American's have slowest bandwidth??

Eric5273 · #1 06-26-2007, 06:20 PM

Americans Surfing on a Slower Web

The U.S. trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns.

The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).

"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world," CWA President Larry Cohen says. "People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind."

Someone needs to tell this "Communications Workers of America" group that we are a capitalist country and the free market determines such things. Obviously Americans have no desire for faster bandwidth or else the free market would have taken care of it. The "public-policy makers" (i.e. government) should play no part in such things, as we are not a socialist country.

Right guys? All you capitalists.....you do agree, right?

On another note, I get about 15 megabits and I would like faster bandwidth. But you guys who live out in the rural areas and do not have access to broadband, I'm sure you don't want it anyway or else the free market would have provided it to you.

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AzNMpower32 · #2 06-26-2007, 06:26 PM

Yes, this is old news. Our internet and heck, our consumer electronics stuff is behind many other countries'. Just look at the cell phones we get.

Unfortunately, the "cool" stuff isn't available in the US or isn't widely popular..........yet. I'm sure if the tech stuff was made availble and publicized, the public would go for it. Unfortunately, we also tend carefully guard our pocketbooks.

Example: American cars are rubbish. They're technologically 20 years behind, often loaded with glaring engineering faults, and built from melted down action figures. But because they're cheap, we're willing to buy them.

motordavid · #3 06-26-2007, 06:26 PM

Eric,
That's about 2 year old news...dunno the answer.

Maybe flatlining the econ would help us here in the Mtns?

What's "capitalism" got to do with fooked up bureaucracies,
(which is prob. redundant)?

Eric5273 · #4 06-26-2007, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

What's "capitalism" got to do with fooked up bureaucracies,
(which is prob. redundant)?

This is what it has to do with it....

Do you ever notice on your telephone bill (not cell phone, but landline), there is a charge that says "Federal Universal Service Fee" or on some bills it says "Universal Connectivity Fee"??

This is a government surcharge. Many decades ago back when landline telephone were first becomming popular, a problem developed.... It was not economically profitable for the telephone companies to run lines out to rural areas. The cost of doing so was higher than the few subscribers that lived in those areas would pay for the service. So in the first 30 or so years of telephone service, people in rural areas did not have telephones.

Then the government passed laws regulating the telephone companies, and saying that they must provide service to everyone. This "Federal Universal Service Fee" is a tax on all subscribers which is used to subsidize the cost of providing telephone service in rural areas -- something that would not be profitable otherwise.

So we taxpayers are paying a tax so that someone in a remote location can have telephone service. This is clearly a form of socialism. People paying extra taxes to provide a service to someone who cannot have it otherwise. That is socialism in its most simple form.

Now the same issue is happening all over again with regard to cell phone service and broadband internet service. People in rural areas do not have access to these things. It will be interesting to see if the government passes similar regulations in the future regarding these items.

My guess is they will not. Our country is much less socialist today than it was 60 years ago. If today's political climate had existed 60 years ago, there would have never been a "Federal Universial Service Fee" and those living in rural areas would still not have telephone service.

As for bandwidth, I would guess that those living in major urban areas do have a pretty high bandwidth, although obviously not as high as Japan or Korea, but perhaps as high as Canada and France. It's those living in rural areas that are still using dial-up and they are the ones who bring down the average.

bjo · #5 06-26-2007, 06:48 PM

Have you ever stopped to think how large the US is vs most of those countries? How many miles of fiber or cable would be needed to wire the remote areas of large states as TX? The US will get up to speed, but it will take awhile. There are still places where they can't even get dial up.

Eric5273 · #6 06-26-2007, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjo

Have you ever stopped to think how large the US is vs most of those countries? How many miles of fiber or cable would be needed to wire the remote areas of large states as TX? The US will get up to speed, but it will take awhile. There are still places where they can't even get dial up.

You miss the point. It is not profitable for the ISP's to run fiber or cable out to those remote areas. It will never be profiteable, since there are not enough people in those areas who would pay for the service.

The only way that those places will ever have service is if the government pays for it as they do with landline telephone service.