Posted on 10/08/2010 7:42:26 AM PDT by Sakity Yaks
The average U.S. household has to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an Internet connection that the rest of the industrial world would find mediocre. According to a recent report by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, broadband Internet service in the U.S. is not just slower and more expensive than it is in tech-savvy nations such as South Korea and Japan; the U.S. has fallen behind infrastructure-challenged countries such as Portugal and Italy as well....
Phone companies have to compete for your business. Even though there may be just one telephone jack in your home, you can purchase service from any one of a number of different long-distance providers. Not so for broadband Internet. Here consumers generally have just two choices: the cable company, which sends data through the same lines used to deliver television signals, and the phone company, which uses older telephone lines and hence can only offer slower service.
The same is not true in Japan, Britain and the rest of the rich world. In such countries, the company that owns the physical infrastructure must sell access to independent providers on a wholesale market. Want high-speed Internet? You can choose from multiple companies, each of which has to compete on price and service. The only exceptions to this policy in the whole of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are the U.S., Mexico and the Slovak Republic, although the Slovaks have recently begun to open up their lines....
...[T]he FCC wants to take only a half-step. Genachowski has said that although he regards the Internet as a telecommunications service, he does not want to bring in third-party competition....
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
“looks like another Obama Administration “America Sucks!” Propaganda Story of the Day to me
“
Exactly. It seems we are treated to one Communist propaganda story after another bashing America. This one is a bold faced lie. We have as good as or better Internet service than any other country. Not to mention, we serve at least 250 million people with broadband service.
Right, this takes a 2005 view of “broadband” where the only options are cable and DSL. The future is in 3g/4g (as other’s have said).
Wired infrastructure is (mostly) a waste. Wireless is the future.
(cable)
I am getting 6 megs down (1 meg up) for $27; $10 more would get me 10 megs down.
Just so we are talking apples and apples, that translates into usnet downloads of a little over 2 gigs an hour.
I use a small provider, so I haven’t had anyone sniffing around (yet) regarding the amount of bandwidth I use, which is another issue with some providers.
This is an attempt by idiot liberals to get the government involved (a familiar liberal meme)... as well as telecom companies eager to get their pudgy, greasy, stick fingers on all those fed dollars.
Never ever, ever trust a liberal.
We seem to have a combined government monopoly/free market system that takes the worse traits from both.
I have DLS and Cable available, and we’re weeks from having fiber in the neighborhood which claims to have speeds 10X what’s available by cable. Also, AT&T (BellSouth) is supposed to be bringing its “U-Verse” service to our area some day, which will rival cable.
I also have 3G available if I hold the phone near the window, but it isn’t nearly as fast as my cable.
...and taxes us for the privilege!
I disagree, if only because of the trend to limit the amount of data that can be transferred before internet service is cut for the rest of the month. The networks, in certain places, already cannot handle the amount of data that is flowing.
The Telecom Act of 1996 made Competitive Local Exchange Carriers the law here too.
(Line owners by law are forced to lease lines to competitors.)
The reason that broadband costs are so high and the technology is lagging behind is because the FCC ruled that Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs) must provide service to Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) at below wholesale costs.
Want to guess who gets the losses passed on to them? That's right, you the customer.
Just remember that when you look at your next phone bill. It's that high because the FCC got involved and tampered with the markets. Now the majority of the ILECs can't afford to make major infrastructure upgrades because they would be forced to offer that new, upgraded plant to companies for less than it cost them to build it, destroying any profit they would have seen and stifling innovation. Thanks Government, you did it again!
They will catch up. there’s too much money to be made if they do. So they won’t let the opportunity pass by.
It goes back further than that, but the ‘96 act was a real killer.
The FCC has been a problem since it’s inception.
Too much money? Says who? I’ve seen the sales figures, I know for a fact that Verizon’s Florida FiOS build was shut down due to low take rates, high construction costs and CLECs taking everything that wasn’t considered “lit fiber”.
There’s no money in it as long as the FCC is involved.
BS article.
My connection works as fast as my fingers can move.
Propaganda to get control of the net.
I dropped Mediacomm broadband because it was so damned expensive. I pay $35/mo now for DSL, and the only time I notice the difference is when I download large video files. Those do take longer. Otherwise, everything else is fine.
I should say that I feel a little guilty as the fiber-optic is being paid for out of a grant that was part of the stimulus bill that I was against. At least somebody is getting something for the money spent.
It could have been different. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, although deeply flawed, was designed to encourage local telephone competitors to invest in modern facilities where it made sense to do so (e.g., switches, servers, etc.) and lease the piece-parts of the incumbent’s network (unbundled network elements—”UNEs”) at marginal cost where necessary (distant switches, local lines, etc.).
Unfortunately, the FCC, led by Reed Hundt (Al Gore’s college room mate), destroyed competitors’ incentive to invest in new facilities by allowing them to lease ALL facilities from the incumbent at marginal cost (the UNE “Platform”). Why buy a $2 million switch when you can use the incumbent’s for less than total cost (marginal cost excludes most common costs—overhead)?
Hundt did this, in my opinion, to create the appearance of competition. Hundreds “competitor” phone companies materialized—most of which were nothing more than a billing and marketing operation with zero telecom facilities of their own.
The effect of Hundt’s action was twofold. First, as noted above, it discouraged new entrants from investing in new facilities. Second, it discouraged incumbent telcos from modernizing their networks. What company will invest the billions required for a modern network if it is required to lease it competitors at prices below actual cost?
Most of the pretend competitors died out as a result of two events. First, when the dot.com bubble burst, investors realized that reliance on BS marketing without creating value was not a sustainable business model.
Second, regulators grudgingly realized that UNE Platform discouraged investment by incumbents as well.
We’re back on track now. However, we lost over 10 years largely due, in my opinion, to Al Gore’s room mate’s creation of a “Potemkin Village” of telecom competition.
I sure don’t have broadband. I live in Oregon farm country and all we get is dial-up (slow) or satellite (expensive).
I have home preferred Cox cable internet which fluxuates between 13 and 18 Mbps, extended cable (70 channels) and the HDef box, for $120/month.
I live in a small town of 14k. What kills me is the latency. It takes anywhere between 60 and 400 ms to connect. It is never consistent and the local cable service seems to be clueless.
The only viable other option is local telephone DSL, but it costs $20 more for comparable speed.
Small towns get screwed because of the lack of competition.
Satellite is costs about 2x what the Cable internet does with half the speed. Mobile is starting to show up, but it is expensive and the download usage is very restrictive.
So far, cable, for all its ills, is the best option for me.
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