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I Want Speed
I'm normally unimpressed with Thomas Friedman, even when he's in Bush-bashing mode, but if it's really true that "nearly all Japanese have access to 'high-speed' broadband, with an average connection time 16 times faster than in the United States - for only about $22 a month" and there's something Bush could be doing to allow, say, me to get a faster internet connection for only about $22 a month then I'm going to have to classify myself as pretty pissed off about the situation. 16 times faster! That's a lot faster. On the general subject of rightwing obsessions wrecking America I'm going to have to agree with Phoebe that if the new Red America view is that lesbians can't be high school gym teachers then we're going to have a real problem. Who else is going to do the job? Don't we have an obesity problem in this country?
April 15, 2005 | Permalink
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» I Want Speed, Too from Outside The Beltway
I am in complete agreement with Matthew Yglesias.
[Read More]
Tracked on Apr 15, 2005 4:09:33 PM
» The Need For Speed from Politics and War
Matt had read Tom Friedman's latest, and is now pissed off - justifiably, I think - that we (Americans, not he and I) could be getting much, much better broadband service than we are. Judging from Matt's comments, Friedman's numbers... [Read More]
Tracked on Apr 15, 2005 4:11:06 PM
» The Need For Speed from Politics and War
Matt has read Tom Friedman's latest, and is now pissed off - justifiably, I think - that we (Americans, not he and I) could be getting much, much better broadband service than we are. Judging from Matt's comments, Friedman's numbers... [Read More]
Tracked on Apr 15, 2005 4:13:33 PM
Comments
The lag is arguably the result of the Bush administration's failure to make a priority of developing these networks. In fact, the United States is the only industrialized state without an explicit national policy for promoting broadband.
And that explicit national policy should be ... ?
Yeah, thanks Tom. Your column was SOOOOOO helpful. Please go back to writing another book.
Posted by: Al | Apr 15, 2005 2:46:11 PM
What does it even mean to have an "average connection time 16 times faster in the United States"? That it takes 1/16th as long for the connections that "almost all" Japanese have to negotiate the initial connection than the average American connection?
Of course, this is Friedman quoting someone else characterizing the situation, but its impressive that Friedman doesn't even seem to realize that he's quoting something that doesn't make any sense.
Anyhow, Japan is much more densely packed. Distance a not inconsiderable factor in broadband connections. That Japan should more rapidly have more affordable broadband connections for most people is not, at all, surprising or a source for concern. If the entire population of the United States lived in California, Oregon, and Washington -- while we'd have other issues to deal with -- we'd probably have gotten cheaper broadband to almost everyone faster than we have.
Posted by: cmdicely | Apr 15, 2005 2:48:18 PM
The universal broadband thing has been a pet peeve of mine since Bush 'won' the election in 2000. The economy was shaky, mostly because of a drastic change in the expectations of tech stocks, most notably an enormous reversal of the projections for telecom traffic. The govt wa running suprluses, and instead of investing in a huge infratstructure improvement that would have a) somewhat stabilized the well run tech stocks, b) provided plenty of incentive for good job creation, c) provided business a new infrastructure and platform for new innovative business models, and d) sent an indication that the new President, generally thought of as a light weight, was going to do something about the troublemd economy, Bush sent the message that he was going to push through a tax cut designed in boom times during an impending recession, and that he was even less serious or honest about the economic situation than previously thought (remember the cover of the once proud TNR with the Paul Krugman column 'He's Lying' to describe Bush's policies before they were enacted).
I am told by people that are much smarter than I that a recession was inevitable by the time Bush got involved, and that the best we could have done was a quick recovery instead of the jobless one that we got, but I am unsure, and I think a big push for universal broadband on fiber optic would have spent the surplus more wisely and sent a message to the business and investment that might have helped.
Posted by: theCoach | Apr 15, 2005 2:49:49 PM
[if] there's something Bush could be doing to allow, say, me to get a faster internet connection for only about $22 a month then I'm going to have to classify myself as pretty pissed off about the situation
Whoo boy... do yourself a favor, then, and don't check any of the stats on South Korean broadband access.
Of course, we're not as densely populated as either of those countries and, at least in South Korea's case, the subsidized broadband build-out was part of a conscious effort to encourage the development of their tech economy, something that America probably isn't too worried about.
So a national effort here seems unlikely, but there are various municipal projects to offer citywide wifi, which the cable and telecom industries are doing their best to block -- we shouldn't let them. I've got some ramblings on the subject here. Googling for "philadelphia wifi" or checking in over at EFF.org would probably turn up some more substantive pieces.
Posted by: tom | Apr 15, 2005 2:52:59 PM
Yeah but that's only because Japan's free-riding on our innovation, blah blah blah!
Posted by: JP | Apr 15, 2005 2:53:49 PM
While I might agree with Friedman's larger point, his data is just plain wrong. Specifically, broadband access in Japan does not cost $22/month.
Phone service costs at least $20/mo, and you need it for DSL internet access. DSL service costs another $45/mo. Those prices are comparable to what you pay for DSL in the US.
Posted by: Common Sense | Apr 15, 2005 3:01:56 PM
Comcast Outages
Three evenings in a row with a 3-4 hour webout. On the one hand, have been on the net since late 70s, and highspeed for at least ten years, and can remember early service outages that lasted days. Whereas now any diminution of access whatsoever is a major news event. I feel blessed.
OTOH the other hand if several million telephone users lost their service for several hours for several consecutive days there would be congressional hearings.
I fear wireless high-speed. My neck can't handle much more lead in my baseball cap.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Apr 15, 2005 3:02:59 PM
Bah. Preview.
Comcast Outages
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Apr 15, 2005 3:04:05 PM
Could we also have fist-fights in our parliament like they do? Without them c-span is b-o-r-i-n-g.
Posted by: abb1 | Apr 15, 2005 3:09:19 PM
Why would it be a good thing if the entity in charge of the United States Post Office became heavily involved in broadband?
And if instead what is called for is free government teat, phooey. If people and companies aren't willing to invest without massive subsidies, then it's rarely, rarely worth it to shower my tax money on them to induce them to do so.
Anyway, I'd be stunned if MY doesn't already have fast internet.
Posted by: ostap | Apr 15, 2005 3:11:43 PM
A cup of coffee costs $22 in Japan ... and it takes the same amount of time to drink.
Posted by: poputonian | Apr 15, 2005 3:12:12 PM
ostap,
railroads in the 1800s, interstate highways in the 1900s. Infrastructure.
Posted by: theCoach | Apr 15, 2005 3:15:27 PM
What's wrong with the Post Office?
Posted by: JP | Apr 15, 2005 3:19:28 PM
My immediate reaction was what cmdicely said. Japan has a much greater population density, so it requires less high speed wire per person in order to wire everyone.
The Japanese are also much greater technophiles. A greater percentage of Americans probably don't care enough about internet access to pay for it.
Posted by: Half Sigma | Apr 15, 2005 3:20:27 PM
Actually, the espresso drinks at Starbucks in Japan cost roughly the same as they do in Merika.
Posted by: Roxanne | Apr 15, 2005 3:20:47 PM
I was unaware that the national government was in charge of developing, pricing, marketing, and installing cable television or broadband internet capabilities for each household in the USA.
When did this happen?
Posted by: Movie Guy | Apr 15, 2005 3:38:31 PM
Phone service costs at least $20/mo, and you need it for DSL internet access.
No, you don't. Ok, many phone companies bundle their DSL service and phone service together, and tell you that you must have both, but that's the work of their marketing/sales department. There's no technical reason why you can't signal a copper pair for DSL but not phone service. In fact, at one apartment I lived at, my DSL and phone service were on seperate lines, through seperate providers. I could have canceled either without the other company knowing or caring.
You'll occasionally see this refered to as "naked DSL".
As for the faster service Friedman is referring to in Japan and South Korea, that's probably not DSL at all, but FTTP. It is avaliable in the US from a few of the telco monopolies in some locations (Verizon has a limited rollout) but availibility is much greater particularly in South Korea, the non-US country who's Internet infrastructure I'm most familiar with. Why? Because of *government intervention*.
And before the market fundementalists attack, may I point out that Verizon, SBC, etc, all have privliged positions due to the fact that state and local municipalities have granted them easements to lay their cable through public and private land. None of the big telecom companies would even *exist* in their current form without government intervention. As Friedman rightly points out, we are falling behind other countries dramatically as they continue to invest in this technology while we rely on an oligarchy of companies to get around to provding this stuff when they feel like it, which in their ideal world would be never, as it cuts into their highly profitable T1 business. As TheCoach rightly points out, government investment in infrastructure is nothing new, and has had great benifits to the country.
(Yes, this is a particular pet peeve of mine, I admit.)
Posted by: cwk | Apr 15, 2005 3:41:31 PM
I was unaware that the national government was in charge of developing, pricing, marketing, and installing cable television or broadband internet capabilities for each household in the USA.
Good job beating up that straw man! Think you can try addressing a position someone actually holds?
Posted by: cwk | Apr 15, 2005 3:45:21 PM
I'm curious -- what is the average speed & cost of broadband in the US? Also what kind of penetration exists? Is it readily available in rural areas?
I live in a small, backwater province in Canada. They started laying lines for high-speed about 11 yr.s ago. Today anywhere you can get either a phone or cable TV (both groups - MT&T & the cable companies - provide high-speed internet), you can get high-speed. I don't know the cost of just the broadband, since I always get bundled packages, but my phone, Cable TV & broadband cost just under $90cdn a month.
As for speed, on larger downloads I average around 250-280kbs... the other night it took a little over 2 & 1/2hours to download 2.5gb. Is that good by US standards?
Posted by: raff | Apr 15, 2005 3:49:44 PM
As for speed, on larger downloads I average around 250-280kbs... the other night it took a little over 2 & 1/2hours to download 2.5gb.
That looks more like 250-280kB/s than 250-280kb/s (kilobytes vs. kilobits), that's about the nominal speed I think I have with the most recent upgrade on our line (3.0Mb/s) though having that sustained on a single download is, IME, fairly rare. I think its a fairly common nominal speed for broadband in the US, by I get the impression that quite a sizable percentage of US internet users are still using low-cost dialup at connection rates of 56kb/s (though frequently now with "acceleration" -- caching and compression at the ISP -- that speeds apparent speed for some kinds of web content).
Posted by: cmdicely | Apr 15, 2005 4:09:30 PM
This probably cuts somewhat both ways - but it certainly it adds to cmdicely's point above - but I occasionally represent a cellular telephone company that recently provided telephone service to a rural southern town for the first time ever. Not just cellphone service - ANY telephone service. Our country just has major differences from Japan and South Korea that nobody, not even Bush, can just fix all by themselves.
Posted by: Al | Apr 15, 2005 4:13:08 PM
I thought that broadband usage recently surpassed dialup in terms of # of users here in the US. Am I wrong?
Posted by: Al | Apr 15, 2005 4:15:39 PM
I hate it when I forget to use that.
Posted by: cmdicely | Apr 15, 2005 4:20:09 PM
I would be afraid that any Congressional action on national policy would turn into an effort by the phone companies and cable companies to kill any and all local efforts, to create municipal systems. There are many places, where having the city or a startup build-out, with utilizing the existing phone or cable TV system makes economic sense; of course, phone co and cable stockholders get screwed royally in the "creative destruction" involved.
As another poster noted, Tom's lame phrasing, "average connection time 16 times faster in the United States" flags his ignorance on this issue.
A flag of thoughtfulness would be to focus on increasing broadband "upload" capacity. DSL upload capacity is typically little better than dial-up; cable co. systems are so restrictive regarding usable ports/services, etc., that their upload is useless. If the goal of increasing broadband capacity/availability is to build economic potential upon which individuals/small businesses can build, then "upload" and lots of it, is critical.
Posted by: Bruce Wilder | Apr 15, 2005 4:20:40 PM
I thought that broadband usage recently surpassed dialup in terms of # of users here in the US. Am I wrong?
I think -- but I'm not sure -- you are correct; when I said "a quite sizable percentage" I did not mean "a majority".
Posted by: cmdicely | Apr 15, 2005 4:21:18 PM
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