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Japan's J:Com provides broadband service upgrades at bargain basement prices

Last week, DailyTech brought you news that Time Warner Cable (TWC) is extending its metered internet service to markets in Austin, San Antonio, Rochester, and Greensboro. TWC is choking customers' monthly bandwidth to 5GB, 10GB, 20GB, and 40GB at prices ranging from $29.95 to $54.95 per month.

The highest priced tier, 40GB/$54.95, offers customers download speeds of 16 Mbps.

Over in Japan, however, customers are seeing download speeds ten times that limit at comparable prices. According to a recent article from the New York Times, J:Com -- Japan's largest cable provider -- is touting its 160 Mbps consumer broadband service. The interesting piece of information to take away is that J:Com's cost to upgrade its systems to handle the 160 Mbps speeds was just $20 per household.

For comparison's sake, Verizon's high-speed FiOS service costs the company $817 per household and an additional $716 for equipment/labor costs per household.

The only piece of equipment that J:Com customers need to take advantage of the higher speeds is an upgraded modem which costs $60, roughly twice that of the standard modem used for slower service plans.

As for internet service pricing, J:Com customers also appear to get a rather sweet deal. The 160 Mbps service only costs $60 USD per month, while the 30 Mbps service is just $55 per month.

When it comes to the United States and sky high pricing for internet service and service upgrades, the finger is pointed at less competition in the marketplace. Broadband internet offers the highest profit margin for cable companies and many providers state that there just isn't much demand for such "super-high speed" internet service.

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well
By AntiV6 on 4/5/2009 5:00:48 PM , Rating: 5
Japan's broadband market seems to be near a perfect competition. When many companies offer similar products, prices go down and performance goes up.

In America, it seems to be a small monopoly in most areas. With few choices people can pay $10 a month for Dial-up, or $40+ a month for the only broadband company.

I wonder if companies will actually get competitive in America. :I




RE: well
By Clauzii on 4/5/2009 5:25:29 PM , Rating: 5
A 5 Gigabyte at $29.95/month can be used in 5 1/2 hours with a 2mbit connection. And downloading a movie is basically 25.95, legal or not. (doing it legal would add the price of the movie itself of course).

If there where no bandwidth restriction, it would be a fair price, but $29.95 is WAY too much for 5GB. What is the price per extra GB, $5?

Flatrate is the only way, as I see it, no matter if one has a slow or fast connection. No need for 'overloaded' account or some other costly extras.


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/2009 5:37:55 PM , Rating: 1
speed is almost irrelevant here, you cannot really download all the quickly from a 160mbps connection: no server would feed you the data fast enough. and if you connect through a 100mbps wireless router... well you get the idea.

the problem is (and has always been) that there are limits on HOW MUCH you can download before they start charging you by the gigabit. i used to have videotron unlimited, but they quietly made that unlimited service limited (they're calling it ultimate extreme or some other nonsense now), and that cost me an additional $50 for the month a few months ago.

i'd be happy with 10mbps if it meant unlimited usage and came with good latency (for gaming).


RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/5/09, Rating: 0
RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By danrien on 4/5/2009 6:32:16 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
english is not a difficult language to learn, please put some effort into it. this is a good place to start: http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/


I don't think I've ever read anything more ironic in my life...


RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/5/2009 6:51:54 PM , Rating: 1
Well I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were making up arbitrary facts. I don't see it stated anywhere that any of these services were limited. But hey, if you want to point out what I missed then please tell me.


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/5/09, Rating: 0
RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/6/2009 2:26:29 AM , Rating: 1
I think you have it backwards my friend. You say that having 160 Mbps speeds are useless since you wouldn't be able to use it. I was refuting that position. I believe you are the stupid one my friend, as is obvious since you only resort to flaming instead of actually trying to make a counter-argument. But hey, I guess not all of us are cut out for high school.


RE: well
By lco45 on 4/6/2009 3:08:04 AM , Rating: 5
They say that arguing on the internet is like racing in the special olympics.
Even if you win you're still retarded.

Luke


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/6/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/6/2009 1:11:52 PM , Rating: 2
Well you said speed is irrelevant, aka useless. I'm only responding to like the first sentence of your post, not the whole thing. If you don't have unlimited download then that's not our problem. I'm just responding to your first sentence about the speed of the internet in the article so I'm going off of that. I don't know what's so hard for you to understand.

I'm not saying that 160 Mbps would be worth it if you had a download cap of 100 GB, but since none is specified I assume it's unlimited. I'm not comparing your crappy internet service to the article.


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/6/09, Rating: 0
RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/7/2009 1:27:37 AM , Rating: 2
Most people use their brains to figure out which part of their post I was replying to, guess God left that out of your brain though.

It's rather amusing to sit here and watch all your posts get downrated because you can only flame people. You might find this hard to believe but not everyone in the US has bandwidth caps and overpriced internet. Of course just because you live outside the US doesn't mean that you have better internet either. Congrats on your unlimited dial-cup connection you have in the middle of the Amazon jungle though. I'm really impressed they even got internet in the most uncivilized part of the world.


RE: well
By dxf2891 on 4/8/2009 8:58:06 AM , Rating: 2
Rolling on the floor Laughing My Big Fat @$$ off. That has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever read.


RE: well
By LRonaldHubbs on 4/6/09, Rating: 0
RE: well
By jconan on 4/6/2009 1:37:05 AM , Rating: 2
interesting j:com price structure http://www.jcom.co.jp/english/services/net.html if everyone petitioned to the fcc about the pricing or demand their congressman or representative do something maybe then possibly something will be done by the current government about these telecomm pricing structures...

i think there is too many conflicting interests. first off many of these companies don't just serve internet, they also serve content. so if all the bandwidth is used by downloading some content it will affect their content delivery or decrease vod revenue for the telecos.

i think the fcc should split the media and content infrastructure business so that way there are no business conflicts.


RE: well
By Wagnbat on 4/6/2009 4:08:04 AM , Rating: 2
Sounds like a good basis for an Obama supported Internet Stimulus package.


RE: well
By inighthawki on 4/5/2009 6:17:44 PM , Rating: 2
true, but maybe your forgetting that you cannot get 100mbps on a 10mbps connection, and you can get a gigabit router to handle the extra 60mbps. Just a thought.


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/2009 6:22:41 PM , Rating: 1
gigabit wireless?


RE: well
By GaryJohnson on 4/5/2009 8:24:36 PM , Rating: 2
~200mbps real-world speed on wireless N with channel bonding.


RE: well
By inighthawki on 4/5/2009 8:55:17 PM , Rating: 2
you are aware there is a such thing as a non-wireless connection? I thought it was obvious i was referring to getting a wired connection


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By inighthawki on 4/5/2009 11:21:26 PM , Rating: 3
lol i am completely aware of that, and i was just mentioning that if u wanted the full 160mbps you have the option of going the wired route with a gigabit router, too hard to understand?


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/5/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By littlebitstrouds on 4/5/2009 11:54:32 PM , Rating: 5
Well aren't you just a prick in just about every post you make


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/6/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By dxf2891 on 4/8/09, Rating: 0
RE: well
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:02:45 PM , Rating: 2
Why the hell is everyone assuming that the 160mbps would serve one personon on one computer doing one thing? Oh yeah, you guys all live by yourself.

Really, in a household of say 4, if the son and daughter were streaming YouTube videos, the wife is video chatting with a friend, and you're trying to stream NetFlix, all the while using torrents in the background you could put a hell of a dent on that connection.

Also, sure wirelessN will only give you so much speed but has anybody assumed that maybe one computer is connected via a cable?

The only bottlenecking I see here is maybe the WAN port on a router. The newest routers all have gig ports but I'm not sure about that WAN port. I guess if you're using it in the US though you won't ever have to worry about that.


RE: well
By Bruneauinfo on 4/5/2009 8:47:34 PM , Rating: 5
i'm sure in Japan the servers there dish out 160 mbps or they wouldn't have the option available. supply and demand or something.


RE: well
By Tsuwamono on 4/5/2009 10:46:49 PM , Rating: 2
Which is why I'm fine with my connection here in Canada. I have low latency and 5mbps with unlimited bandwidth in both directions.


RE: well
By ToughHoBo on 4/6/2009 2:59:35 AM , Rating: 2
Really? Unlimited bandwidth?
Care to share with us your provider?


RE: well
By nosfe on 4/6/2009 7:48:16 AM , Rating: 4
what's the big deal about unlimited bandwidth? here in Romania we've had it since a couple of years now and we're a developing country


RE: well
By rdeegvainl on 4/6/2009 9:14:27 AM , Rating: 2
im so moving there!!!!11!!1one!!1


RE: well
By ToughHoBo on 4/7/2009 12:41:02 PM , Rating: 2
We're capped at 100GB/month and that's on the most expensive premium account. It isn't the unlimited bandwidth that's attractive but the ugly fact that our providers like to roof a low cap and charge $1-3/GB(Downstream+upstream)extra for going over.

Since Romania is a developing nation with unlimited cap and Canada is a developed nation and with caps. Doesn't the backward thinking frustrate you a little?


RE: well
By akosixiv on 4/10/2009 4:42:49 PM , Rating: 2
ouch...

I get like 3mb/1mb here but its uncapped and costs less than $20 a month.

and I'm not even in a city, farms all over the place and with the beach just a 15 min drive from the house. (it just takes 5 mins if the roads were not that bad).


RE: well
By DASQ on 4/6/2009 11:12:45 AM , Rating: 2
I'm with Shaw and while I apparently am limited to 300GB a month, I have not once receive a complaint about going over that cap, and I have BLOWN past it, I think I hit over 700GB (just download) for 3 months running last summer.


RE: well
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:04:07 PM , Rating: 3
Get ready to bend over when your bill arrives.


RE: well
By DASQ on 4/7/2009 11:20:57 AM , Rating: 2
Bill already arrived, no additional charges were applied. Again, I said LAST summer.


RE: well
By Gul Westfale on 4/6/09, Rating: 0
RE: well
By MadMan007 on 4/5/2009 11:47:29 PM , Rating: 2
Or maybe you download from more than one server at a time? der.


RE: well
By chick0n on 4/6/2009 1:57:12 AM , Rating: 1
That simply means u've never been to a data center before.

when you're there. is not that hard to see a 1 gig file flies to your hard drive, not even a minute.

ok fine, home use, 100 mbps ? oh come on. most routers these days have GigE already.

The problem is monopoly. Cable companies are so full of shit. Most users dont need that much downloads? Give me a fatter pipe I will show you what I can do with it (my connection is on 24x7 anyway, haha)


RE: well
By kyleb2112 on 4/6/2009 4:12:54 AM , Rating: 3
I'm in the same boat. I rarely approach my speed limits even with full torrents blazing. My monthly cap on the other hand is a complete ball breaker: 15 gigs up, 40 down. I have to use monitoring software just to avoid the wrath of of my ISP. I would GLADLY trade half my speed for double my cap limit.

But I don't want to be accused of saying "we should just stop upgrading then". Wouldn't want my "logic" challenged, since that's such a logical conclusion to draw...


RE: well
By MrPoletski on 4/6/2009 7:25:36 AM , Rating: 2
While I don't agree with the idea that 'nobody needs 160MBps' it would be very interesting to learn about any throttling regime present on this ISP... which are present in so many other ISP's in the west.


RE: well
By seraphim1982 on 4/6/2009 10:09:37 AM , Rating: 2
That kind of connection speed is NOT irrelevant.....
Despite the fact you cannot download that fast, you can download more from multiple places and very likely is it an also an upgrade in upload as well if we're seeing such an increase in download speed.

Argument at hand in the article is more about price and how North America gets ripped of, but they do not include the fact that Japan is tiny and infrastructure costs are much different of those cities and rural areas of the US. Although, just about every Asian major city has a high-end internet, roughly 5-10times the speed of (north american) ISPs at rough only 5-20$ at max (Not including exchange rate) making the difference minimal at best.

I do believe American ISPs are lazy in their plans to improve their customer experience, but rather gorge them of money. All the ISPs have created a cartel to reflect this. There isn't an ISP that continually improves performance and charges a reasonable price. That is why all the top ISPs are pretty much the same with regards to performance/price.


RE: well
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:08:46 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
fact that Japan is tiny and infrastructure costs are much different of those cities and rural areas of the US
Yeah, you're right. Since I live in Chicago you're saying I should have the same level of service for the same price right? Yeah. How about $50/month for 3mbps/384kbps? My math may be shady but 3mbps I believe is less than 160mbps.


RE: well
By EricMartello on 4/6/2009 1:32:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
speed is almost irrelevant here, you cannot really download all the quickly from a 160mbps connection: no server would feed you the data fast enough. and if you connect through a 100mbps wireless router... well you get the idea.


Actually, not. First of all, this is 2007 and most of us in the know are using Gigabit networking equipment. You mean you're not?

While it is true that you may not be able to max out 160 Mbps from one single server, it would be possible to download simultaneously from multiple sites, bit torrent or any of the other P2P networks that work in a similar way.

I have fios 15/2 now and the price was recently jacked up from $52 per month to $62. I'd like a fixed price around $50 per month and 50 megs in both directions. It would also be great if I could get multiple static IPs so I could run a server at home.


RE: well
By SimpleLance on 4/6/2009 2:18:52 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
speed is almost irrelevant here, you cannot really download all the quickly from a 160mbps connection: no server would feed you the data fast enough. and if you connect through a 100mbps wireless router... well you get the idea.


But you can download simultaneously from different servers. You can watch movies while updates are being downloaded. File sharing protocols would also benefit greatly because they download from multiple sources. Multiple computers at home would also not affect each other (your wife would not complain that you are affecting her internet usage).


RE: well
By andrejs on 4/6/2009 3:30:49 AM , Rating: 2
well.. usa is geting behind europe... and geting there fast

i have cable tv company internet acces... and unbundled internet unlimitet access is

1mbit - 20 usd
4mbit - 30 usd
16mbit - 81 usd

and competition just got speed upgrades for the same price.. so i expect speed upgrades also :)

and bundled triple play package with unlimited 2mbit internet and unlimited phone in national calls, and basic 40 channel tv package is 43 usd. to get this 40 channels in digital format and aditional 30 channels you pay extra 5 usd monthly. in this package upgrade to 6 mbits unlimited is 20 usd and to 16mbit unlimited 54 usd

and this is truly unlimited service...
i dont download that much.. only around 100 gb a month... but my friend fills his hdd with hd movies regulary so.. its probably 300-400 gb monthly :)

i just go to him with my external hdd and take what i need :)


RE: well
By andrejs on 4/6/2009 3:36:16 AM , Rating: 3
p.s. i'm writing from croatia :)


RE: well
By Hiawa23 on 4/6/2009 8:54:51 AM , Rating: 2
That is interesting. I have Brighthouse here in Central Florida & I think my connection is 7mbs could upgrade to 15mbs for $10 more per month & this seems interesting. I think my broadband is either $29 or $39, but seems like a ripoff if these numbers are possible out there somewhere.


RE: well
By quiksilvr on 4/5/2009 6:27:07 PM , Rating: 2
At home we have 1.5 Mbps down / 256 kbps up for $35 a month. Kinda crappy but there's no cap limit. At that speed though, something like that should only cost $20.

I do hope for a day when we can get cheaper high speed internet. Hopefully when some bills get past to build up the infrastructure, it will become cheaper for cable providers to give us tasty bits at tasty prices.


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/5/2009 6:34:55 PM , Rating: 5
Bandwidth limits are unheard of here in Finland, Europe. (Like you guys say it at DT, "socialistic Europe" ;) )

I have been using broadband for 10 years, never had any bandwidth limits. Only the speed has increased, because of better technology and competition.

You don't need Tokyo or skyscrapers or mega-cities to have very fast broadband. In Helsinki and in the area (with the neighboring cities in the range of 30 miles about 1 million residents) you can get
http://www.welho.fi/yksityisille/laajakaista/laaja...
110/5M broadband for 54,90 euros per month, no bandwidth limits. That cable company is also providing cable tv-channels, and is using the existing tv cabling (coaxial) for then broadband connection. The cabling is from the 1980's, long before we knew about the net. :)

If you live in small hut ( :) ) in the forest with no cable tv, using the existing phone line for a DSL broadband you can get 24/1m for 48.90 euros per month.

http://saunalahti.fi/internet/adsl/adslhinnat.php?...

There are about ten different companies providing over 10M connections in Finland, not one of them is using any limits. Or has been previously.


RE: well
By yacoub on 4/5/09, Rating: -1
RE: well
By Zoomer on 4/5/2009 7:16:31 PM , Rating: 5
Do you really believe that now?


RE: well
By toyotabedzrock on 4/5/2009 7:31:22 PM , Rating: 2
RE: well
By Bruneauinfo on 4/5/2009 8:51:12 PM , Rating: 2
none of them look like sites i would go getting up in arms about being banned either.


RE: well
By Hyperion1400 on 4/5/2009 8:59:25 PM , Rating: 3
Hmm, only thing I saw on that list was a bunch of child porn sights. So, in that respect they aren't really censoring anything at all.... just abiding international law. So much for my unfounded fears of Socialism ;)


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/5/2009 9:50:26 PM , Rating: 3
Yes, it's the child pornographic site block list.
Most ISP:s don't even use that list, because everyone knows that those bastards can't be stopped with a list like that. They use anonymous proxies and what have you. The no-go list is more like to prevent young newbie surfers ending up in wrong places with their Internet Explorer.

And the wikileaks page loaded up in under 1 sec for me ;)

But we are little envy to the Swedes, are darling neighbors. Their government made a political decision to put fiber everywhere about 15 years ago. They considered fiber as essential part of infrastructure, like roads and railway and so on. All small towns and even villages have fiber, of course the bigger ones, too. That's why the Swedes have 100/100 connection for $20-30 per month, not capped. The private ISP companies share the same fibers (unlimited bandwidth) and compete with price. The ISP:s pay rent to the government, so the government get their investment back in 20-30 years, just like in roads, bridges and ports.

We (the Finns) are doing somehow the same, but the Swedes got a 10 years head start.

That's the reason Japan, South-Korea and Japan are the most advanced broadband countries in world.

In those countries government made some good strategic decisions,and hundreds of other governments missed that.

(at DT good government decisions are called socialism. I laugh every time I see the S word here, that is daily :) :) )


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/5/2009 9:56:38 PM , Rating: 2
Typo:
Sweden, South Korea, Japan


RE: well
By CommodoreVic20 on 4/5/2009 11:13:21 PM , Rating: 2
Upgrading the U.S. network infrastructure is an order of magnitude higher in complexity, cost and difficulty than Finland. Most American cities, which are VASTLY larger than Helsinki, are fibered very well and offer relatively inexpensive uncapped high speed broadband connectivity. The problem comes when you need to cover millions of square miles to support the rest of the country. U.S. companies has been installing fiber everywhere for many, many years. Hundreds of thousands of miles worth. Keep in mind that it isn't just fiber but the back end equipment and immense workforce to maintain it. Connectivity between major cities etc...

The question I have is as countries worldwide upgrade their internal networks, how are the connections between countries keeping up?


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/5/2009 11:30:51 PM , Rating: 5
Finland is the 5th biggest country in Europe after France, Spain, Germany, Sweden

Finland is bigger than Colorado or Arizona, and almost the size of California.

So what prevents let's say California of doing what Sweden (which is bigger than California) has done, or Finland. I can't believe that California, Colorado or Arizona are not wealthy enough. You can always borrow some more cash from China :)
It's all about political willpower, or lack of.


RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/6/2009 2:41:51 AM , Rating: 2
Probably the fact that those STATES aren't the national government. I couldn't say anything concrete though. I don't really know the inner workings of the government.


RE: well
By MadMan007 on 4/6/2009 3:11:45 AM , Rating: 2
Municipalities can do it, at least after battling the legacy ISPs in court for years: http://www.lus.org/site.php


RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/6/2009 9:52:14 AM , Rating: 2
Must not be a priority then. They'd rather just have higher salaries.


RE: well
By MadMan007 on 4/5/2009 11:56:39 PM , Rating: 5
The geopgraphic argument is silly, it's all about lack of competition. Many markets are monopolies for braodband, some are duopolies but with different speed services (1 DSL, 1 Cable) and a few have what might reasonably be called competition. Not surprisingly in the last category prices are lower and services better.

The difference is in the deployment model. In the non-US countries mentioned the government installed the infrastructure and has a longer-term outlook on the ROI, then they got out of the way and let the companies compete. With the short-term ROI mentality of for-profit corps they aren't going to spread cost out over decades to wait for a return. There are some small instances where government has done something similar in the US. Lafayette LA is the main one I know about, the municipal government did it there.


RE: well
By Darkskypoet on 4/7/2009 3:52:16 AM , Rating: 2
Actually.. the funny thing, is that competition in this case (if the infrastructure doesn't already exist) will hurt rather then help in small markets. This is exactly why the cities are getting FTTC, and the smaller rural areas are getting the shaft. Honestly, in most of these other countries that are far ahead of the US in fibre to the home penetration rates, is because there is a crap load of government spending involved in building the infrastructure. For SK, and Japan, the fiber landscape is seen to be as vital as the interstate system is here. One thing that would be great to see is an FDR-esque plan by Obama to implement FTTS!!!

Yes, that's right!!! Fiber to the shack! Rural areas rejoice, for the next great make work project, we'll follow the likes of FDR and Hitler, and build something useful for the country, rather then feeding the overcapacity in the domestic car manufacturing sector.

All kidding aside, most rural residents are subsidized by urban residents in a sense, especially if you are using a national, or multi-state firm to get your service. the reason, is that of course it is a heck of a lot more expensive to run a fiber trunk to some little town in the midwest, then what it is to run that same trunk 2 miles to the next suburban subdivision with equal population.

Similar to Municipal cable, I'd prefer to see the fed or state governments (or both) run fiber trunks out to every single little village in the US and then lease access to the lines back to the content / service providers. As well if need be, run it further in to the apartment buildings, civil authorities offices, schools, etc. Not quite necessary to every home, but I am talking real capacity building here. The issue is a government can be ok with receiving a very long term low intensity payout for such a project, most private firms simply cannot. Shareholders hate doing such a thing. Its sad, but capacity building depletes profits. Profit is what drives the private firm, not QOS, or high speed access, etc. Unless (and you don't have the market size in mot smaller rural places for it) you have the critical mass of subscribers to make higher speeds, and higher throughput a reality, it simply will not happen for a very long time.

In Canada, we have a huge problem with very small markets, with massive geographical costs to run any major services north. We dealt with it initially with crown corporations. Unfortunately those are being privatized. Which is sad. Because we have massive fibre trunks going to our northern communities only because the government could run the initial loss, and then recoup over 20-30 years. they didn't every year end to be in the black.

Our Electricity provider in Manitoba, thankfully, is still a crown corp, and because of this we have the cheapest power in North America. Sometimes its second cheapest, but that's fine. In addition, its profitable, posted a 17% ROE last year, and is among the most reliable, and best for customer service in NA. Resaon A: Hydro electric capacity Reason B: Government can afford to dump billions into a new project to build capacity, and pay it off over 50 + years. The only alternative to this, would be to pull in some massive American firm to do it, and then try to regulate it so that we'd get the incentives right to get the same effect. this way, we don't. if it makes too much money, the government can call for a dividend, reduce rates, or plow more money into investment and capacity building. Its funny, we are one of only 2 or 3 jurisdictions that I know of that has a serious group of individuals lobbying in a sense to raise our power rates. Or at least the bulk corporate purchasers (~3 cents / kwh).

Municipal fibre, Provincial fibre, national fibre; i don't really care either way, but I'd rather build the capacity we need and over do it... leasing it back to private firms to provide services (that's how Finland has 10-12 companies competing no prohibitive cost of entry) and let the gov make the investment, and reap the ROR from being long sighted, and leveraging economies of scale.


RE: well
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:12:58 PM , Rating: 2
But those are the only sites Yacoub is interested in!


RE: well
By rs1 on 4/5/2009 7:53:10 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Bandwidth limits are unheard of here in Finland, Europe.


Surely you mean "throughput limits", no? The only bandwidth limit in place anywhere is the connection's physical bandwidth limit. The 40 GB monthly caps that U.S. ISP's are rolling out are caps on throughput, not on bandwidth. You "always" get to use your connection's full bandwidth, but once you hit a certain amount of throughput, that's it.

And that's what makes these monthly caps so ridiculous. What's the point of having a 16 Mbps connection if you can only use it at its rated bandwidth for about 6 hours before you reach your throughput cap? If the connection is only good for downloading 40 GB over the span of a single month, then it should be marketed as a 128 kbps connection, because that is the actual realizable monthly bandwidth. Of course, nobody would sign up for such a connection, because it exposes the throughput caps as the nonsense that they really are.

What the U.S. ISP's are doing, in essence, is moving from selling bandwidth (i.e. "you get a 3 Mbps connection that you can do whatever you want with") to selling throughput (i.e. "you get 40 GB a month worth of traffic, which you can reach as quickly as you want, but once you reach it, that's it"), without changing anything about how they are marketing their product. I think that's a serious problem, because as far as I'm concerned, if an ISP approaches me with what it advertises as a "16 Mbps for $60 a month" connection, then I expect that I should be able to use my connection at its full rated speed, for the stated price of $60 per month. Any level of service less than that is nothing more than false advertising. If what I'm really buying with my $60 is 40 GB of throughput per month, then the maximum bandwidth supported by the connection shouldn't even be mentioned, as it's no longer even relevant to the product being sold. I can't operate my connection at the claimed 16 Mbps anymore, because if I do, I run into the cap long before the month is up.

Shame on the ISP's for trying to make this switch, and shame on every single user that doesn't ditch their ISP if/when it tries to make such a change.


RE: well
By Clauzii on 4/5/2009 8:11:50 PM , Rating: 2
I use that wrong too, then. 'Free traffic' would go too then. Thanks for pointing out :)


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/5/2009 9:20:45 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, throughput limits, or caps, or something like that


RE: well
By StevoLincolnite on 4/5/2009 10:07:52 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If you live in small hut ( :) ) in the forest with no cable tv, using the existing phone line for a DSL broadband you can get 24/1m for 48.90 euros per month.


You wouldn't get ADSL 2+ Which is the 24/1mbps speed, or 2mbps upload if it's Annex M.

ADSL 2+ is very distance sensitive, you would need to be in around 5km's from the ADSL 2+ Enabled Exchange to get the service, any farther than that and you might as well get ADSL 1 because your Signal to Noise Ratio would be to low, and the attenuation way to high, Plus ADSL 2+ is highly sensitive to the quality of the copper, and even the wiring in your own home.

Then you need to make sure you aren't on any RIMS, Rims were used in various places where new housing was built, instead of decking out the exchange with more ports, they place a rim which works as a "Mini Exchange" which more often than not doesn't support ADSL 2+ Speeds, they did it so that more people could have a home phone without having to build more exchanges.

Here is a Graph of ADSL speeds over a distance: http://www.internode.on.net/residential/internet/h...

I have ADSL 2+ I'm 2km's from the exchange but my Attenuation is 40, which in theory should give me around the 9mbps mark, but because of my poor copper my Signal to Noise Ratio causes my connection to loose sync, hence my connection is speed limited to 5mbps to get a stable connection.

ADSL 2+ is not a good kind of connection for country area's in my opinion, Fiber to the Node/RIM would be a better alternative with VDSL.


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/5/2009 10:32:21 PM , Rating: 2
Of course ADSL is the worst option, and the 24M is the theoretical maximum, like the ISP says in small print. ADSL is using over 100 years old copper wire technology also known as telephone line. Distance to the switch and quality of line determine the speed. Something between 8-24M.

The Finnish government has made a decision to make fiber available for everyone in the whole country before the end of 2015. In 2015 the distance from fiber to consumer is maximum 2 kilometers (1.24 miles). Only a few thousand households are out of reach then (this is a big country), out of 5,2 million Finnish residents.

But up until that, some people has to cope with ADSL.

Sweden went all fiber long ago ;(, only couple of hours from here. Should I move there, I speak Swedish, too...


RE: well
By StevoLincolnite on 4/6/2009 12:40:21 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Distance to the switch and quality of line determine the speed. Something between 8-24M.

Try 0 to 24mbps, Basically there is no "Minimum" speed that ADSL can achieve, here if your ADSL 2+ connection cannot exceed 1.5mbps you will be switched over to ADSL 1 or you don't get ADSL at all.

It's also sad that here our ADSL 1 is capped at 8mbps down and artificially the upload is capped at 384kbps, even though the technology can handle 1mbps upload speeds.

quote:
The Finnish government has made a decision to make fiber available for everyone in the whole country before the end of 2015. In 2015 the distance from fiber to consumer is maximum 2 kilometers (1.24 miles). Only a few thousand households are out of reach then (this is a big country), out of 5,2 million Finnish residents.


That's FTTN (Fiber to the Node) which they will probably use VDSL to connect to the nodes, great thing about that is that the "nodes" can be built anywhere, inside of a business building, side of a street etc' it's not limited to just the DSLAM where they can be rim blocked, Telstra actually propositioned our government for a similar scheme, however they wanted to charge people $30 a month for 200mb of downloads at 1mbps.

As a side note, some RIMS can be ADSL 2 enabled, but the speeds achieved from it are less than stellar, and it's usually better to get ADSL 1.

Personally I would like to have FTTH (Fiber to the Home) or FTTC (Fiber to the Curb) - but that would be un-feasible in the country areas unfortunately.

The sad part about VDSL is that the maximum available bit rate is achieved at a range of about 300 meters from the Node/DSLAM; performance degrades as the loop attenuation increases, at only a few kilometers it's speed is no greater than ADSL 2+.


RE: well
By Eri Hyva on 4/6/2009 1:05:52 AM , Rating: 2
If you can't get over 8M on a 24M/1M ADSL2 because of distance or bad quality line , then ISP changes you to cheaper 8M/1M contract type. You save $10 per month.

If your internet needs are not the standard web surfer needs, you can get more "exotic" lines for your servers and company network
http://www.nebula.fi/nebulazone.php
like 8M/3M ADSL Annex M or VDSL2. Competition and a wide selection of ISPs is a good thing.

The minimum speed for broadband in year 2015 after all the fiber has been deployed is 100M/100M per household or customer. By paying extra you get more than 100M/100M. There are of course plenty of fiber installed already, but not in the small towns and countryside, yet.


RE: well
By StevoLincolnite on 4/6/2009 7:12:52 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
If you can't get over 8M on a 24M/1M ADSL2 because of distance or bad quality line , then ISP changes you to cheaper 8M/1M contract type. You save $10 per month.


Not here they don't, here 8mb ADSL 1 is generally more expensive than ADSL 2+.
And if your ADSL 2+ speed is higher than 1.5mbps then they don't care.

quote:
If your internet needs are not the standard web surfer needs, you can get more "exotic" lines for your servers and company network http://www.nebula.fi/nebulazone.php like 8M/3M ADSL Annex M or VDSL2. Competition and a wide selection of ISPs is a good thing.


That website really on shows me connection types and speeds, I'm English speaking only.

We do have other plans available here however usually under "Business" but they are usually re bagged ADSL lines, however some company's like Internode have done some good stuff there by combining several ADSL Lines to increase throughput and reliability, but they usually go for $1500 or more and still have a download limit. (With the most expensive of plans being unlimited).

quote:
The minimum speed for broadband in year 2015 after all the fiber has been deployed is 100M/100M per household or customer. By paying extra you get more than 100M/100M. There are of course plenty of fiber installed already, but not in the small towns and countryside, yet.


Again those kinds of speeds and availability is highly dependent on the country and market conditions.

For instance here in Australia our largest ISP Telstra had hundreds of ADSL 2+ enabled exchanges for many years, the only time Telstra would flip the switch and enable an exchange is if a competitor had ADSL 2+ hardware in the exchange.

Then they literally lost Billions when the government kicked them out of the National Broadband tender, which was a promise to provide symmetrical speeds of 12mbps or more to 98% of the population.

So because of the increased competition from the possibility of the NBN; Telstra upgraded it's Hybrid Coax Fiber cable to 100mbps down and 1mbps up. (And that is only available to very few people in the country).

Unfortunately we need to remove the monopoly via structural separation or nothing will ever improve here, Most other developed countries in the world have broadband take-up that is 3-4x greater than our own.


RE: well
By mmntech on 4/5/2009 6:55:23 PM , Rating: 2
It's the same in Canada. If you want internet, you have three choices. Go with dial-up, go with Bell DSL (which is god awful slow, not much better than dial-up), or go with cable. We have the latter. It's $44/mo for a 10mbps connection with a 60gb cap through Cogeco. That's the bundle price, it's $10 more a la carte. In reality I only get half that speed but I think we're under the older plan. I have to check my bill and phone them. They throttle P2P traffic like hell though. Try downloading a Linux distro and it takes all night.

This article highlights the reason why streaming on-demand video and that On-Live thing are not going to replace DVD, Blu-ray, or gaming consoles any time soon. By my math, the average 2hr BD movie is about 18-20gb in size (assuming 20mpbs average bit rate). Right there, you're eating up half of TWC's cap for the top $70/mo plan. The only reason caps are being put in place is because current net infrastructure cannot handle the traffic. I remember Cisco predicting a couple years ago that the net would collapse because it couldn't and was never meant to handle the rising popularity of online video. There has been a failure to invest in it, and because these companies have a monopoly, there is no incentive to invest either. What, did they thing this whole Internet thing was just a fad or something? Dumb.


RE: well
By MadMan007 on 4/6/2009 12:01:23 AM , Rating: 2
Caps are put in place for another reason, related to your second paragraph. Cable and phone companies who sell content don't want you going elsewhere (internet sites) for content. It's quite frankly anti-competitive monopoly abuse by leveraging market dominance in one area to another and imo the ISP and content services divisions ought to be split up. They have good lobbyists though :(


RE: well
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:16:45 PM , Rating: 2
Correct. As long as they provide their on-demand services they don't want you going to Netflix and watching whatever you want for cheap.


RE: well
By Chris Simmo on 4/5/2009 9:10:40 PM , Rating: 1
Here in Australia, the prices vary greatly depending on who you are with. If you are with Telstra for eg, you get 'Unlimited' internet (12gb before throttling and I think its 1.5Mbps or 12Mbps depending on the area, for $60-70 AU. If you go with one of the other companies that aren't money grabbing ripoff arseholes, such as TPG, iinet or internode, for the same $70, you get up to 20Mbps and 150GB before throttling. Speeds are pretty consistent. Does depend on where you live though.

Telstra has been trying a new trick to get more money too, with their 'wonderful' wireless board band. This shit is hopeless. You may get up to 5mbps, but the downloads are hopeless, and they credit uploads as downloads! As well as its incredibly unstable.


RE: well
By StevoLincolnite on 4/6/2009 12:51:37 AM , Rating: 2
Unfortunately Telstra is dominating Australia's Telecommunications because of "Advertising" - even though they have the worst plans in Australia the average joe doesn't know any better, it's like when Intel had the Pentium 4, and AMD had the Athlon 64, despite the Athlon 64 dominating the Pentium 4, intel still sold more processors because of Advertising and brand recognition.

Second in place is Optus, who does have decent advertising but still no where near on par to that of Telstra's.

Then third down the line (And there is a massive gap in consumers using it) is iiNet as the 3rd largest ISP who basically does no advertising, and they are only the 3rd largest ISP because they bought out Westnet and there entire user base.

Several things need to happen in Australia for there to be better pricing/speeds/download quotas:

1) Give the National Broadband Network to the Terria Consortium and Axia and make the NBN controlled by a 3rd party so that all ISP's get equal pricing and equal access.
2) Structural separation of Telstra and Bigpond.
3) Give the smaller ISP's free advertising so that there is more brand recognition in the market place.
4) Once Telstra and Bigpond are separated stop giving Optus millions/billions of cash to improve it's networks, let competition do that instead, and then place that money into the National Broadband network.


RE: well
By descendency on 4/5/2009 11:43:37 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder why they need 160Mbps of hello kitty...

(I wish I lived in Japan some days... until I realize I don't speak japanese)


RE: well
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:17:52 PM , Rating: 2
With 160mbps you can watch episode 2 of FullMetal Alchemist mere seconds after it's released!


RE: well
By Alexstarfire on 4/7/2009 5:45:04 AM , Rating: 2
I feel like this is sarcasm, but I really don't get it. FMA has been finished for a long time.


RE: well
By applepies on 4/6/2009 6:55:20 AM , Rating: 2
The interesting piece of information to take away is that J:Com's cost to upgrade its systems to handle the 160 Mbps speeds was just $20 per household.

For comparison's sake, Verizon's high-speed FiOS service costs the company $817 per household and an additional $716 for equipment/labor costs per household.

It's an upgrade you quote Verizon's initial build costs. Not quite the same.


RE: well
By FITCamaro on 4/6/2009 8:00:06 AM , Rating: 2
It's not an issue of companies not WANTING to be competitive. It's that they don't have to be. The government stifled competition by MANDATING those monopolies. Given the ability, Verizon would roll out FiOS to the entire country. But they can't because anywhere Comcast, Time Warner, etc. exist, they face legal opposition to do so.


RE: well
By marvdmartian on 4/6/2009 10:34:23 AM , Rating: 2
Exactly! My town originally had two local cable companies that competed with each other for customers. Then one was bought out by Time Warner, the other by AT&T.

Now TWC is the only provider of cable tv in the area, as AT&T's service is dish provided. TWC pretty much owns the high speed internet market here, with their Roadrunner service (RR regular @6Mb/sec, "turbo" I think goes at 10Mb/sec), since AT&T just doesn't seem to care too much about expanding their DSL service quickly. Since my choices are cable, dsl (768Kb/sec where I live) or wireless (Xanadoo or Clearwire, both max @1.5Mb/sec), I've gone with cable.

Sadly, it seems that now that most people have switched over to high speed internet, the companies just don't have any incentive to upgrade their service. Instead of whining about bandwidth, they should increase their capacity, especially for the price we're paying, imho.


RE: well
By stimudent on 4/7/2009 1:30:26 PM , Rating: 2
Here in America, the health care system is broken and so is the broadband market.


angering
By Chiisuchianu on 4/5/2009 6:39:51 PM , Rating: 2
This is the #1 angering technology related issue for me. Keeping us in stone age broadband speeds is slowing down progress in so many different areas of life that this should be considered crime.




RE: angering
By chrisld on 4/5/2009 9:52:17 PM , Rating: 3
I have lived in several countries and the USA is in the dark ages regarding speed and pricing. Sweden had 10megabits 10 years ago for $40 a month and it's only gotten better over time. I suspect someone has been bribed a hefty sum to keep competition out in the US.

I read that a small village in the UK could choose between 20 providers. Here in the US there are only a handful. We would like to think we live in a free market but the reality is very different.


RE: angering
By rudy on 4/6/2009 10:32:39 AM , Rating: 2
Have you spend a good amount of time in those countries and really surveyed their internet capabilities? First you are comparing all counties which are about the size of 1 large US state. Not exactly apples to apples. And in most cases the high speed internet is in or near major cities. Many months ago COX are largest cable provider announces the development. You do not see every farmer in China getting 160 Mbs. Or Russia, Canada, Brazil, Australia or other comparably large countries. Most of them are generally viewed as behind the US. This 160 mbs is just DOCSIS 3.0 announced years ago and before the economic fallout comcast planned to have it rolled out last year.

Not that there are not problems but I think things are far more complicated in a large country then a small one with a much more spread out population.


RE: angering
By remo on 4/6/2009 12:53:59 PM , Rating: 2
population area km2 pop/km2
Sweden 9,041,262 449,964 20.0

I live in a town with 8k pop and get 100/100 (98mbit meassured), no caps, ip phone and static ip for 40euros. And i live 35km from the nearest larger city (malmö pop 300k).

My dad lives in a small rural town of 300 and gets adsl 2+ (meassured 15/1).

The only once who cant at least get adsl2+ are the once who doesnt have electricity... but i dont think they care all that much.


RE: angering
By rudy on 4/8/2009 9:19:11 PM , Rating: 2
Pretty much everyone in sweeden lives in the south, of that there are only 3 major cities each on the coast. Like I said it is completely different for 1 country to do something that is the size of 1 US state then it is for the US. But counting the entire north pole area where no one lives is slightly misleading. Its not perfect in the US but on the other hand most US customers do not really know about what a good internet connection is or that quality is more important than quantity. So the US companies do not have a great pressure to upgrade in that sense meanwhile they must balance upgrading already existing lines and laying new ones to more new areas and smaller towns on top of a bad economy. When things get better the major cable providers are all going to upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 don't worry.


RE: angering
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:22:35 PM , Rating: 3
There's the stupid geographic argument again. I live in a city of over 6million and the day we get the same speed of service as Japan at the same price I'll believe your argument.


RE: angering
By Alexstarfire on 4/7/2009 5:50:35 AM , Rating: 2
One city hardly compares to an entire country.


service is already "capped"...
By aenio on 4/5/2009 5:17:23 PM , Rating: 5
i realize that the geography of the USA is different than, say, Japan, and one has to take that into account when comparing broadband service, but it's still a fact that companies spend a lot of money on advertising to get new subscriptions rather than updating the infrastructure and offering an improved product...

I have Time Warner/Roadrunner, and I live in Queens, NY, about 15 minutes outside of Manhattan, hardly a "backwater" by any definition, and several years back, the cable internet service was relatively fast and reliable...these days, the network can't reliably handle the increased number of subscribers...at least it can't in the Flushing/College Point area...when i moved this past december, i signed up for internet/phone service, with promised speeds of "near" 10000kb down...it reaches that MAYBE for an hour at like 10 am, then it's around 2000kb down...at night it's below 1000kb down- and the noise on the voip phone line is awful...i have had 4 techs visit, the line from the pole changed, modem replaced twice, called tech support SEVEN times since december, and talked to 3 different supervisors...

they ALL claim there is NO problem with the network overall, just my connection. Since FIOS is in surrounding neighborhoods, but not here yet, i called 5 seperate people in flushing and college point, exasperated, to see what their experience is...ALL of them have near identical stories...

now they want to "tier" the service??? it's ALREADY effectively capped by bad download speeds? they want to squeeze us MORE??

don't believe what TW tells you, don't believe what tech support tells you, and pray for an alternative besides DSL here soon...




RE: service is already "capped"...
By someguy123 on 4/5/2009 5:42:07 PM , Rating: 2
This is the same issue with comcast that I've been having up here in san francisco. every night at around 5~7, a flood of users will log on and the internet will slow to a crawl. Instead of upgrading their infrastructure to meet the larger bandwidth requirements, they spend all of their money spamming their "Power boost" ads, as though 5 seconds of 20MBPS download speeds is really worth 10 hours of 56k speed internet.

Also had the same "tech guys" aka "walking comcast troubleshooting manuals" come by, tell me theres a problem on my end, believe they fixed the problem because they always arrive during low usage hours, and then leave without doing anything. Every time I call and try to explain to them they are over selling their boxes, they just tell me i'm wrong and that I need to check my line quality for the millionth time.

I'm dreaming of fios......and I can't even remember how long ago it was when I first heard about it.


RE: service is already "capped"...
By Bryf50 on 4/5/2009 7:59:40 PM , Rating: 2
I love my fios. 20/20 connection with no limits at all. And I really do get 20 down and 20 up.


RE: service is already "capped"...
By Darkk on 4/5/2009 8:29:50 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
This is the same issue with comcast that I've been having up here in san francisco. every night at around 5~7, a flood of users will log on and the internet will slow to a crawl. Instead of upgrading their infrastructure to meet the larger bandwidth requirements, they spend all of their money spamming their "Power boost" ads, as though 5 seconds of 20MBPS download speeds is really worth 10 hours of 56k speed internet.


Tell me about it. I'm in the Livermore area and seems to be really bad Friday nights at around 7pm till 9pm to the point I actually lose net connection on and off! I too would like to see fios in my area but right now it's currently not available despite several AT&T trucks in my area.

I do hope competition will force Comcast to upgrade the infrastructure to handle the added traffic before subs start to flock to fios in droves!


Sweden...
By Pjotr on 4/5/2009 5:53:01 PM , Rating: 3
I've paid $35 for my ethernet connection for 9 years. Early on it was 10/10 mbit/s, later I paid extra for 100/100, but then they backed down to 100/10 for everyone at $35 again. Next month, our building changes operator to put everyone in the building into a group connection. We then get 100/100 again at a cost of $8 a month instead. This is a bit like my father has in another town, in his area they pay about $20 for 100/100 internet, phone and 10+ channels of cable TV.




RE: Sweden...
By Yaron on 4/5/2009 6:19:10 PM , Rating: 1
Pjotr,

I am curious...
How do you find the difference in web surfing when you are visiting sites within sweden and outside of it - lets say sites that are located on servers in the US?

Does the 100mbps really make a huge different when surfing websites outside the US compared lets say with a 10mbps connection?

Furthermore, when you use emule or bit-torrent, what is the highest download rate you had?

Thanks in advance.


RE: Sweden...
By Pjotr on 4/5/2009 7:14:18 PM , Rating: 3
Well, for regular surfing there's not much difference between 10 and 100 mbit. For individual sites, it's more down to the site response times, how their infrastructure, load etc are. Generally US sites like Youtube, nytimes.com etc load as fast as a Swedish newspaper or whatever.

I don't use E-mule, but for torrents... the more connections, the better. I do get 100+ mbit/s downloads if there are enough, or if there are just the few with really good speeds. I use a D-Link 655 router which is capable of 100 mbit routing speed (had the DGL-4300 before and an older D-Link before that that also did 100 mbit routing). Downloads max at 10-11 MB/s, even from local FTP sites like downloading an Ubuntu.


RE: Sweden...
By Yaron on 4/5/2009 8:12:55 PM , Rating: 2
Thanks.


Shouldn't be comparing the two
By wordsworm on 4/5/09, Rating: 0
RE: Shouldn't be comparing the two
By iguanadon on 4/5/2009 5:39:45 PM , Rating: 2
In reading the article (including the NY Times blog), I'm under the impression that the population density of Japan is not the direct cause of the decreased costs of increasing service.

Rather, it seems that the Japanese provider only had to install a new piece of hardware (or two if counting the customer's new cable modem) for each household. The real reason these costs are significantly cheaper than Verizon FiOS is that FiOS has to lay new completely new cable in the ground to each household (at least that's my impression). These cable companies (in Japan) are utilizing the existing wiring already going to a household and thus they don't bare these costs. Thus, assuming the cost structures for cable companies are similar between the U.S. and Japan (which I see no reason to think any differently), it should be equally cheap to roll out these same services in the United States.

Further, and no offense to you wordsworm, I'm kind of tired of these population density arguments. While I will concede that as a nation Japan is more densely populated than the entire continental United States, there are definately major metropolitan areas here in the U.S. that are extremely densely populated (Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) If population density is the real issue for these cable companies why aren't they improving service where density exists?

quote:
It probably doesn't hurt that Japanese love high tech as a general rule, whereas the US isn't so fast paced.

I would make a counterpoint that the Japanese are well ahead of the U.S. (in terms of technological availability to the masses) and this is a prime cause of their "love [for] high tech". Basically, access to tech caused this generalization of the Japanese populace. If the U.S. public had the same access, I think it's equally likely we would have the same affection for it (admittedly, there will always be outliers in both populations). The argument the cable companies will make on this is that U.S. consumers are not asking for this product (while DT readers might, we are not the norm). However, it is difficult for consumers to ask for something if they don't even know it's available. That's way the successful companies (around the globe) are those that provide a solution to a customer before the customer even realizes there's a problem.


RE: Shouldn't be comparing the two
By wordsworm on 4/6/2009 5:15:08 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
I'm kind of tired of these population density arguments.


A polite argument. Is that allowed at DT? Maybe Facemaster can help you with the pointless trolling techniques that you need at DT to argue. That aside... let's continue the debate a little bit.

Ok, I'm no expert. However, with what little knowledge I have I have pieced together this argument. One of the primary bottlenecks in a given Internet is the underlying infrastructure of its lines which run not just from server to house, but from central server to central server. The backbone, as they call it, has to run from San Francisco to New York City. That is a very long distance, and very expensive to lay out. Japan, on the other hand, has a population mostly situated in the south. The servers that provide content are mostly within a few hundred km where people live. A service such as NetFlix or even an online megamerchant like Amazon have to serve regions all over the US, which is really a huge chunk of land relatively speaking. S. Korea is basically the same - small country, big population, very fast Internet. Just think: it would take less fiber to wire all of Japan's major cities and the minor cities in between than it would to lay a single fiber between NYC and San Francisco. So, I really don't think the population density argument is flawed.

So, what does all that have to do with this device at home? Well, if everyone has 160mbps, then the backbone of that bandwidth is going to have to satisfy everybody over a large chunk of land which is expensive to upgrade. Not so difficult if you have a smaller area of land to cover.

So, again I contend that comparing the two countries in relation to Internet speed is not fair to the companies in the US. It is more efficient and cost efficient to supply Japanese with high technology than it is to supply continental USA. Surely you can see the difference between streaming 160mbps on a backbone that reaches no further than 400km by 200km is going to be a lot easier for a corporation to upgrade and update to take increased bandwidth than it is on a backbone that has to reach about 4,000km by 2,500km (ish).


RE: Shouldn't be comparing the two
By iguanadon on 4/6/2009 10:55:35 AM , Rating: 2
I prefer polite discourse to trolling. I find that people of two opposing opinions actually have a chance of reaching a compromise when both are polite and recognize the validity of the other's argument. While this is not the norm for DT, I shall endeavor to always be polite and cordial to those I disagree with.

And now back to the show...

I will concede that for purposes of the internet backbone in the U.S. more wiring is required do to the geographic size of the nation. However, the U.S. also has 300 million people over which to spread this cost (leaving aside the fact that not everyone is going to subscribe, etc.) while Japan has only 120 million people to spread this cost.

I don't know (at least I haven't seen any indicators) any details on what the true cost structures of laying wire are (and what economies of scale may arise due to large orders). The cost differential between the U.S. and Japan may not be very high or it might be quite high (even taking account of the larger population base). I think we can agree that further data is needed to better understand this issue.

This brings me to another point. Is (what I'll call) the internet bottleneck in the U.S. due to the backbone structure or is it a last mile (to the household) issue? I think we can safely say that the last mile connection is bottlenecked (at least for DT readers who would all prefer an infinitely fast internet connection). I haven't seen any articles regarding the backbone if it is near capacity or not. If the backbone (without upgrades) can handle the increased speeds to each household than the U.S. doesn't need (at present, it will in the future as speeds continue to rise) to worry over laying additional wiring across the U.S. to strengthen the backbone.


By wordsworm on 4/6/2009 11:19:29 AM , Rating: 2
Just by performing a ratio we might reasonably come up with a cost differential. I will leave out Alaska and Hawaii to come up with a reasonable figure. According to Wikipedia, there are about 8,080,464.25 km² with a population of 279,583,437 in continental USA compared to 337,000 km² with a population of 127,333,002.

USA 35 people to 1 square km. Japan has 378 people to 1 square km. There is a significant difference between the two countries, there can be no further doubt. As we both know, signal strength needs to be boosted as it travels a significant distance, which means that it will cost American companies significantly more than Japanese in this respect. The layout of the cable itself is another factor. Finally, for each km of cable laid out, there are a lot more customers. There is no question in my mind that there is an enormous amount of difference between the cost of supplying Japan vs. the USA, and a greater difference in profit per km laid out. As I mentioned before, I cannot see this comparison as being fair to American companies.

Another fellow mentioned that the US companies spend more money on ads than they do on boosting infrastructure. If that's the case, then that's sad, and hopefully someone will spend more on infrastructure and nothing on ads. Heck, I'm sure good service, high speed, and unlimited download would become the talk of the tech community and all the advertising done for free.

I really don't know the final numbers on how much bandwidth there is on the US backbone, but I cannot believe it's as easy to upgrade as the Japanese version.


Communication Monopolies
By 457R4LDR34DKN07 on 4/5/2009 4:58:25 PM , Rating: 4
The government really needs to step in here and regulate this mob rule that communication companies are constantly using. They truly give shotty service and overcharge us. This concept of metered service has arrived as a scheme from how they bill cell phone service. The government needs to do something to break up the way cable companies do business to allow for real competition. They should force them to upgrade thier dated infastructure as well. With everything else we are paying for lately as taxpayers is a least get fast subsidised internet with competitive pricing and options other than cable or dish.




RE: Communication Monopolies
By Alpha4 on 4/5/2009 5:58:23 PM , Rating: 2
I agree with your post, but it's worth mentioning that the major communication providers are actually running an Oligopoly.

wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly (I could swear the term was conceived of specifically for this scenario ;)

Oligopolies are in some ways worse as traditional start-ups could never afford to carve out a market in an oligopolized area.


Population Density
By Shig on 4/5/09, Rating: 0
RE: Population Density
By aegisofrime on 4/6/2009 3:10:31 AM , Rating: 2
I guess you are right.

I live in Singapore, and here we get 100Mbps unlimited broadband for about USD50 per month. The benefits of population density, I guess.


RE: Population Density
By jimbojimbo on 4/6/2009 4:34:47 PM , Rating: 2
Hong Kong is a country?? Does China know?

Anybody saying population density is a valid argument MUST show proof that New York City is offered the same exact speeds for the same price as, I'll be easy, all of Japan. Pouplation density is NOT the problem.


I cant believe the prices.....
By safcman84 on 4/6/2009 8:12:34 AM , Rating: 2
that you pay in the USA.

I live in France, and pay 30Euros a month for 2.5mbps connection, unlimited telephone calls to 60 countries (for free), and have no download or upload limit. I can also get my TV bundled in with that for the same price. And I live in a small village.
My parents live in a village 5 to 10km from me, and pay the same for a 5mbps connection.

My friend in the city 30 minutes from where I live pays 29.99 euros for 100mbps connection, TV (including HD), telephone and no bandwidth cap.

oh yeah, 100mbps might be overkill for a single connection to a server - but the great thing about it is not the speed of a single download, but the fact you can download, game, telephone and watch TV all over the same internet connection all at the same time without major LAG when gaming and your downloads still finishing really fast.




By V3ctorPT on 4/6/2009 8:46:36 AM , Rating: 2
In my country they are implementing that type of connection now (the city friend connection :D). Until 2011 all the country will be covered in fiber-optics to attain 100mb or more. I hope I'll be upgraded in speed until then :D


My brain....
By Musafa on 4/5/2009 4:56:10 PM , Rating: 2
"Broadband internet offers the highest profit margin for cable companies and many providers state that there just isn't much demand for such "super-high speed" internet service."

I would love faster internet but I'm afraid to ask for more because I pay 90USD a month for 12Mbs... Living in a forest ftl...




...
By OAKside24 on 4/5/2009 5:55:12 PM , Rating: 2
What/who's to blame for the lack of competition? I'd love to read about how Japan and others went about creating their ultra high-speed, competitive cable markets.

"...many providers state that there just isn't much demand for such "super-high speed" internet service."

Infuriating. These ridiculous bandwidth caps should finally be the straw that broke the monopoly's back. I don't even want to know how much more embarrassing our cable situation can get...




By toyotabedzrock on 4/5/2009 7:21:05 PM , Rating: 2
I'd be able to do remote backups of my data.

I'm wondering if the companies realize that most people can't take advantage of 160mbps. I'd bet most American consumers computers can't even use much more than 20mbps so anything over that might only be used by one person per neighborhood. And most routers people use would also choke on that bandwidth.

But then again us greedy awful technical people might have the equipment to use more. They forget we are the ones who pushed everyone we knew to get broadband and pushed congress to help them provide the networks.




Well of Course
By DarkElfa on 4/5/2009 10:02:27 PM , Rating: 2
Well of course they're capping bandwidth caps on their service, its Time Warner as in Time Magazine, Warner Brother's pictures, Warner publishing, Warner Music, etc., etc. They have everything to gain by capping everyone which is a slowdown to piracy. That's what all this capping is about people. They say its about being over burdened and too expensive to up the service but its really about making sure piracy in America is slowed down and when the very people who are losing money to pirates are also the ones controlling the path through which their lost, what did you think would happen?




Various info
By wavetrex on 4/5/2009 10:20:06 PM , Rating: 2
What you can currently get in Romania:

35.7Euro = 20mbps symmetrical on a 100mbps physical connection ( all transfers within the same ISP are at much higher speed than the 20mbps "payed" )

22.6Euro = 50mbps down, 5-10mbps up, not guaranteed ( real speed depends on the time of day, sometimes it can be as low as 1mbit, other times the full 50)

No transfer caps, I'm part of a small network that transfers about 1 terabyte each month on a 35Euro connection.




That sucks
By V3ctorPT on 4/6/2009 7:25:55 AM , Rating: 2
In my country I pay 35€ for 24mb speed, and unlimited downloads... Never thought that in America u would have to pay so much money for just 16mb and 40Gb download...

That's lack of competition...




Hostage Taking in the US
By mars2k on 4/6/2009 10:11:04 AM , Rating: 2
Please note...our legislature banned Canadian pharma purchases for US citizens. I happen to live in a Time Warner area that is capping downloads. What a rip-off. In the US we are held captive to big business and thats the way it is. I guess its just like life in the Matrix




By LostInLine on 4/6/2009 2:14:45 PM , Rating: 2
They are not paying less for their net connection. The cost is hidden in their tax structure.

"Japan has surged ahead of the United States on the wings of better wire and more aggressive government regulation , industry analysts say. "

"With the help of government subsidies and tax breaks , NTT launched a nationwide build-out of fiber-optic lines to homes, ..."

And in case you think Goo Gal is good, see how much they like big bro when it benefits them:
"The experience of the last seven years shows that sometimes you need a strong federal regulatory framework [ed: which would benefit us] to ensure that competition happens [ed: so that we can loot the work of other] in a way that is constructive," said Vinton G. Cerf, a vice president at Google. "

What will happen next.
"The growing addiction to speed, ironically, is returning near-monopoly power in fiber to NTT,..."

Story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...




Causality
By Slim934 on 4/7/2009 1:38:57 PM , Rating: 2
The economist Frederic Bastiat once asked "what is seen, and what is unseen?".

The idea behind this quote is that for every action there is not only a noticeable outcome but an unseen one also, and when we act we must take both into consideration.

Let us take the simple example of a government make-work program. The government decides that it needs to stimulate the economy of a local area so it decides to build new roads and infrastructure. During this period of building the local area is booming because revenue is being selectively move to it in the form of new labor wages and thus an increase in demand of local services. So we see this boom in action. What we do not see are the increases in prices on those same materials in relation to private industry because the governments new demand has driven their price up. We also do not see the alternate uses in which the government revenue would have been used had it not been employed in the first place, ie. if it had not been extracted in some manner from taxpayers in the first place.

Let's try to extend this to the current situation shall we? It is true in Europe and in some Asian countries the general citizenry has access to much higher speed internet connections at a lower price..but this price has not taken into account what amount of money their governments have extracted form their citizens in the form of direct taxes or monetary inflation in order to build these very expensive networks. I guarantee that if the European commentators on this thread compute those out they will find that they are paying atleast the same amount for their levels of bandwidth as we in the Colonies are.

Secondly is this absurd notion that America is actually a free market economy. The fact that we have a central bank makes this assertion absurd on its face, but the fact that combined government spending is roughly 40% of the American economy makes it even more silly. When 40% of an economy's GDP is by it's nature coerced (since all government spending must be payed through taxes/monetary inflation on its citizens) it cannot be very well be characterized as free.

NOW let's go specifically to the telecom market, which is not only heavily regulated at the federal level but also at the state and local levels also. I will not go into all the specifics because I really need to be getting back to work.
You wanna know why there is little flexible competition in the US in broadband? Two words: franchise monopoly. Look it up and logically deduce the economic outcome.

http://www.mackinac.org/archives/2006/s2006-07.pdf

http://mises.org/story/2806

The second link is more pertinent to this discussion

Thanks and godspeed.




SIngapore rates
By danchen on 4/6/2009 3:53:48 AM , Rating: 1
Thought I'll share....
here in Singapore, I pay SGD$80 a month for a 10mbps ADSL connection (Singtel) - unlimited.
I download about 20GB-40GB of crap per month, but nobody's complaining, so i guess it really is unlimited as advertised.
BT gets throttled slightly, but its good enough.
I download at 1.2MB/s when on rapidshit... That's near the advertised limit of 10mbps. More than good enough.
And oh, I got a free 13" macbook when i signed up.
But you have to sign a 3 year contract to sell them your soul though.




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