The New York Times is reporting that the U.S. has fallen to 25th in a global ranking of Internet speeds. Feel not for the future, however, we are still one spot ahead of Romania. Take that Bucharest cyber cafes!
Congress yielded to the demands of lobbyists in holding back measures to foster competition, particularly under the Bush Administration where providers had a field day. Not much has change, however, under the Obama Administration.
One critical move was a decision of the FCC in 2002 that high-speed cable Internet access would no longer be considered a telecommunications service open to competitors, but rather an “information service.” In 2005, the FCC also succeeded in reclassifying broadband delivered by the phone companies as an “information service.”
Congress has done nothing as one the the world’s most developed nations and one of its largest economies has fallen to 25th. We do however remain number one in the amount of money spent by lobbyists on legislators.
You can look it up yourself if you don’t believe me . . . just be prepared to wait a long time if you are using the Internet.
Source: NY Times
You have to give the FBI and CIA a chance to look at your porn. That takes time. They won’t use that against you- unless Diebold tells them you voted for the wrong people. Or Verizon tells them that you told your brother that Obama Is a sell-out phony liberal closet fascist.
Raf – silly man when will you learn that every problem is caused by the government – puzzling wants a country free from the heavy boot – Somalia is a perfect example of a government free land & look what a paradise that is!
We have “competition” here for Internet and it is no cheaper and no better than any other major metropolitan area in the country. There are a ton of gimmicks & special offers but service is still poor and prices are high. It is not unlike the cell phone industry. We pay more & get worse service that any industrialized, and several marginally industrialized, nations. What we have is only the appearance of competition & the Big boys are buying even that appearance out of existence.
You want universally available high speed internet? How about we have the USPS follow its mandate of creating “postal roads” with fiber being the new roadbed? Using the rural electrification model the government could catapult growth and bring “light” to every corner of the country.
Interesting infographic. Japan and Korea has most speed for least $.
http://cdn.nirmaltv.com/images/World-Internet-speed-and-cost1.jpg
I have not seen how competition has helped me here, in the Boston suburbs. Comcast and Verizon are relentlessly trying to cut each other off at the knees. But their deals are not that good. I have DSL now, and get several solicitations a week about “special offers to upgrade to Fios.” [fiber optic service replacing copper wire to house] Fios costs **a whole lot more** than DSL and leaves you without the safety of a secure landline in case of emergency.
I think the business model for all of these outfits requires them to extract something like $100 to $150 a month from each subscriber. But in my view it’s worth no more than $40 or $50.
I have Hughes net the satellite internet service for rural areas. I live in deep country about 10 miles from a very small town and I love it here except for my internet service. I am subject to The Fair Access Policy. Everyone must have a fair shot at the bandwidth. Except we can pay for more fairness. As it is I can get about 4-6 youtube videos or 45 mins of a netflix movie in a 24 hr period. If I exceed those limits my internet service slows down so much that it is difficult to access a simple text page such as this blog. Oh during the hours of 2 am and 6 am fairness doesn’t apply but at those hours I am trying to get my fair allotment of sleep. Oh woe is me. At least there’s not much traffic on my road.
AY,
We’ve had fiber optics here since our cable was installed years ago. Once Time Warner took over and thoroughly messed things up, I switched to DSL through my small local phone company. It’s great and I have no problem. We stream NetFlix, Amazon, Hulu and several other channels through the DSL with ease … I use a Roku.
Blouise,
The Government has opened competition by providing the infrastructure for the fiber optics….If you have ever driven down the road and seen the “Green Tubes” they are dedicated for this purpose….They generally use easements that they have a right to, but occasionally they need the right of ways on private property….That is how I know about it….
“Congress yielded to the demands of lobbyists in holding back measures to foster competition, particularly under the Bush Administration where providers had a field day.”
To which puzzling responds: “Government meddling created this situation …”
That is certainly true but government meddled at the behest of providers … providers are at the root of the problem. Open up the competition and stop protecting the greedy and incompetent.
Puzzling
It is the corporate giants who have been pushing Congress to squash competition and to allow them to control or throttle usage and speed. All for the sake of money.
The average age of the people running this country is still 109. Until a critical mass of them pass on, everything from war crimes to the pony express will remain in vogue.
Say what…..If I have read an article correctly….We have slower speeds…with DSL or even cable…. European have T-1 which is the fastest presently and it is as common and priced about the same as DSL…..Hmmmmmm
Competition increases quality and lowers prices? Who knew?
Cable TV providers in Idaho and many other places don’t need to worry about people watching content on Hulu or Apple TV because speeds are simply too slow to make it reliable.
Government meddling created this situation, and government should get out of it if we’re serious about fixing it. Yet, it’s more likely that instead there will be calls for more government regulation and more government spending to fix the problem it created, likely raising prices and slowing change even further.