New US Broadband internet policy to be announced

New US Broadband internet policy to be announced

by SouthernFriedInfidel Published on March 15th, 2010, 12:23 pm Rift: News

Heard this on NPR on the drive to work. The FCC is working to plan out the way forward on Internet access.

The goal apparently is to get the US less far behind the rest of the world on broadband speeds. The average American gets something like 5 mbps from their broadband connection. The average European: 15-20.

Here's a quote from the story that got me wondering:

Other countries tend to have broadband dominated by a single telecom carrier: the phone company. The U.S. is very different. The majority of broadband subscribers [there] actually subscribe through cable. So it's not always an apples-to-apples comparison.

Excuse me?! Europeans get their mega-fast net access through THE PHONES?

Someone notify Time-Warner that their recent ads are BS!

[Liv]

Yeah, but unless America goes forward with blanket Wifi, I think it's going to be the cellular companies that win this one.

[A Person]

The average American gets something like 5 mbps from their broadband connection. The average European: 15-20.

This table from the ITIF suggests that's too broad a generalization, there is a lot of variation across Europe, with France and the Netherlands topping the charts but many other European countries bracketing the US

The obvious leaders are Japan, Korea, Finland and Sweden.

Japan obviously has an advantage of geography, but their penetration rate is very low - major cities only.

The Nordic countries are the ones to emulate, they have geography and climate against them but achieve high speed, good penetration and low cost (sounds like one of these)

The skunk here is Mexico where the new poster boy for free enterprise wingnuttery turned a public phone company into a private monopoly and is consequently the richest man in the world, while providing the lowest and most expensive Internet service.

[Liv]

What blows my mind is 10% of Americans are still using dial-up.

and like 20% of America doesn't even use the Internet? Ummmm Helo!!!!

[smiler125]

In the U.K I get 5 meg for £7.50 a month with unlimited usage. At my old U.K address I was able to get 13 meg for £10 with unlimited usage.

[Liv]

In the U.K I get 5 meg for £7.50 a month with unlimited usage. At my old U.K address I was able to get 13 meg for £10 with unlimited usage.

Run some wires out to that big stone thing in a circle (Stonehenge) and see if you can pull in the "Interstellar Net"

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

and like 20% of America doesn't even use the Internet? Ummmm Helo!!!!

I bet a LOT of that 20% are over 60 and have little to no use for the Internet anyway.

My parents loved AOL for a little while, but when they switched from Apple to Micro$haft, they quickly lost interest in computers and used the net only for email -- which they dictated to my sister when she visited them.

[Liv]

Well I pay about $50 for my Earthlink which is a CLBP (Competitive Local Broadband Provider) leasing TWC's Roadrunner lines. I get about 7 MBPS Down 1 MBPS Up, but apparently I've got a new modem coming to take advantage of some higher speeds. (Or at least that's what they tell me.)