Dustin,
I truly believe that Broadband in the U.S. could be improved. It could be
faster. It could be available in more areas. However one of the arguments made
on this list is that improving Broadband in the U.S. will be good for the
economy. I agree with that and I think that is the best argument. However,
these countries that have "better" Broadband than the U.S. have economies that
are no match for ours, with few exceptions. They have higher unemployment. They
have higher inflation. They have higher taxes. That tells me that for the most
part, we in the U.S. are getting the Broadband we need, where we need it, to
support, maintain, and grow our economy. Yes it can be improved and yes it
should be improved. Yes it IS being improved. Twenty five years ago I could
only go online at 300 bps. Then I went to 1200, 2400, 9600, 14,400, 28,800,
then finally 56kbps. That took about 15-18 years. Then I was able to get a
cable modem and get 1.0-1.5 mbps down and 256k up. That was in 98 or 99. Now,
my cable company offers me up to 8mbps down and 1mbps up. I'm able to run 3 of
them at home and aggregate the bandwidth in two of them and the local cable
plant seems to support it just fine. I also get my video and phone through the
same coax. I honestly don't know if I need more than that but basically I can
buy as much as I need and want to pay for. For most of what I need to do
online, either http, telnet, email, or ftp, I see no faster performance at my
office where I have gigabit to the desktop and a 100 mbps connection to the
Internet. I just live in an average part of this country. Certainly there are
areas where broadband availability is limited or nil, and I hope it improves,
but for the most part these areas are where the least people are. Otherwise
the broadband would be there because it's in the best interest of providers to
deliver it there and make a profit.
You won't hear me touting Verizon in particular or DSL in general, but
cable seems to do pretty well speed wise. The problem with cable is that the
growth of broadband is so great in this country that cable companies are
constantly battling capacity issues and constantly having to do node splits to
keep up. It takes tons of money to support the infrastructure of a high speed
provider, be it Telco or cable. The prices listed for broadband in some of
these other countries are not accurate for they do not include the taxes people
pay to help fund and subsidize it. If you included that and distributed that
cost not across the entire population of taxpayers but only to broadband
consumers, you would find that the cost of broadband is much higher elsewhere,
with some exceptions.
As to speed, once DOCSIS 3.0 is implemented, 100mbps will be available
via cable.
Respectfully,
Jim
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
> Of Dustin Goodwin
> Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2006 12:16 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [nycwireless] [Fwd: [CYBERTEL] FW: the fiction zone
> that DC has become]
>
>
> Oh wait! Even the Wall Street Journal thinks broadband in the
> US sucks!
>
> "We are somewhere between 12th and 19th in the world, depending upon
> whose scale you use. As the Wall Street Journal reported
> <http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05320/607300.stm> two months ago,
> broadband in the US is “slow and expensive.” Verizon’s entry-level
> broadband is $14.95 for 786 kbs. That about $20 per megabit.
> In FRANCE,
> for $36/m, you get 20 megabits/s — or about $1.80 per megabit. "
>
> - Dustin -
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [CYBERTEL] FW: the fiction zone that DC has become
> Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 11:57:41 -0500
> From: Roland Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: Telecom Regulation & the Internet
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Organization: Software Patent Institute
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> To quote Larry Lessig (below):
>
>
>
> Roland J. Cole, J.D., Ph.D.
>
> Executive Director
>
> Software Patent Institute
>
> 5315 Washington Blvd
>
> INDIANAPOLIS IN 46220-3062
>
> 317-727-8940; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; www.spi.org
>
> _____
>
> From: Lessig Blog [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Posted At: Friday, January 13, 2006 11:32 PM
> Posted To: Lessig Blog
> Conversation: the fiction zone that DC has become
> Subject: the fiction zone that DC has become
>
>
> http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003290.shtml
>
> The Washington Internet Daily (which apparently is not on the
> Internet) has a story predicting the Telecom Bill will pass
> the House this year. The only sticking point seems to be the
> “controversial” “net neutrality” proposal. Says Howard
> Waltzman, the committee’s majority chief telecom counsel,
> and “net neutrality” opponent: “We’re going to rely on
> the market to regulate these services and not have a heavy
> hand in government regulation.” Waltzman thinks net
> neutrality regulation would turn “broadband pipes into
> railroads and regulating them under common carriage.” As he explains:
>
> “The reason the Internet has thrived is because it’s
> existed in an unregulated environment. Regulating… under
> common carriage would be a complete step backward for the Internet.â€
>
> So half right, but wholly wrong. For of course, when the
> Internet first reached beyond research facilities to the
> masses, it did so on
> <http://www.prospect.org/print/V11/10/lessig-l.html>
> regulated lines — telephone lines. Had the telephone
> companies been free of the “heavy hand” of government
> regulation, it’s quite clear what they would have done — they
> would have killed it, just as they did when Paul Baran first
> proposed the idea in 1964. It was precisely because they were
> not free to kill it, because the “heavy hand[ed]” regulation
> required them to act neutrally, that the Internet was able to
> happen, and then flourish.
>
> So Waltzman’s wrong about the Internet’s past. But he’s
> certainly right about what a mandated net neutrality
> requirement would be. It would certainly be a “complete step
> backward for the Internet” — back to the time when we were
> world leaders in Internet penetration, and competition kept
> prices low and services high. Today, in the world where the
> duopoly increasingly talks about returning us to the world
> where innovation is as the network owners says, broadband in
> the US sucks. We are somewhere between 12th and 19th in the
> world, depending upon whose scale you use. As the Wall Street
> Journal reported
> <http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05320/607300.stm> two months
> ago, broadband in the US is “slow and expensive.” Verizon’s
> entry-level broadband is $14.95 for 786 kbs. That about $20
> per megabit. In FRANCE, for $36/m, you get 20 megabits/s — or
> about $1.80 per megabit.
>
> How did France get it so good? By following the rules the US
> passed in 1996, but that telecoms never really followed (and
> cable companies didn’t have to follow): “strict unbundling.”
> That’s the same in Japan — fierce competition induced by
> “heavy handed” regulation producing a faster, cheaper
> Internet. Now of course, no one is pushing “open access”
> anymore. Net neutrality is a thin and light substitute for
> the strategy that has worked in France and Japan. But it is
> regulation, no doubt.
>
> So while it is true that we have had both:
>
> (a) common carrier like regulation applied to the Internet, and
> (b) basically no effective regulation applied to the Internet
>
> and it is true that we have had both:
>
> (c) fast, fierce competition to provide Internet service and
> (d) just about the worst broadband service of the developed world
>
> it is not true that we had (c) when we had (b).
>
> We had (c) when we had (a), and we have (d) now that we have (b).
>
> But in the world where the President has the inherent
> authority to wiretap telephones, who would be surprised if
> facts didn’t matter much.
>
> Broadband is infrastructure
> <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=704463>
> — like highways, if not railroads. If you rely upon “markets”
> alone to provide infrastructure, you’ll get less of it, and
> at a higher price. (See, e.g., the United States, today.)
>
> Related...
> <http://services.newsgator.com/subscriber/Related.aspx?relurl=
http%3a%2f%2fwww.lessig.org%2fblog%2farchives%2f003290.shtml>
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