Obama: "It is unacceptable that the U.S. ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption"
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
After our big access push, the broadband intertubes will be a publicly-owned resource, like the broadcast airwaves. And we better not subsidize indecency or insensitive content with broad public resources! So content and corporate ownership structures can require FCC review, like over-the-air TV, rather than that messy anarchy that rules over books. (People can print anything in books and we can't fine them!)
Don't worry, though -- the FCC is always balanced, with 3 commissioners from the president's party, and 2 from the opposition party. All viewpoints are represented!
Remember, net neutrality for packets is only truly acheived when we have neutrality, equality, and justice for all people. Packets which contain hate speech, pornography, content inaccessible to the handicapped, political campaigning beyond the spending limits of the FEC, or an insufficient proportion of underrepresented viewpoints are not neutral. We won't allow them on our public nets!
Australia, China, the UK, and Saudi Arabia are all innovating in making their national networks serve national priorities -- the U.S. must not fall farther behind!
oh. wait.
Anyone besides me find that paragraph a little ironic?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_deal#Conflicting_interpreta...
The New Deal is a Hung Jury.
I think the internet is wonderful, but the US will lag in broadband over densely populated, urban nations. The US has a huge rural population and I really do hope that wireless broadband improves our ability to serve them, but sometimes there are limitations.
Plus, I don't actually think the statistics show the US as having a bad adoption rate. (http://www.internetworldstats.com/dsl.htm) That's what I found quickly searching. The US comes out on top of Germany and Japan (both countries that are very urban and densely populated). I think one of the keys is also that we are decently close to the leadership. It's not like the leaders (1-12) have 70% adoption and then there's a steep drop off to us at 20% adoption.
I'd bet that this is more of a state by state issue. Densely populated states like NJ, RI, and MA probably have broadband adoption rates that would be much better than the country as a whole - and seeing as though many of the countries doing better than the US are the geographic size of (or have a populated center the geographic size of) one of our smaller states, that might make for a better comparison. Out of the 18 countries beating the US, only Canada, the UK and France are of any size. Comparing the US to a country like Denmark isn't really fair. We're talking about comparing 31 people per km^2 to 127 people per km^2. And the countries that have lower population densities often have the majority of their population in a few urban centers.
Lastly, there's a methodology problem. We're comparing broadband connections to the number of people. That doesn't tell us what percentage of people have broadband. I live with several other people and we have one broadband connection for the house. We all have access, but it will look like we have a 25% adoption rate. As European families usually have fewer children, that might create a bias in tabulating. With a US family averaging over 25% more children than a Swedish family, there might be an uncorrected bias that skews results against the US. Of course, if the US has more split families, that could skew in the US' favor.
I just think this is one of those cases where a politician is grandstanding without facts being behind them. OMG IT'S UNACCEPTABLE!!! No, it's pretty acceptable. Yeah, we should improve, but you can't expect the US as a whole to be able to match a country with a much denser population and a much smaller geographic area to cover. We're doing really well that we're so close.
Stop making everything unacceptable! It just means that people don't listen to you because you've shown an ineptitude at interpreting data.
And no, it's not that they're compensating for something, get your mind out of the gutter.
Furthermore, broadband speeds vary from country to country:
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/Images/commentarynews/bro...
It's not just penetration that we lag behind. It's speed too.
As for density, Canada's a fairly big place, and they have a bigger, faster broadband (see my link and yours) even as their GDP is 10% of ours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
I had Comcast cable and I feel like most of the families in my town with young people in the households did too.
We'll be moving closer to Boston in the next few months, though.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/81006
And they still haven't completely taken over the lines yet. The last I heard the final switch was scheduled for January 2009.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Fairpoint-Ready-For-Janua...
Doesn't exactly bode well for the area up here. Though I'm not sure sticking with Verizon would have been any better. They pretty much had given up on expanding the infrastructure in northern New England.
Why is this sad? It seems pretty logical to me. I don't think it would make sense to build expensive (roads/sewers/cable/etc) to every far out node.
What kind of roads are we talking about? I know lots of folks whose home is served by a gravel or dirt road. And the "we" that ran them is often the folks whose houses they run by.
Now die-hard "anarcho-capitalists" will say that government has no role in the economy whatsoever, but the history of most of the technological systems that make our society what it is say otherwise. Postal Service, Railroads, mapping, electricity and telephones were all limited in functionality and restricted in geographical reach until government intervention supported near-universal adoption.
Is there?
Seems to me 90+ odd percent would be good enough.
In this case the difference between being able to assume with near certainty that someone you need to do business has at least potential access, versus a 9 in 10 chance that the person whose attention you need for your business to survive is online.
Of course if your business doesn't depend on people who use the internet, you're fine with less than full participation, and it being a second class mode of business for another decade or three...
You're assuming that lack of internet access is randomly distributed, that 90% internet access means that Donald Trump is 90% likely to have internet access. It isn't. 10% internet access is more than enough for some biz. 90% is more than enough for most biz.
To put it another way/use your own example, the fact that less than 100% of people go to medical school doesn't imply that there aren't enough doctors.
Note that "access" isn't enough - they have to be willing to use it AND willing to let you get to them via the internet. I have access yet often refuse to tell biz how to reach me.
Obama is not the only politician pushing for universal access, if local governments could act with confidence that moving basic tasks like title transactions, judicial proceedings, public records, etc. to a completely electronic format would not create a vast set of support issues coming from the 8% or so of people who have no access; they could streamline operations and save taxpayer money. The point I'm trying to get at is that Universal Broadband may be one of those rare government initiatives that does pay for itself. And as an infrastructure investment, it makes for a better environment for any company reliant on the internet.
No, I'm not. There are many biz that work if only 10% of the population has broadband, as long as it's the right 10%.
> Whereas I'm talking about the qualitative difference between even a large percentage of the population having some degree of access and 100% of competent adults having at least a minimal level of access.
You're assuming that the 10% who don't have broadband access would be a significant difference to an interesting fraction of biz. That's unlikely. Heck - it's unlikely that the 30% who have access but choose not to particpate would make a difference. (If someone is unwilling to spend $30/month on broadband, how much money do you think that they'll spend if they had broadband for less?)
> Obama is not the only politician pushing for universal access
That's not exactly an argument that suggests confidence. After all, these are the same folks who thought that 0 down mortgages were a good idea.
> if local governments could act with confidence that moving basic tasks like title transactions, judicial proceedings, public records, etc. to a completely electronic format would not create a vast set of support issues coming from the 8% or so of people who have no access; they could streamline operations and save taxpayer money.
You're significantly overstating the number of transactions.
I use such services about once/year but that's only because I'm somewhat of a nut about verifying that my property tax was properly credited - the vast majority of people don't bother. Not many people have "judicial" proceedings to observe and most of them are served by lawyers. As far as the rest, how often do you check that your house/car title is correct? (I've never checked either one.)
Yearly car registration payment is about the only common transaction that can be done online but it only costs about $1-3 to do by USPS. (Shipping stickers costs about the same but the reasons for having such stickers are not affected by on-line payment.) Even if payment costs were free online, that "savings" doesn't buy much infrastructure. It can be done by dial-up and a significant number of people already do it online, so the generous assumption is that at most 30% of the population could be moved to use on-line registration and they don't have that many cars.
And then there's the "I didn't get the e-mail telling me to renew my license" problem....
You would let companies like Verizon, who raised $70 billion to build out a FTTH architecture, get away with undelivered promises? The fact is we already paid for a faster Internet. We should already have broadband penetration at much higher rates, and most of us should already have fiber optics connections. Yes, you already paid for it. And some shareholder and CEO took that money and paid for an expensive car with an expensive house and an expensive yacht. That's where your money went. And what's why broadband penetration sucks, considering we're the country who invented the Internet.
You are all being taken advantage of, and you aren't even worried about it. No wonder CEO's jobs are so easy.
Verizon is still first and foremost a business whose goal is to turn a profit for shareholders. There is nothing wrong with this. If they weren't trying to make money, the board and shareholders would be ticked off. Hell, they already are ticked off because of how much FiOS is costing to lay out..
"Verizon admits that such a speed [of 100mpbs] is more a marketing weapon than anything else at this point." (Broadband DSL Reports)
</endquote>. Consumers have already paid the fees. The telecoms are the ones who have not delivered. And by the way, if you're going to just say "screw the poor people, only rich people get fiber or broadband" then I would first say, you are a pompous prick. Second, I would say let the municipalities build their own damn networks, and stop suing them when they get full support from the communities. It's not that hard to build a fiber network, if you want to see an example just look up Monticello, Minnesota. Oh wait, it is hard, because even after millions raised voluntarily by taxpayers and an overwhelming 75% support, they were sued by guess who? Large telecoms who REFUSED to build out fiber networks for them.
America's too big? Give me a break.
The solution to this problem is simple. It's accountability and it's social responsibility. Three questions should be addressed by any single Internet provider: how much money has already been collected for networks that weren’t built? How profitable is the current local phone service today? And finally, when will the Internet provider in question give its customers their refunds for non-delivered goods, or when will they deliver on their previous commitments?
Obama hit the nail on the head. It is unacceptable that our broadband penetration is this bad. And you should stop buying into the story that America is this massive country where it's impossible to wire people up. The money has already been raised to take some tubes with lights in them and stick them in the ground. There are actual reasons why the telecoms are resisting this. They know that as soon as people have 100mbps, the television will die. Skype will become such a novelty that the telephone will also die. And all of a sudden the hundred-year-old telecoms see themselves in the same shoes as the current record industry: no profit, and zero purpose to live because their technology is old and outdated. There goes their revenue stream. So now it's a fight to up the fee so high that they can justify letting it happen.
Rich and poor has nothing to do with it at all. Population does. All I'm saying is to get the service to the largest number of people first - which happens to be urban areas. This way, there's more equipment being made and the techs have more practice doing said installations which will speed things up. Which then goes and brings the cost down and makes it cheaper to bring services out to more rural areas.
Monticello, MN was sued by TDS Telecom, not Verizon. You can't blame telco x for what telco y does when they're unrelated to each other beyond being telco's.
When did I say America was too big to wire up? Don't put words into my mouth. All I'm saying is that it costs more to run fiber one or two miles to a house then it does to run fiber ten or twenty miles. It's not hard to build a network, but it takes time and is expensive.
Comcast, Optimum Online, Time Warner, etc. They're cable companies that started in on telco. Verizon's the other way around - a telco that started in on cable. Which happened right around the time they started laying Fiber out for the first time.
Yes, we should be outraged at the shit that some of the companies do. But please don't lump every company into your bad egg basket just because a majority of them suck.
Now, if you want to be outraged at the fact that because the lines are fiber and not copper, Verizon doesn't have to share them anymore, go for it. If you want to be outraged at what Verizon is doing with Verizon Wireless caps, feel free to be. You'll be correct to be pissed off. But that's got nothing to do with FiOS.
I said give municipalities the right to build their own networks, and you say "well, one of the nation's largest phone companies sued Monticello, not Verizon. Therefore, your claims against Verizon are unwarranted."
What? And then you said "it's expensive, and it takes time." Well yeah, that's pretty much a given. That's why you let municipalities do it instead of suing them when they try. That's why we handed Verizon $70 billion--to do exactly that. That's what we expect out of a company like AT&T who generates $120 billion in annual revenue. They should have saw this coming, and instead of upgrading their crap network, they want to tell us that "we don't have the bandwidth to support your YouTube and Hulu habits, therefore, we shall charge you even more!"
Rich and poor has everything to do with it. Look up redlining and HR 5252. This is all about money, you'd be stupid to argue that it's not.
I humbly submit that you've never lived in a place where broadband was available across the street and the telco/cable operator refused to bring it to your house. We have a problem. Here's hoping Obama has a solution. I've heard many politicians promise... this guy is the first one I'm inclined to believe.
I'm really glad you pointed out that logic for me. I almost could not have made the assumption on my own. I would encourage you to study the topic of broadband penetration and network neutrality just a little bit more. It's a little embarrassing that you're participating in this discussion and approach it with such a watered-down argument like that.
As for a little background. I lived 50 miles outside of DC. On a good day, from there, you could practically see the capital. No broadband. I was informed by the local county government that the cable operator given the franchise contract was technically required to serve my area but opted instead of doing so to pay a small fine each year in order to skip us. The franchise contract renegotiation was only done every 15 years. This likely meant no broadband for us until 2015.
The frustrating part was that we could see the places that were served easily from our house. I could just about throw a rock and reach it.
Finally we rented another building nearby to use as an office and set up a radio link between the two to bring the broadband in. (About 9 miles)
Now I'm sure there are plenty of high minded, well thought out arguments on both sides of the net neutrality issue, and the studies on broadband penetration in the US are surely more than enlightening; But I had to crawl onto my roof in the freezing cold with a yagi and a telescope to get broadband just 50 miles from the nations capital.
Does this seem right to you?
In other words, govt agreed on your behalf to ensure that you wouldn't have broadband and you think that govt will fix that problem?
Governemnt is partly causing this problem. I'd like them to stop. This will require some action on their part.
So yes, there is a problem, and that problem can hamper innovation in certain circumstances. It should be fixed.
It is not the job of the federal government to pick a winner in methods of distributing TCP/IP packets.
In this case it's not about picking a winner, it's about making sure people have access to resources. Once there's choice the monopoly can be disposed of, like we did with Ma Bell and the postal service.
I mean think about it..why would the companies put all that effort and resources into laying fiber to and around a town of 10,000 people, if for only a little bit more they can lay down the fiber in a city of 10 million
The nature of the last-mile problem means that the only way you are going to get more than one cable company and more than one phone company to compete is to treat them like electrical utilities and either regulate their rates or force them to share their lines with competitors.
Wireless broadband solutions don't have this last mile problem, so don't need to be regulated in the same way. Their Achilles Heel will always be latency, which is why I don't think they are a long-term replacement for wired connections.
By the way, they don't let municipalities build their own infrastructures. It's "anti-competitive." Any company that is profitable enough is acquired, otherwise they will charge you an arm and leg just to use their cables.
The focus on "wealthy" neighborhoods is called redlining. These three guys I just introduced you to don't care about poor people. They only want to charge as high a price as possible for the people who can afford it. They're not too worried about actually building a good network (ie fiber optics, instead of their 100-year old coaxial cables designed for telephones).
Just thought I'd chime in and clarify that.
Having Government do our broadband is very dangerous. Besides "fiber optic cables to nowhere", and outages and delays in major cities, there is the possibility of "packet shaping", blocking access to certain websites (e.g. The Pirate Bay), listening to our conversations (in case we're terrorists), requiring the installation of DRM software to go with internet access, and not allowing the use of cryptographic protocols granting anonymity or privacy. Why should we trust the Government to do those things less than companies that at least need paying customers and have less power?
Sometimes you've just got to suck it up and swing that sledge hammer at that gnat, because there's just no private incentive to make a fly swatter.
Is it broadband to rural areas that only the Government would do, because there is no profit in it? If so, I'm not convinced that's the best use of taxpayer money.
The way to make organizations efficient is to have, technology (machines) a large part of the organization.
Wether they are public or private is not as important as to wether the organization has used techonology to streamline its processes.
For the record the US Postal Service has an EXCELLENT on time performance:
"National overnight service was 96 percent on time — the first time this score has been maintained for three quarters in a row — and two-day service was 93 percent on time. " Tracked by IBM Business Services (http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/localnews/il/il_...)
EDIT:
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/04/09/ups-vs-fedex-battle...
The actual rate of the FedEx station in Las Vegas, Nevada (LASA) is 99.86%.
Not sure who is doing the math here, but if you divide a billion by 40k, you get $25k per person... and nothing left over to spend on materials. So the workers will either get significantly less than $25k a year for these jobs, or the concrete and bulldozers will be free.
Far more likely, I'd guess, is that the 40k jobs figure was pulled out of somebody's backside.
Iraq, Bailout..borrowing billions is the Bush strategy except the give it to private banks and large corps in the form of tax payers with absolutely no return back to Americans.
While its easy to assume the US is #1 on many metrics due simply to having the largest economy, it's not in the top 10 in areas such as quality of life, quality of education, press freedom, crime, and so on. The US's biggest asset is its diversity and I doubt the US will ever be #1 in most of these areas while it retains the power of its diversity.
Why did I read that as "... every child should have the chance to download porn at a high rate"? Sigh, does anyone really believe that internet access is going to make a serious difference in the lives of those children who are struggling educationally or whose families are on the economic margins? All it will do is drag them down further in a wasteland of social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace) and (usually) much worse.
Me. I do. Maybe not all of them. Maybe not even most. But some, certainly.
I never was much for the argument that we shouldn't give poor people X because they won't know how to use it. Perhaps we shouldn't help them with the electric bill either because they're just gonna sit around and watch "Spongebob".
Sure, some will waste the opportunity, but as government help programs go, this one is cheap. Lets let them decide what to do with that opportunity.
So please don't deny people like me the opportunity just because most people around us misuse it.
There probably is no right answer. I would personally like to ensure future children the same opportunities that were afforded to me.
Or more pointedly: what makes you more deserving of internet access than them?
But does that mean the government should be worrying about making sure everyone has a good car, a good home, good food, etc.? Seems like broadband is pretty far down on the "basic needs" list.