American Broadband: Pathetic and Disgraceful

[dbarrow]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8786

Tom Corelis (tom.corelis@dailytech.com) (Blog) (http://www.dailytech.com/blogs/%7Etom) - September 8, 2007 2:11 PM
America's Internet continues to grow, along with its infrastructure woes

Every day, across millions of homes in the United States, most Americans are happily surfing along with high-speed internet from one of two different providers: the cable company, or the phone company. While most users have been relatively satisfied with the service itself, the industry as a whole has become fat and lazy: whereas American consumers are just now beginning to receive asymmetrical speeds of 10-20 Mbps, in many cases shared amongst their neighbors, Japanese consumers are surfing along at symmetrical connections of 100 Mbps.

In the United States, where most consumers get to choose service plans between two or three regional providers, customers in the UK – even far away from London – have a choice between 20 and 30 different providers, or more.

On top of suffering slow connection speeds, U.S. consumers face terrible customer support no matter who they turn to: whether it’s an AOL representative fighting for his bonus by preventing cancellations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY), Comcast technicians sleeping on a customers’ couch during a service call (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvVp7b5gzqU), or Verizon accidentally setting fires during FiOS installations (http://consumerist.com/consumer/show-us-your-verizon-face/verizon-sets-fire-to-your-home-288259.php), many consumers loathe having to actually interface with the companies they receive their service from. ...

*Is there a valid argument here?
Are we stuck with a couple giant monopolies which will rule without opposition?
How much lobby power do they have and who's pockets are they feeding?
How many years did it take to break up Bell Tel and was the result an improvement?
Have Verizon and Comcast grown so large that no fish in the pond will be able to take them on?

Earthlink was looking like a serious threat with many municipal WiFi projects in the works but now it looks like they are in the toilet and about to go down the tubes. The WiFi projects are failing. Earthlink is bailing and cities don't want to pick up the costs.
Internet over power lines has shown some promise and technological advancement but can the many small power companies take on established giants?
Open spectrum airwaves hold some new approaches but with the FCC mucking up everything they touch...

[Wolfeymole]

The Office of Fair Trading broke British Telecoms back for this very reason.
Now the market is wide open to the public to choose who they want.

[Capo_Crimini]

Be you happy with your 10-20mbs connections

here in Finland we live on islands and fells so we surf with maximum 2mbs connection. For my self we have 1mbs/512kts and pay like nothing else.
and we have only 1 connection provider where I live....

In Helsinki you can get such connections :D I have used a Gig/Gig connection out there.

:focus:

But if you have possibility to get much higher connection with reasonable price in US its Disgraceful

[Dan18960]

*Is there a valid argument here?
Are we stuck with a couple giant monopolies which will rule without opposition?
How much lobby power do they have and who's pockets are they feeding?
How many years did it take to break up Bell Tel and was the result an improvement?
Have Verizon and Comcast grown so large that no fish in the pond will be able to take them on?

Earthlink was looking like a serious threat with many municipal WiFi projects in the works but now it looks like they are in the toilet and about to go down the tubes. The WiFi projects are failing. Earthlink is bailing and cities don't want to pick up the costs.
Internet over power lines has shown some promise and technological advancement but can the many small power companies take on established giants?
Open spectrum airwaves hold some new approaches but with the FCC mucking up everything they touch...
Doug,

What the article fails to express is the governments of Japan, Europe, United Kingdom, and others add financial assistance to build the intrastructure to achieve those benefits.

The CEO/Board of Directors/VeePee(s)/ and high level employees are not given massive salaries and bonuses for "just doing their jobs".

And there is not the lobbying for exclusive territories.

Also, look at the size of our cities, counties, states and the size of those other countries - most of them would fit in a few of our states. If Verizon or Comcast or AT&T or Earthlink or whoever only had to deal with a small geographic area, no new McMansions, local township commissioners wanting their piece of the action, and mindsets more of the 19th century than of the 22nd century - there would be a huge advancement in technology in the US.

Reagan in his wisdom knew little of what a regulated monoply added to services and advancement to the US. While deregulation is still a fact of life, we see that the monoplies are now more powerful by acquistion and not having to answer to any agency than they were in the regulated environment.

There are some services that I "feel" should have never been deregulated: Electric Companies, Phone Companies, Airlines, and Oil companies. Why these you may ask? ? ?

Electric companies ran the power lines, generate the power, and do the billing. Deregulating them resulted in breaking up the generation facilities from the distributon operations and allowed competition to acquire the billing operations. Before the deregulation the cost of generation, distribution, and billing were all considered in rate requests and fuel adjustments. Once the breakup of those umbrella operations occurred, generation didn't have to seek approval for raising their "rates" they just increased them to be profitable. Distribution doesn't have to justify why they increase their rates without showing they were upgrading service lines - they just raise their rates to cover the generation and get a piece of the action. That left the billing operations having to go to the commissions to "beg" for relief from these multiple increases.

The phone "company" in the 70's was running ads about their laying fiber optic cables (remember IF your in your late 40's or later the ad of the city being pulled out of the ground and fiber lights flashing through the underground piping?) to bring "us" into the 21st century and beyond. Deregulation in the 80's caused the breakup of the umbrella corporation and and an end to the baby bells contributing to the laying of the fiber optic cabling. They were now responsible for their own areas and were not geared or financially able to continue or in some instances complete the fiberoptic projects. Think of it as the TVA - where ALL tax payers still today support the electric bills of the Appalachian communities. When you have a broad contributing base you can direct those resources to specific projects, complete them, and then move onto another area.

Airlines - I don't feel safer today when I do fly than I did in the 70's and 80's because the directive of the airlines is to have their maintance done by the lowest bidder than within their own operations. Remember when Eastern, National, Pan Am, TWA etc all had their own hangars to service their planes? They were regulated highly to make sure that the maintance crews were certified to make repairs or installations. Who knows who is working on the planes today? There was a "fixed" amount that could be charged for tickets, overbooking (think SouthWest ggrrrr), and seating space. It was such a pleasure to fly back then - the stewarts/stewardess were friendly, actually talked to you, AND SMILED! My last flight several years ago was more like getting into a cattle truck than a pleasant welcoming experience (and I flew a LOT in the 80's).

Oil companies - while we have always had competition in their at the pump prices, there was no lobbying and backstabbing for the plants making gasoline from oil crude. How many times have we heard that there are dozens fewer plants today than 10, 15, 20 years ago?

But this is just my .02 cents and doesn't even have enough to buy a cup of coffee.

[Seth]

Wow. That was an impressive post Dan.

[jcampi]

I'm amused how this 'article' cherry picks and compares service with the likes of Japan and the UK (they seem to use whatever country makes their argument work). It would be more fair to compare US internet performance with the world. I agree that more improvements are needed in the US and we should lead the way in this type of innovation, but at least show a fair comparason.

[Tortanick]

I choose Orange .... eeeekkkkkkkkkkk

The freedom to choose means you automatically get the freedom to make a stupid choice ;) Better luck next time.

And Jcampi, while the UK and Japan have the geologically small advantage, they are apart from that a good comparason choice for being first world countries. Sure America beets the Peoples Free Democratic Republic of Bananamango but that is an unfair comparason.

[jcampi]

Sorry, Tortanick, but your discussion is beyond my simple-minded approach and intellect. I wasn't aware that you could cherry pick and use only one example to prove your point in a discussion. My days in several graduate Statistics courses taught me a sample size of one isn't worth much.