American broadband isn’t so broad

[Pinnacle]

Washington DC – A new report by the Communications Workers of America says broadband Internet speeds in the United States are lagging years behind other nations. The median download speed in the U.S. is a pitiful 1.97 megabits per second, which is more than a magnitude slower than other countries and the union wants the government to do something about.

CWA President Larry Cohen says other nations are “years and years” ahead of the United States and claims this speed difference saps the country’s competitive edge. The average Japanese citizen has a media download speed of 61 megabits, while residents in South Korea have blistering 45 megabit/sec downloads.



http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32638/103/

[[XC] Lead Head]

Not anything new. It's been known for a while that the U.S has the most broad band users, just some of the slowest speeds.

[bigdaddy25fb]

Thanks AT&T! What would we do without you and slowly upgrading your infrastructure!

[kryptobs2000]

I'm tired of hearing about these unfair comparisons. Yes I am not denying that the U.S. is lagging behind, but to compare us to Japan or South Korea is just unfair. They are both much smaller localized nations and spreading fiber is a lot easier due to that.

[bigdaddy25fb]

No kidding, but still. It'd be alot smarter to get the ball rolling. All I hear about is Verizon's FIOS and thats still nowhere near what Japan and Korea have. Hell European countries are spanking us and they are spread out. It's no excuse the phone companies just don't want to shell out $$$.

[mion]

According to speedtest.net global stats USA is on 8 place in terms of downloads speeds and doesn't even make top 10 in term of upload.

http://speedtest.net/global.php?random=29040

[Revv23]

i think it's a market thing - right now people can opt for higher speeds, they just dont want want to pay the extra money for it - like said it costs more to lay cable in the usa.

im not sure how the union or the government can do something about that, aside from forcing ISP's to pay the bill. I also don't see why something has to be done about that. Even slow broadband isnt that slow.

Thanks AT&T! What would we do without you and slowly upgrading your infrastructure!

AT&T spends billions each year upgrading it's infastructure.

[xlink]

my fatehr has worked in the telecompunications industry for nearly 30 years.

You'de be amazed by the amount of fiber which lays dormant and unused for who knows what reason.

[AlbanianOC]

AT&T spends billions each year upgrading it's infastructure.

Yeah ok!!!!!! and that is why they enjoy a healthy 30-35% profit on revenue because they invest so much on infrastructure. The thing is that there is not enough completion between internet providers, if there was the prices would be lower and the speeds would be higher, just look at the way the phone rates used to be before the old AT&T was forced to split up into the baby bells.:welcome: :welcome: :welcome: :welcome:

[mion]

Yeah ok!!!!!! and that is why they enjoy a healthy 30-35% profit on revenue because they invest so much on infrastructure. The thing is that there is not enough completion between internet providers, if there was the prices would be lower and the speeds would be higher, just look at the way the phone rates used to be before the old AT&T was forced to split up into the baby bells.:welcome: :welcome: :welcome: :welcome:

Tell me about it, in my area there is only comcast for cable highspeed and at&t (formerly sbc yahoo, formerly sbc) for dsl. I think that comcast outsourced their customer service to other country

[Revv23]

Yeah ok!!!!!! and that is why they enjoy a healthy 30-35% profit on revenue because they invest so much on infrastructure. The thing is that there is not enough completion between internet providers, if there was the prices would be lower and the speeds would be higher, just look at the way the phone rates used to be before the old AT&T was forced to split up into the baby bells.:welcome: :welcome: :welcome: :welcome:

I don't see anything wrong with them making money.

I dont really see your point about competition eith, i have about four ISP's i could choose from right now. Maybe if the cable companies weren't basically government backed monopolies they would have more incentive to improve. Although that situation as begun improving now that they let us select phone carriers and such.

[Revv23]

Tell me about it, in my area there is only comcast for cable highspeed and at&t (formerly sbc yahoo, formerly sbc) for dsl. I think that comcast outsourced their customer service to other country

Lol comcasty has customer service!? :eek:

[NickS]

Yeah it sucks, I'm still on 5mbps down.. but I don't think people realize the sheer size of America and how much money, time, and effort it would take to "rewire" the nation for fiber.

[Chewbenator]

But the thing is people shouldn't have to shell out the money for it because internet service is often cheaper in European countries (not to mention Asian countries, but internet cafeism is factored in), while their speeds are higher. There is a major disconnect between most of the world and the US as far as residential internet service costs. In other countries you can get faster broadband, and in many cases the broadband you get is cheaper. While in the US which makes up a hefty chunk of worldwide internet you have more customers, so more customers at a higher rate should give you the increased profits to increase your speed. But, US service providers are sitting on their haunches collecting money while we have horribly slow 2mbit download rates.

I did a quick google search to give you some reading, the terms were, "Why is US broadband so slow", if you do the opposite search, "Why is US broadband so fast", you get catch phrases like "not so fast" and information for why broadband isn't available in different parts of the country.
Google Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=why+is+US+broadband+so+slow&btnG=Search)

[[XC] gomeler]

my fatehr has worked in the telecompunications industry for nearly 30 years.

You'de be amazed by the amount of fiber which lays dormant and unused for who knows what reason.

there is a lot of dark fiber and it's dark because of the information economy. Work too much fiber and the cost per transaction plummets causing companies at current rates of consumption to lose lots of money, so companies keep the supply artificially limited and they have a happy medium. Multiplexers also made it possible for a few fiber strands to carry massive amounts of data, lots of fiber was buried before these technologies were around.

[Dainas]

Semirural coverage is pretty pathetic aswell, its mostly can be chalked up to the insane amount of penny pinching american companies do.

[ColonelCain]

my fatehr has worked in the telecompunications industry for nearly 30 years.

You'de be amazed by the amount of fiber which lays dormant and unused for who knows what reason.

:yepp: Please elaborate.

[saaya]

lol, france is pretty nice with 60meg being the fastest common connection providers offer atm, in germany its still only 16-20meg but the fibreoptics network should be done soon.

but then again, to be quite honest, most people dont need more than 1 or 2 megs if they just browse and dl a bit.

[Xope_Poquar]

1.5Mbit is considered the "fast" internet in my neighborhood. We don't even have SBC or Comcast here. :p:

[turbox997]

Yeah we need someone to up our speeds in the US, then the rest of the competition will follow..capitalism, etc. And I'm talking about a huge leap.

However, in all honesty, as much as many of us on here(from N. America at least) could use more bandwidth(rosetta, gaming, other Xtreme stuff we do), I bet most Americans don't even care to have more, hence low demand with what we have. Maybe..just maybe if everyone with highspeed connections started to max out their bandwidth, companies will start taking us more seriously here.

[xoqolatl]

LOL! I have 1MB down and 320k up and that's considered fast in my country :O and that'stheoretical speed, in reality I can't dl faster than 80% of that.

[Zytek_Fan]

I am on 256kb/s but I should be getting 7mb/s soon.

It's only $10 more per month :ROTF: :up:

[Kasparz]

I can get 100mbps connection(yes, real 12MB/s) for about 28$. Actually now i have 10mbps connection and I'm paying ~18$/month. Thats one and only good thing living in Europe.

[Ubermann]

In my city in north sweden almost every apartment is connected to 10 or 100mbits and its very cheap, like 15$ a month.

[largon]

I hate finnish telecompanies!

Prices:
<1M 24.90€ / $33.70
1M: 24.90€ / $33.70
2M: 34.90€ / $47.25
8M: 44.90€ / $60.80
24M: 49.90€ / $67.56

I guess we got too many competing telecompanies in Finland resulting in low profits meaning less money for infra upgrades thus slow and pricy "broadbands".

Ubermann,
Wasn't it your government who funded/built the backbone of the fiber optics network in Sweden?

[virtualrain]

What good is 5, 10, 25, or 50Mbps of bandwidth if all the servers are saturated or XS is down (:stick:).

I have a 10Mbps connection and there are very few download servers that can saturate my link. My ISP offers a 25Mbps service, but why bother?

[//porre]

all you guys complaining about having slow internetz

.. and here am i sitting in Denmark with a 512/128Kb wire....

[Shintai]

I'm tired of hearing about these unfair comparisons. Yes I am not denying that the U.S. is lagging behind, but to compare us to Japan or South Korea is just unfair. They are both much smaller localized nations and spreading fiber is a lot easier due to that.

In that case, 100mbit should be the standard in New York. Is it?

[Shintai]

all you guys complaining about having slow internetz

.. and here am i sitting in Denmark with a 512/128Kb wire....

But you got plenty of options to get it better. I´m in denmark too with a 20mbit. 512/128 is soon the smallest you can get ;)

[Shintai]

What good is 5, 10, 25, or 50Mbps of bandwidth if all the servers are saturated or XS is down (:stick:).

I have a 10Mbps connection and there are very few download servers that can saturate my link. My ISP offers a 25Mbps service, but why bother?

Odd, I dont have any issue using my 20mbit link to the max :shrug:

[Shintai]

I hate finnish telecompanies!

Prices:
<1M 24.90€ / $33.70
1M: 24.90€ / $33.70
2M: 34.90€ / $47.25
8M: 44.90€ / $60.80
24M: 49.90€ / $67.56

I guess we got too many competing telecompanies in Finland resulting in low profits meaning less money for infra upgrades thus slow and pricy "broadbands".

Ubermann,
Wasn't it your government who funded/built the backbone of the fiber optics network in Sweden?

Fiber is basicly only layed while they where monopolies. Currently in Denmark its the power companies that are laying fiber (And leasing it out). Not the private telcos.

Its the classic issue with instant gratification on investments today. They want money back over a very short span. Fiber is a longterm investment and therefore out of the picture for them.

[[XC] Teroedni]

all you guys complaining about having slow internetz

.. and here am i sitting in Denmark with a 512/128Kb wire....

well it could be worse
I still remeber thoose dreadfull days with ISDN connections:shakes:

Now i got 1500/368

[xlink]

:yepp: Please elaborate.

it's left unused to artificially inflate prices and because the cost of using it(however dismal) outweighs the potential profitability(or so they determined)

which is complete bull:banana::banana::banana::banana:...

it's a competitive industry(in theory), how easy would it be to undermine the competition by extending fiber...

I'm not too bad off though, 8mb/s connection here.
though to be fair, i can hardly tell the difference between it(the 8mb/s cable) and my father's 768k DSL.

[nn_step]

what do you expect, considering you don't usually win if you Sue a company for not providing the bandwidth they agreed to deliver. (atleast in the states) I'm still pissed at AT&T and the 5Mb up, which only delivered an average of 50kb

[ColdWinter]

Here in Switzerland the cheapest broadband you can get and not have to pay per use is a 3500/300 connection. Price = 39$. Got to love living in a high priced country:shakes: I seem to have unlimited datavolume though whatever that means, at least it says so in the contract

[Shintai]

Here in Switzerland the cheapest broadband you can get and not have to pay per use is a 3500/300 connection. Price = 39$. Got to love living in a high priced country:shakes: I seem to have unlimited datavolume though whatever that means, at least it says so in the contract

Everything is flatrate here too :D

[bloodbanger]

I hate finnish telecompanies!

Prices:
<1M 24.90€ / $33.70
1M: 24.90€ / $33.70
2M: 34.90€ / $47.25
8M: 44.90€ / $60.80
24M: 49.90€ / $67.56

I guess we got too many competing telecompanies in Finland resulting in low profits meaning less money for infra upgrades thus slow and pricy "broadbands".

Ubermann,
Wasn't it your government who funded/built the backbone of the fiber optics network in Sweden?

Don't get me started on Belgian companies...I pay 41 euro's for a 10mbit(real speed with downloads:465Kb/Sec...)and have a Download-limit from 12gigs a month...believe me when i say that you guys don't have to complain that much lol

[biohead]

paying ~80 EUR a month for 22mb down & 2mb up, that's about actual speed (avg 2.5 MB/s down & 220 KB/s up) so imo worth the money.

[Shintai]

80$ (~59€) a month here, 20/2mbit with ~1900KB/sec down and about ~500KB/sec up plus 5 IPs and flatrate usage. Would be 72.5$ (53.5€) with only 1 IP.

And prices include 25% VAT ;)

For those with DSL and such, remember speed med variate due to distance to the central, noise and generel copper quality of the line.

[DeathReborn]

lol, france is pretty nice with 60meg being the fastest common connection providers offer atm, in germany its still only 16-20meg but the fibreoptics network should be done soon.

but then again, to be quite honest, most people dont need more than 1 or 2 megs if they just browse and dl a bit.

UK user here & when more than 2 people use a connection the Mbit use goes up, especially with torrents being so prevalent.

I'm on a Cable line @ 20Mbit now and in about 12 months it's being upgraded to 50Mbit (hopefully).

I can get access to a residential 100Mbit line over the same cable but the cost is prohibitive (£30 for 20Mbit & £189 for 100Mbit).

On the flip side, my uncle in LA get 2Mbit for $50 which puts it at about 8x or 9x slower than UK speeds per $/£. You generally get better upload to download ratios though, for me it's 20Mbit/768Kbit.

[WangChung]

my fatehr has worked in the telecompunications industry for nearly 30 years.

You'de be amazed by the amount of fiber which lays dormant and unused for who knows what reason.

There's currently two main companies that are buying up all that dark fiber. Google and Verizon. :D :up: Can't wait for that shat to go online!!!

[frankR]

If you take into account land area the US is doing rather well.

Country / Bandwidth per land area (mb/s /Mkm^2)

South Korea / 0.002
Japan / 0.006
United States / 4.888

[Lithan]

Yeah, America gets screwed here. See prescription Drug pricing for a good parallel. It's right-wing welfare. American consumers fund all the R&D, and everyone else gets the benefits at or below cost because A: stronger antitrust laws outside US and B: Companies are more concerned with getting market share than profit because they always have the US Cow to milk for all the profit they want. As for competition... Look at comcast... DSL is available within ten miles of my house @ 768k/256k for $20/month. Comcast is 1.5m/256k, never delivers even close to that, has ZERO customer service and is ~$60 a month.

[SOLDNER-MOFO64]

Virgin just upped their UK service from 10Mbit to 20Mbit :up:

Downloads were a breeze on 10Mbit but on 20Mbit they just look insane.

www.microsoft.com is my fav place to test throughput.......2.21 MBytes per second is fastest I've seen, usually sits around the 1.86MBytes per second.

[[XC] MarioMaster]

i just got upgraded a year ago from 3mbps one-way cable to 7mbps. it's a lot better but still it's $40 a month

[TRG]

It's an unfair world :(

I pay 35 € / month for so called '20mbit down / 1mbit up' ADSL (the advertisers like to say megabyte, if it only were true..) but I'm only getting 8mbit down / 1mbit up because I'm too far away from the ADSL service point. It's still a decent speed for a decent price imo..

Only 3km downtown my friend is having 80mbit down / 80mbit up for 80 € month (it's a tryout glasfiber project called 'kenniswijk'). Luckily I was able to put my web/download server down there for a good price :)

[JargonGR]

I hate finnish telecompanies!

Prices:
<1M 24.90€ / $33.70
1M: 24.90€ / $33.70
2M: 34.90€ / $47.25
8M: 44.90€ / $60.80
24M: 49.90€ / $67.56

I guess we got too many competing telecompanies in Finland resulting in low profits meaning less money for infra upgrades thus slow and pricy "broadbands".

Ubermann,
Wasn't it your government who funded/built the backbone of the fiber optics network in Sweden?

Hey I don't believe this but I am paying less right now:

1M : 20.5 Euros

in 3 Weeks 24Mbits + 100% unlimited national phone calls for 39.90€

We sure are slow to get started but once we start things get rolling fast.
Hell they were digging up everywhere during the last 2 years for fiber optics. Nevertheless to digg up the USA is a huge task.

[largon]

80$ (~59€) a month here, 20/2mbit with ~1900KB/sec down and about ~500KB/sec up (...)[:confused:]2Mbit/s = 256kB/s << 500kB/s[/:confused:]
They'r giving you more than you pay for... :)

[Shintai]

[:confused:]2Mbit/s = 256kB/s << 500kB/s[/:confused:]
They'r giving you more than you pay for... :)

Nah, I just need to think. upload is about 230KB/sec.

[Starscream]

many countrys already got fibreglass but its either unused or only a small part of its capacity is used.

but the reason why they cant offer fibreglass speeds is cause a few bits are missing.
Many ISPs stil need to upgrade their equipment at many places to make use of the bandwith fireglass offers.
and atm alot of them are upgrading that equipment bit by bit cause of financial reasons.
Another reason is that to make full use of them highspeeds u need fibreglass into the house. and atm alot of areas got fibreglass until the street corner and the last few meters is coax cable this cause replacing them last few meters seems to cost a fecking lot.

Now slowly more and more areas are getting fiber onto the doorstep and the packages are freaking nice.
But i doubt il see fiber into the home anytime soon cause my area has to many old people so i doubt my ISP gives our area priority.

[Gorod]

Crapy 3Mbit/384Kbit DSL from AT&T with a very high ping (~100+ ms ) . Cant upgrade to 6Mbit because i am too far from CO :( . The only other choise is Comcast 6Mbit cable @ $ 57 / month :mad: .

[HiJon89]

what do you expect, considering you don't usually win if you Sue a company for not providing the bandwidth they agreed to deliver. (atleast in the states)
That definitely pisses me off. Cablevision are such :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::b anana:s. I have a 15Mbit download, 2Mbit upload package and if I found out after almost 2 years that I had been capped to 4.5Mbit download, 128Kbit upload for the entire time :mad: Their terms of service state that if you disrupt the service of other users they will cap your connection without telling you. If my use of the upload bandwidth that I paid for disrupts the service of other users then that sounds like a problem for Cablevision to fix :mad: :mad: :mad:

[RaZz!]

The average Japanese citizen has a media download speed of 61 megabits, while residents in South Korea have blistering 45 megabit/sec downloads.

wtf?! that's totally sick! the max i can get here in germany is 16mbit. no wonder that asian countries are so active in the warez-scene lol...

[vengance_01]

Wow you guys are :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:ing about Internet speeds? WTF. I find my 3/768 DSL line to be just fine. Who gives a rat ass if US has slower broadband. Fine go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there. There are much more important things that a stupid broadband connection. :rolleyes:

[Gautam]

Yeah...we got newegg, biatch!

[NickS]

Yeah...we got newegg, biatch!

Haha!! QFT!

[SnipingWaste]

It was really bad here in Garland TX with Verizon DSL 768K down and 128K up or TimeWarrner Cable with its not reliable 1.5Mbit down (if your lucky you would see about 256K down late at night but for the rest of the time you would see 40K down and yes slower then a dial up modem). The Cable was about $59 a month and the DSL was $39 a month. The good part is Verizon installed FIOS in Garland now and a 5/2 is $39 a month and a 15/2 is $49 a month. The best thing is there combo deal with hard line phone on FIOS with no charge long distends, FIOS TV with 250+ channels, and 15/2 internet line for $109 a month now.

[Shintai]

Yeah...we got newegg, biatch!

We got edbpriser.dk, way superiour to newegg and cheaper :P

[vitaminc]

I'm tired of hearing about these unfair comparisons. Yes I am not denying that the U.S. is lagging behind, but to compare us to Japan or South Korea is just unfair. They are both much smaller localized nations and spreading fiber is a lot easier due to that.

hi, please take out a world map and learn your geographies.

the problem with america's broadband (and wireless) lagging behind even developing countries is purely due to lack of competition and retarded fcc rules.

[dexman]

Fine go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there. There are much more important things that a stupid broadband connection. :rolleyes:
Have you ever been to South Korea to speak like that? What´s so bad about living there? I think you are misconfusing it with North Korea.

[vitaminc]

Wow you guys are :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:ing about Internet speeds? WTF. I find my 3/768 DSL line to be just fine. Who gives a rat ass if US has slower broadband. Fine go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there. There are much more important things that a stupid broadband connection. :rolleyes:

such as retarded slow 3g wireless network adoption and cellphones that are 2 years behind?

[[XC]thewildblue]

Welcome to the world of throttling. On the old 10mb service it was 10mb 24/7 so you could get a sustained 1.2mb all the time, now on the 20mb once you go over 3gb from 4pm they throttle the connection to around 5mb. Been on the 20mb since May and it was deffo better on the 10mb.

Virgin just upped their UK service from 10Mbit to 20Mbit :up:

Downloads were a breeze on 10Mbit but on 20Mbit they just look insane.

www.microsoft.com is my fav place to test throughput.......2.21 MBytes per second is fastest I've seen, usually sits around the 1.86MBytes per second.

[Bonkers]

This is a depressing thread... People saying how they can still remember ISDN, while i can still remember the 2400 bps modem i had for my C64 :( . Is this what it's like? Being old?

no, nothing to do with broadbands, i have a 2M/2M connection which is just fine for me and it's free.

[direowls]

the problem with america's broadband (and wireless) lagging behind even developing countries is purely due to lack of competition and retarded fcc rules.

QFT. People laugh at how the iPhone is such a hot item here...it will get laughed at by the 3G phones in Japan.

However, FWIW, I still think the US has done a fairly decent job in getting broadband availability to everybody, considering the size.

[hawkeyefan]

hi, please take out a world map and learn your geographies.

:confused:

ranked by population densities:
3. H.K. 6407/sq km
4. Singapore
19. South Korea
23. Netherlands
29. Belgium
30. Japan
48. UK
50. Germany 232/sq km


172. United States 31/sq km

Not a factor? That's a lot of fiber to lay...:stick:

[Dainas]

Have you ever been to South Korea to speak like that? What´s so bad about living there? I think you are misconfusing it with North Korea.


Pathetically stupid, but plausible considering how many people have their heads completely up their asses in basic world awareness. If an average american even has an image of South Korea in their head(beyond commie neighbor Kim Jong Ill), its of the Korean war and cheap white goods.

I would not want to live in South Korea, but mostly for the same reasons I would never live in Japan. As said, the great internet coverage is mostly due to it being a small, crowded country and secondly, because its communication companies are just not nearly as inept as ours here in the USA.

[Shintai]

:confused:

ranked by population densities:
3. H.K. 6407/sq km
4. Singapore
19. South Korea
23. Netherlands
29. Belgium
30. Japan
48. UK
50. Germany 232/sq km


172. United States 31/sq km

Not a factor? That's a lot of fiber to lay...:stick:

You cant calculate it that way. And by that definition the major cities in the US should have 100mbit all over. Hell, New York should have been gbit to everyone!

The country with the lowest is Greenland, which has only 0.03 persons per square kilometre. Yet they got quite good internet access.

For the density to actually be a factor. All americans etc would need to be equally spread out over all USA. And they aint.

[hawkeyefan]

You cant calculate it that way. And by that definition the major cities in the US should have 100mbit all over. Hell, New York should have been gbit to everyone!

The country with the lowest is Greenland, which has only 0.03 persons per square kilometre. Yet they got quite good internet access.

For the density to actually be a factor. All americans etc would need to be equally spread out over all USA. And they aint.

We're a whole lot more spread out than the handful of communities in Greenland, and the infrastructure is going to be built across the board, and not 100mbit in NYC and dialup across the Dakotas. It's spreading but again, fiber has to be laid to homes. There are still people in rural areas that can't get broadband of any kind outside of satellite. So DIAL UP for quite a few people...who will never, ever have fiber because they live in the middle of nowhere.

It isn't just a matter of connecting the towns and cities which are spread out across the nation, you have things to contend with like urban sprawl, the extent of which a European cannot comprehend unless they've seen it firsthand. Our entire urban/suburban society was built around the car. So houses are farther apart and yards are larger than anything in Europe. Most people own homes rather than live in condos or apartments. By world standards, very few of our cities could truly be considered densely populated.

You seem to think we all live in NYC and LA. :rolleyes:

The high cost of rolling out fiber is exactly the same issue as lack of mass transit: low density and sprawl.

[Shintai]

We're a whole lot more spread out than the handful of communities in Greenland, and the infrastructure is going to be built across the board, and not 100mbit in NYC and dialup across the Dakotas. It's spreading but again, fiber has to be laid to homes. There are still people in rural areas that can't get broadband of any kind outside of satellite. So DIAL UP for quite a few people...who will never, ever have fiber because they live in the middle of nowhere.

It isn't just a matter of connecting the towns and cities which are spread out across the nation, you have things to contend with like urban sprawl, the extent of which a European cannot comprehend unless they've seen it firsthand. Our entire urban/suburban society was built around the car. So houses are farther apart and yards are larger than anything in Europe. Most people own homes rather than live in condos or apartments. By world standards, very few of our cities could truly be considered densely populated.

You seem to think we all live in NYC and LA. :rolleyes:

Seriously, you make no sense. First you say density is lower in the US and thats why. Then you get shown it doesnt matter. And rightfully so, because it means nothing. Then telling me its not developed in NY because the rural needs connection too? Ok, if you lived in the Soviet Union or China before the economic changes. MAYBE! USA? Highhill of capitalism? NO! :rofl:

That was a funny joke you made there. :ROTF:

The population density of New York City is 10,292 persons per square kilometre. New York would be a gold mine! European ISPs envy that!

Why do you think there is fiber all over the place in the swedish capital Stockholm? And most of the rest of the country still got DSL or lower? BINGO! Because the density in Stockholm makes a good business case! Again, put it over to NY and there is no reason you shouldn´t have fiber popping out EVERYWHERE in NY. Besides the lack of will from your telcos in terms of investment. Specially if they want to milk the last out of their copper investments.

[hawkeyefan]

Seriously, you make no sense. First you say density is lower in the US and thats why. Then you get shown it doesnt matter. And rightfully so, because it means nothing. Then telling me its not developed in NY because the rural needs connection too? Ok, if you lived in the Soviet Union or China before the economic changes. MAYBE! USA? Highhill of capitalism? NO! :rofl:

That was a funny joke you made there. :ROTF:

The population density of New York City is 10,292 persons per square kilometre. New York would be a gold mine! European ISPs envy that!

Why do you think there is fiber all over the place in the swedish capital Stockholm? And most of the rest of the country still got DSL or lower? BINGO! Because the density in Stockholm makes a good business case! Again, put it over to NY and there is no reason you shouldn´t have fiber popping out EVERYWHERE in NY. Besides the lack of will from your telcos in terms of investment. Specially if they want to milk the last out of their copper investments.

"Shown it doesn't matter" is not an argument, and no, I wasn't.

And 20% of the Swedish population lives in just the Stockholm metro, so the comparison couldn't be more irrelevant. NYC, LA, Chicago combined are less than 10% of our population.

US Census Bureau defines urban as cities with 50k or more, and "urban clusters" as having populations from 2.5k - 50k. There are about 19,600 cities in this country that fit that definition, and fiber won't be coming to most of them for a long, long time. They are spread out, their residents are spread out, and there is no return on investment running millions of dollars worth of fiber 21 miles to some podunk town with 3000 residents, maybe half of which you would hope to actually subscribe to your service. There is no pressure through competition because companies aren't falling all over each other to bleed money burying fiber when the demand simply isn't there. Not to mention the 17% of the population that is still truly rural...those people don't even have cable...only phone lines...they are not getting fiber. Ever.

[iddqd]

:confused:

ranked by population densities:
3. H.K. 6407/sq km
4. Singapore
19. South Korea
23. Netherlands
29. Belgium
30. Japan
48. UK
50. Germany 232/sq km


172. United States 31/sq km

Not a factor? That's a lot of fiber to lay...:stick:

This isn't a fair ranking at all; both hong kong and singapore are city states, and therefore have no auxiliary area to reduce their relative density.

[hawkeyefan]

This isn't a fair ranking at all; both hong kong and singapore are city states, and therefore have no auxiliary area to reduce their relative density.

thanks for pointing that out...my mistake on both counts

should have noted that for a country as large as China, they were ranked 14th in population density, and Hong Kong wasn't even included :eek:

[breakfromyou]

I can get 30/5 for $55/month....and i'm in the US. Not too shabby. I pay about $40/month now for 5/2 :(

[deathman20]

Somehow I was upgraded to 5Meg/768Kb from 3Meg/384Kb for free they just bumped my service and I have no idea why.

But mine at least its constant at those speeds no slower or really faster speeds. Its nto bad, really if anything a faster upload would be nice but really download speed wise, really don't need more since most things download very quickly or I max out the servers that I can get stuff from. If I had 5/2 that would be grand.

[Kobalt]

Wow you guys are :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:ing about Internet speeds? WTF. I find my 3/768 DSL line to be just fine. Who gives a rat ass if US has slower broadband. Fine go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there. There are much more important things that a stupid broadband connection. :rolleyes:

Are you kidding me? You obviously don't play online games (or you're not very good at least) and you most definitly don't download files.

"Go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there". What the hell... how ignorant can you get? South =! North.

[xlink]

actuallyI was gaming just fine on 768k DSL.

admitedly I was doing simultaneous downloads but I rarely do.

I'm mroe fo a browse +game type than a pirate the new world type

[Poodle]

I've been on a 100Mbit/s fiber connection since I moved into this flat 6 years ago. Quite common in this country, almost everyone in my area has it... :p:

I can put a DVD-R movie on download, put the cettle on and sort out the the pop corn and yeah.. almost forgot: unrar and mount and here we go! Who needs pay per view?

[deathman20]

I can put a DVD-R movie on download, put the cettle on and sort out the the pop corn and yeah.. almost forgot: unrar and mount and here we go! Who needs pay per view?

While it might be legal gray area in your country thats one of the new rules was implemented not to talk about that type of thing on the boards. ;) Just a nudge to make sure you've seen it http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/announcement.php?f=144&a=53

[[XC] Lead Head]

Are you kidding me? You obviously don't play online games (or you're not very good at least) and you most definitly don't download files.

"Go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there". What the hell... how ignorant can you get? South =! North.

Most games only use 5-20 KB/s of bandwidth anyways. Its latency thats more important.

[//porre]

512/128 is the highest i can get..

^^ i'm living too far uot on the country in the middle of nowere, i had to live with ISDN until last year!

[Shintai]

"Shown it doesn't matter" is not an argument, and no, I wasn't.

And 20% of the Swedish population lives in just the Stockholm metro, so the comparison couldn't be more irrelevant. NYC, LA, Chicago combined are less than 10% of our population.

US Census Bureau defines urban as cities with 50k or more, and "urban clusters" as having populations from 2.5k - 50k. There are about 19,600 cities in this country that fit that definition, and fiber won't be coming to most of them for a long, long time. They are spread out, their residents are spread out, and there is no return on investment running millions of dollars worth of fiber 21 miles to some podunk town with 3000 residents, maybe half of which you would hope to actually subscribe to your service. There is no pressure through competition because companies aren't falling all over each other to bleed money burying fiber when the demand simply isn't there. Not to mention the 17% of the population that is still truly rural...those people don't even have cable...only phone lines...they are not getting fiber. Ever.

You still dont understand why we got fiber in europe or in asia. Its nothing to do with density. NOTHING!

All fiber was layed before the telcos got privatized. Before that they were goverment owned/controlled and had the interest of the nation in hand. Today they only got the interest of the stockholder. And all new fiber is basicly cancelled. Same reason the US more or less got no fiber, specially in ultra high density areas. The copper is still there to be milked. Fiber is a an expensive longterm investment. And something alot of business find unwilling to do. Specially when there is nothing wrong as such with the current free copper network.

[Spawne32]

Yeah it sucks, I'm still on 5mbps down.. but I don't think people realize the sheer size of America and how much money, time, and effort it would take to "rewire" the nation for fiber.

I dont think it has anything to do with size, but it does have alot to do with money. If our government spent more time thinking about how to improve the country and the quality of life within the country, and advancing R&D etc etc and the list goes, we would have the same quality stuff they do, however in this country 99.9% of our governments politicians are just worried about lining their pockets with money.

[dexman]

Have you ever been to South Korea to speak like that? What´s so bad about living there? I think you are misconfusing it with North Korea.

Pathetically stupid, but plausible considering how many people have their heads completely up their asses in basic world awareness. If an average american even has an image of South Korea in their head(beyond commie neighbor Kim Jong Ill), its of the Korean war and cheap white goods.

I would not want to live in South Korea, but mostly for the same reasons I would never live in Japan. As said, the great internet coverage is mostly due to it being a small, crowded country and secondly, because its communication companies are just not nearly as inept as ours here in the USA.

Keep your insults to yourself. I know you don´t have to visit a country to get a picture about living there, but he made it sound like he was there and had to beg for his lige. I would´t want to live there either because of traditions and culture, but doesn´t mean you can´t get good life in South Korea.

[Wrench]

Hey I live in South Korea. I am from Canada and I prefer living in this little country.

Technology seems to be a little faster here then back home. Internet is stupid fast. I got VDSL I can upload at about 1 Mb/s and download 1.2 Mb/s.
I pay about 30 bucks a month. Cellphones here also work, coverage is awsome, I can go down 5 stories in a parkade and still get reception.

Most people think Iphone is so awsome but man you should see the :banana::banana::banana::banana: you can get here. Hell my PMP/mp3 player gets free DMB I get about 10 channels. Its not a cheap country but I love it here so much so that I am extending my stay for another year and a half.

Please keep your negatitive attitudes from bashing S.Korea and Japan. Unless you have lived there shut the :banana::banana::banana::banana: up.

Japan has fast internet but its hideously expensive.

[Andrew LB]

Damn.... and i thought i was considered fast with 10 down and 512 up.

Time warner/Roadrunner recently called me saying they're upgrading me from 10 down to 15 for no additional cost. So far a month later it's still 10mbit

http://www.speedtest.net/result/149024215.png (http://www.speedtest.net)

[Kingcarcas]

^ Yup, i've heard they were supposed to complete those upgrades in January. Yet many customers on BBR.com say they're getting the same speeds.
I am on 256kb/s but I should be getting 7mb/s soon.

It's only $10 more per month :ROTF: :up:
I feel your pain bro! I live too far from the Central Office and i get 300kbps :( In about 2 months i'm signing up for cable though :up: "Standard" 6-8Mbit depending on where you live :D

[DeathReborn]

You still dont understand why we got fiber in europe or in asia. Its nothing to do with density. NOTHING!

All fiber was layed before the telcos got privatized. Before that they were goverment owned/controlled and had the interest of the nation in hand. Today they only got the interest of the stockholder. And all new fiber is basicly cancelled. Same reason the US more or less got no fiber, specially in ultra high density areas. The copper is still there to be milked. Fiber is a an expensive longterm investment. And something alot of business find unwilling to do. Specially when there is nothing wrong as such with the current free copper network.

The Fibre Optic cables that Virgin Media (UK) use were laid by private companies, even the Fibre in the Military bases in the UK was laid by private companies. BT is a huge telecoms monopoly in this country (it controls ~90% of ADSL too) is still using Copper wires even though it has the funds to replace them with Fibre Optic lines but inside politics is stopping them.

The US would have to deploy vast amounts of Fibre to get a significant portion of Internet users into the "fast lane" & the costs don't match the profits yet. You also have people like the MPAA & RIAA that don't like fast connections as it allows more illegal filesharing to take place.

[-Sweeper_]

1.91 megabit slow?
Here in Brazil we pay more than $100 for a 800Kb/s connection. :(
I use 2Mb Cable.

[vitaminc]

The US would have to deploy vast amounts of Fibre to get a significant portion of Internet users into the "fast lane" & the costs don't match the profits yet. You also have people like the MPAA & RIAA that don't like fast connections as it allows more illegal filesharing to take place.

uh, Verizon is already deploying FOIS (G-PON) at various metro areas. MPAA and RIAA doesn't have anything to do with fast connections, but FCC regulations and dot com bust.

[turtletrax]

I live in Western Canada and I am on 10Mb for around $40 CAD a Month, but 45Mb/sec it is almost $100 a Month...

[Tulatin]

Here in ontario, we see like 8mb/s down 300k/s up (seriously rogers, wtf?) for just over $50 a month. I'd love to have a 100mb/s line tho :D

[HiJon89]

uh, Verizon is already deploying FOIS (G-PON) at various metro areas. MPAA and RIAA doesn't have anything to do with fast connections, but FCC regulations and dot com bust.
It's FiOS not FOIS and it's not being deployed in metro areas. NYC will be one of the last places to get fiber because it is more difficult and more expensive to install fiber in an apartment building rather than in a suburban neighborhood. FiOS is already available in many Westchester cities (the suburb just north of NYC) and so far it isn't any better than the Cablevision/Time Warner alternatives except that FiOS doesn't cap users for using their upload bandwidth which is a big plus for people who run servers or use P2P constantly.

[vitaminc]

It's FiOS not FOIS and it's not being deployed in metro areas. NYC will be one of the last places to get fiber because it is more difficult and more expensive to install fiber in an apartment building rather than in a suburban neighborhood. FiOS is already available in many Westchester cities (the suburb just north of NYC) and so far it isn't any better than the Cablevision/Time Warner alternatives except that FiOS doesn't cap users for using their upload bandwidth which is a big plus for people who run servers or use P2P constantly.

oops. sorry. but the technical term is g-pon.

nyc will be one of the last places for a lot of stuff. just look at its subway.

your g-pon speed depends on vender's implementations.

have nfi why did verizon choose gpon tho. epon is clearly faster and is deployed in japan and korea. guess this is part of the regulation crap that america has to do for the nth freaking time.

[GripS]

I'll post a screenshot when i get home. I get around 15-20 down and approx 2 up.

[frankR]

Just curious, how many of you people with 10+ Mbit connections at home actually see that kind of bandwidth on a regular basis. Here where I work we are connected to one of the fastest data trunks in the world and rarely do I see much more bandwidth then what I get at home with 1.5 Mbit DSL.

One place I download podcasts from I get about 15 megabytes per second. Basically it downloads a 10 MB music file in less then a second, almost instantly. It takes more time to copy the files to my flash music player.

[Shintai]

Just curious, how many of you people with 10+ Mbit connections at home actually see that kind of bandwidth on a regular basis. Here where I work we are connected to one of the fastest data trunks in the world and rarely do I see much more bandwidth then what I get at home with 1.5 Mbit DSL.

One place I download podcasts from I get about 15 megabytes per second. Basically it downloads a 10 MB music file in less then a second, almost instantly. It takes more time to copy the files to my flash music player.

Everyday i say. Or rather when I download. Specially torrents got no problem getting full speed. Downloading from MS MVLS or MSDN sites also gives full speed.

[frankR]

Everyday i say. Or rather when I download. Specially torrents got no problem getting full speed. Downloading from MS MVLS or MSDN sites also gives full speed.

This is surprising to me Europe has a faster more advanced "internet" then the US. I live near Silicon Valley, so it's not like I'm living like a Hill Billy. Whatever happened to politicians making a name for themselves by being champions of technology and the internet. Did Al Gore wear that card through? Or too much money for Iraq contracts?

[gallag]

You yanks have mickey mouse and paris Hilton, now yous want fast internet as well:mad:

GREEDY ********

[HiJon89]

Just curious, how many of you people with 10+ Mbit connections at home actually see that kind of bandwidth on a regular basis. Here where I work we are connected to one of the fastest data trunks in the world and rarely do I see much more bandwidth then what I get at home with 1.5 Mbit DSL.

One place I download podcasts from I get about 15 megabytes per second. Basically it downloads a 10 MB music file in less then a second, almost instantly. It takes more time to copy the files to my flash music player.
I have a 15Mb/2Mb Optimum Online connection and with my Surfboard 5120 modem I would download at about 13Mb from most websites, but now that the modem got swapped out for some crappy Webstar one I never go above 9Mb :mad:

[Thrilla]

lol here in western western Canada, 3Mb down 400Kb up is about $40 CAD a month, fastest download speed from stage6.divx max out at 4000Kbps :P

going back to china this summer, my area will have 10mbps down, and who knows how many up, but free for me =P

[vitaminc]

This is surprising to me Europe has a faster more advanced "internet" then the US. I live near Silicon Valley, so it's not like I'm living like a Hill Billy. Whatever happened to politicians making a name for themselves by being champions of technology and the internet. Did Al Gore wear that card through? Or too much money for Iraq contracts?

how long have you been living here in the valley, or US for that matter?

we produce and export the leading edge technologies/designs, but always were limited to trailing edge technologies due to regulations and corporate lobbyists.

You yanks have mickey mouse and paris Hilton, now yous want fast internet as well:mad:

GREEDY ********

its just me, but i would gladly trade paris hilton for advanced wireline/wireless networks.

[Brettbeck]

We live too far from the exchange to get a decent speed. Ours is supposed to be 5Mb. We get something close to that but not as fast as they told us it would be.

To be honest I think 5Mb is fine for just browing the internet and recieving emails etc. If you can get 10, 20, 50, 100Mb great... but there are more things in life to worry about than an internet connection. Sure we would all love a fast internet connection for cheap, but does it really matter that much lol?!

[hawkeyefan]

You still dont understand why we got fiber in europe or in asia. Its nothing to do with density. NOTHING!

All fiber was layed before the telcos got privatized. Before that they were goverment owned/controlled and had the interest of the nation in hand. Today they only got the interest of the stockholder. And all new fiber is basicly cancelled. Same reason the US more or less got no fiber, specially in ultra high density areas. The copper is still there to be milked. Fiber is a an expensive longterm investment. And something alot of business find unwilling to do. Specially when there is nothing wrong as such with the current free copper network.

Thanks for the lesson, I assumed the providers had always been private there as they are here...

Makes perfect sense though...only places here where you have extensive fiber laid in the US are usually where a municipality chooses to make the investment up front. Not many, I bet.

[DeathReborn]

We live too far from the exchange to get a decent speed. Ours is supposed to be 5Mb. We get something close to that but not as fast as they told us it would be.

To be honest I think 5Mb is fine for just browing the internet and recieving emails etc. If you can get 10, 20, 50, 100Mb great... but there are more things in life to worry about than an internet connection. Sure we would all love a fast internet connection for cheap, but does it really matter that much lol?!

My sister lives 500 yards from the main exchange here and she can't get anything higher than 2Mbit ADSL down her line. There are people that live up to 3 miles from the exchange that can get 8Mbit down the old copper wire. It really needs replacing with at least newer copper in most areas.

I supsect the US has a similar issue with the old copper wires that have probably been there for a fair few decades in some areas.

[hawkeyefan]

My sister lives 500 yards from the main exchange here and she can't get anything higher than 2Mbit ADSL down her line. There are people that live up to 3 miles from the exchange that can get 8Mbit down the old copper wire. It really needs replacing with at least newer copper in most areas.

I supsect the US has a similar issue with the old copper wires that have probably been there for a fair few decades in some areas.

That's what I'm up against exactly. 3Mbit ADSL limited by line quality. We're only a few hundred yards from the CO but nobody in the neighborhood has line quality for higher speeds. Our lines are all 1950s era and are raised. They are gradually replacing lines but burying them, which seems to be slowing it down considerably.

[vengance_01]

Are you kidding me? You obviously don't play online games (or you're not very good at least) and you most definitly don't download files.

"Go live in South Korea and see how long you last over there". What the hell... how ignorant can you get? South =! North. You guys are just greedy. 350KB/s is fine for me and with 20ms pings to most servers my connection is fine for online gamming:rolleyes: Stop running Bittorrent 24/7.

[Kobalt]

Stop running Bittorrent 24/7.

Wtf else is bandwidth for?

[GripS]

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/th.9bff6ab5e3.jpg (http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?9bff6ab5e3.jpg)