USA Enters the Race
Broadband Speeds around the World — Read this if you want to be annoyed…
I’m currently on a 40Mb line — yup 40. Best part, it’s dirt cheap!!
Cheers from Tokyo! Just to make it a bit worse – 350-500Mb is the norm now, that’s why 40Mb line cost right next to nothing.
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
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D… di… did…. did he say 40Mb connection?
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I’m on 512Kb connection and I pay 15€ for it…..
Vitor, great work with your website! Keep it up!
Yup, I am annoyed. Shows just how we’re being exploited by the great telcos here in Europe – they don’t suck our blood only because it isn’t worth any money – otherwise they would.
The major impediment to broadband in the US is who delivers it here. Take cable companies. A true unlimited broadband would lower the value of the cable companies’ cash cow, selling access to content. With monster bandwidth, HBO (or any other content company) could by-pass the cable companies and sell (rent) content directly to the consumer.
Would you rather have a system where your cable company offers you a limited numbers of movies you could watch at a specific times? Or a system where you could watch ANY movie you wanted at ANY time? I think you could see how the latter system would quickly kill the cable companies.
And in the DSL realm, real monster broadband would kill their higher-profit long distance phone services. Once again, why would phone providers want to kill their own cash cows?
The only way we’re going to get real broadband in the US is by wrestling control of it away from the phone and the middlemen broadcast companies.
The only way we’re going to get real broadband in the US is by wrestling control of it away from the phone and the middlemen broadcast companies.
Agreed.
Portland, OR had a fight with Comcast – several years ago – in which they invited bids for other companies to compete with Comcast’s monopoly. [Portland had lost the legal battle over requiring Comcast to allow independent ISPs to sell internet access over the cable system, like phone companies have to allow independent DSL providers access over the phonelines.]
Comcast went nuts when they realized there was serious interest in stringing new cables throughout the area – in parallel with Comcast’s own – and they would lose their monopoly in the Portland area.
Dot-com bursting saved Comcast from that scenario, so they still have their monopoly.
WiMax sounds like a way to finally break-free from the requirement to install & maintain extensive [expensive] cable/fiber systems.
What are the odds it will be the same Telcos & CableOps who control the WiMax rollout, the way they are currently trying to assimilate VoIP? 🙁
What the hell? I only get 1/2 of a Megabit per second, and that’s $60 a month. What a ripoff.
Part of the reason the Japanese have these monster connections is their addiction to technology and the Nobunaga philosophy wich dictates that you should always do it the best you can no matter how petty the job is; and thus competition among japanese companies is extremely fierce. Of course, we’re talking about japan, where consumer electronics have an unofficial expiration date 😉
If I’m running a cable company, why should I bother to invest money to install fiber optic cable or other high-speed services if I’m then going to be forced to let other companies use that investment? How much profit is there in it for me? That sounds to me like a bunch of activists using the government to steal. The lawsuits against AOL and Comcast hurt the development of broadband considerably, and then the Fed’s mismanagement dried up venture capital.
The one thing overlooked is the line capacity. Copper lines are capable of carrying only so much data. Replacing all that copper with fiber optics is very expensive. I understand that almost all trunk lines are now fiber optics, capable of carrying massive amounts of data, but switch to copper for local service.
Sure I would like to pay less for my broadband service, but I am happy with the service, up-time, and quality. For $86 a month we get 60 some TV channels, 3 MEG/sec down, and a modem (to three computers).
I’m not sure if I want the Cable companies to fold. Someone needs to be responsible for the infrastructure. As the PBS funding issue shows, total deregulation will only help those parts of the market that make money at the expanse of the untried, new, off-beat, and small market. Some regulation helps diversity while still allowing a large choice at a reasonable price to the consumer.
Over Here in New Zealand the fastest we get is 3.5 Mb for about $100 im on the 2.5Mb plan ($40) where my downloads 260Kb/s. luky for us tho our government is going to unbundle our lines it the end of the year. cable is stell rear and only in the big citys no more telecom incharge of the lines yay
I have 20Mbs cable connection and i pay £37 a month which is pretty good considering the speeds i can d/l at, 700k avi film file in 6-7 mins, its rapid……
I think 500Mb/sec is faster than most people’s hard drives work in reality…
I am in Toronto, Canada. At home, I use a cable connection and get 10 Mbps for $54.95 including the modem. At the office, I am using a DSL line with supposed ‘fibre optic’ lines and I receive 12 Mbps for $64.95. The only catch is that there are Capped Limits of 95 GB of download and then you pay per GB.