to layout: geography. Many of the USA homes are simply further away from nodes and the USA is a far bigger country.
There are many places in the USA, even in backwoods Vermont, where they have 100Mbps. But those places are more localized because there are large areas between them without good connectivity. The result is that because many people live further from those high speed notes we just don't have the more urbanish resources. That's life.
There are also plenty of spots in Sweden that don't have cheap, fast competitive internet service. This doesn't tend to get mentioned. It is not universal.
It is to be noted how comparisons like this are made to selectively targeted countries who have good connections. In other words, this is spin, not science.
Re: (Score:3)
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The population density of Sweden is lower than that of the United States. Of course this is actually a fairly small consideration overall, but I'm only pointing it out due to the inevitable posts saying that the population density of the United States is to blame.
A countries overall population density is largely pointless when talking about internet links. An extreme example would be Australia, which has a low overall population density due to much of the country being uninhabited desert. The parts of Australia that are inhabited have a high population density.
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Check out the map in TFA, the northern half of the country is practically uninhabited compared to the south yet most towns there still have a citynet of some sort (and for those that don't have that it's almost certain that you can get DSL or wireless internet access unless you're literally living in a lone house in an isolated valley somewhere).