Americans Paying More For Worse Internet

[Something Amyss]

And NOBODY is surprised.

It doesn't hurt that this is basically the same report that comes out every year and says roughly the same thing.

Okay, seriously, the article is dead on that the poor Internet is probably due to a few companies holding a near monopoly on the Internet services in a particular area. That's an unfortunate side effect of capitalism and looks like the U.S. needs stronger anti-competitive laws in this area, I wish you guys luck since I know what a pain getting laws through your Congress is.

Actually, we have anti-competitive laws. When Adelphia sold out to Comcast and Time Warner, they underwent review. The problem is that our enforcement is shit. Comcast and Time Warner have (had, maybe? I haven't checked in a couple years) a duopoly and likely won't compete with one another, hence the amicable split of Adelphia.

So yeah, we have large portions of the country dominated by one or two ISPs.

Additionally, Comcast has a history of bumping people for using too much bandwidth even before they defined a cap. Oddly enough, they are very much like health care, as they want to take your money and not perform services.

Also, and I think The Escapist has reported on this before, ISPs petitioned congress specifically to the opposition of increased service expectations and the like. They even went so far as to tell Congress we might run out of internet. Which was phrased, I believe, in a way to deliberately mislead the 900 year olds in Congress who think cameras will capture their souls.

 

[strumbore]

Next some idiot will be saying "AFFORDABLE INTERNET IS A RIIIIIIGHT!"

Like shoes.
And clothes.
And healthcare.
And houses.
And phones.
And other things that DIDN'T EVEN EXIST in early society!

The narrower it gets, the stupider it gets.

 

[Geekeric]

Whatever your internet speed, did you actually look at that report? I'm sorry, but I didn't think the data was well presented; it was a damn mess. Want to give data on global internet quality? Maybe a few pie charts? Call me fussy, but I don't know how anyone wrote an article about that data; but then, you don't really believe what you read on the internet, do you?

 

[Olas]

*cough* You can thank the British Empire for that, actually.

Well the British empire is where we came from, so yes, in a sense you are correct.

The "most powerful military" is not something to be proud of, either.

Why not? Having a strong military lets you protect yourself and your allies? You could argue the money we spend on it should be spent elsewhere, and I'd agree with you. You could also argue that we don't use our military force very intelligently, and I'd agree with you there as well. But having a strong military itself is pretty much an inherent positive.

GDP means nothing if the people are not happy, sheer productiveness for the sake of being productive is only good for the ruling 0.0001%

You have a solid point, and I agree that GDP is not everything. However the increased standard of living that the US has brought about through our massive economic prosperity in the last 60+ years has almost inarguably benefitted the entire world. The United States is far from being the happiest country, but that's for a lot of other reasons not directly related to our economy.

"technologically innovative"? That's rather up for grabs. Technologies that are fundamental to modern life have come from all over the world.

Google, Microsoft, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, AT&T, Dell, Intel, Amazon, and Verizon Wireless all come from the United States. These companies have reshaped the technological landscape of the entire world multiple times over. To argue that we aren't the leader in technology is insane.

America's primary reason for becoming such a world power is simply the fact that they had by far the largest and most intact industrial base and economy at the end of World War 2. You have gradually squandered that massive head start and Europe has certainly caught up, while China is coming to get you.

China steals our technological innovations and illegally counterfeits them with the help of extremely cheap labour. China artificially undervalues it's currency to create the illusion of having a higher GDP, an anticompetitive practice that has weakened the world economy as a whole. For an industrialized nation China has some of the lowest living standards and will soon become the biggest contributor to Global Warming if it hasn't already. I don't care how "prosperous" China's economy becomes as long as it continues to be this toxic.

As far as Europe goes: Europe isn't one country, as a continent is has a larger land area and more than double the population of the US. Despite all that the US is nearly tied with it for GDP and has a much larger GDP per capita. That doesn't mean that the United States is better, there are a lot of countries that I'd rather live in, but I certainly don't think we've "squandered our lead" since WWII.

 

[J Tyran]

I personally want to know how well the UK compares because half the time it seems like we're paying out the arse for decent broadband.

Hint: start from the bottom of the list. The UK barely qualifies as a "post-industrial nation" when it comes to connectivity.

Britain has the same problem as the US, some places have decent internet with loads more places having absolutely terrible internet. If you live in one of the areas with a fibre optic network owned by BT or Virgin[footnote]the Virgin fibre network is way older than the BT one and separate, it was installed across parts of the UK by cable companies in the 90s. Those companies where swallowed up by larger telecom firms and then they where all eventually bought out by Virgin. Virgins cable service is on their own network, BT Infinity and Sky Fibre etc all share BTs fibre optic network and Virgin also offer DSL services over BTs phone network. Its basically a huge patchwork mess.[/footnote] connection speeds are fine and go as high as 50-100Mb. The problem is you can go for a 10 minute drive and you are then in an area with 2Mb or worse, the DSL lines are terrible.

Spoiler: My connection for example

[http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3198305796]

As you can see my connection isn't anything to shout about yet its "faster than 77% of GB" (I pay out of my arse for it too), if I go to my sisters just down the road they do not have cable and she is lucky to get 10% of that bandwidth. Its a mess here frankly.

The Government keeps talking about doing something but they don't want to spend money on the problem and there are too many other fights going in Parliament for anyone to really do anything.

 

[Roxas1359]

Actually, we have anti-competitive laws. When Adelphia sold out to Comcast and Time Warner, they underwent review. The problem is that our enforcement is shit.

I think a better example would probably be the Bell Telephone Company and how it's monopoly was broken up into what is now AT&T, and AT&T has a near monopoly again. Funny thing is despite the US Justice System mandating that they'd be broken up into the multiple "independent companies", and most of those Independent companies have been purchased and absorbed to where the two main service providers for phones are Verizon and AT&T, which I find funny since AT&T has the most remnants of Pacific Bell and the rest of the Bell Telephone Company. It also doesn't help in which certain ISPs are preventing things from advancing, for example Cox Digital and AT&T have contracts that give them an entire grip on Southern California, and as such Google Fibre and Comcast aren't even allowed to be set up here, although I don't mind keeping the shit that is Comcast out.
Roadrunner still exists in small pockets down here, but it's pretty much been phased out by Cox and AT&T. Just like how in southern California we used to have a multitude of telephone providers, but AT&T purchased Cingular Wireless and attempted to purchase out T-Mobile but failed. Cricket Wireless is pretty much dead now, and Sprint is sorta dead down here, but apparently they are about to acquire all of T-Mobile so there's a scary thought.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, if the usual service providers weren't greedy fucks and there wasn't this constant idiocy of trying o clamp down on something that isn't designed for clamping and if they could design things to work right and stop blaming users for their idiocy...this wouldn't happen, now would it?

 

[Strazdas]

Google tried to introduce america to better internet. they got sued by locals, who judging from their prices should have provided a 1gbps connection to begin with, for "unfair competition" and lost. congratulations, your ISPs are now more evil than google.

One factor is being ignored: Latvia has one of the world's strongest currencies, comparable with GBP(Pounds Sterling).

That is, they did until they switched to the Euro.

Where did you got that from? Latvia had a highly valued by switfly falling currency before they joined the Euro lockdown.
Not sure why they talk about Latvia in the article thought since its neighboar Lithuania outshoots it in internet speeds and costs (there is a reason we have the fastest internet in the world here). I am using a "cheap and slow" 100mbps line that costs me ~8 dollars a month. Ill let that sink in for all those that pay 60 dollars for barely above dialup.

Actual speeds=/=promised speeds.

Sue. Or at least start by complaining in writting. This is illegal. Then again i heard your contracts dont even have acceptable uptime that they cant go bellow so maybe your law is fucked up there too.
We had a ISP that used to give less actual speed till it lost couple court cases because of it.

I have fibre, and one of the best things about it is the reliability at which it stays at the advertised speed.

Thats because technically each "hair" of fiber optics can trasnfer of up to 1gbps (provided its not very far from the switcher) and the only limitation really is ISP induced. The regular copper cables dont have this luxury.

more users means the accessible max bandwith has to be divided by the number of users thus slower speeds.
guys, really. stop these silly shit. use logic.

that an almost unlimited number of people can access the same ammount of mb/s is a pipedream.

we even have managed to get real 100Mbps.

More users means you need higher broadbadn on ISP level, which costs money. Judging by the prices in US for internet, they should be giving gbps and still make profit. smaller city should actually be in a worse situation because of less costumers = less income.
in my country we have internet infrastructure that can give HDTV to almost everyone (fiber optics coverage is above 80% of population in 2011 and growing). In fact, most TV providers are no longer using TV cables but using internet and local signal translators. thats hundreds of gigabytes per second in any major city. Its not a pipedream, its a reality. Not get on it.

It's a proven fact that dial-up connections cause terrorism. And do you know who else had dial-up internet? Hitler!

I guess its good thing then that sovits kept my country so repressed that we skileld the dial-up and went striaght forT1 then?
btw, are there really people still using dialups? It should be a odd hobby just like listening to viny records, but excelt not useful.

Yeah, but does the study say anything about usage caps? Judging by the complaints I read on Internet forums, the US seems to be just about the only country in the world where you can actually get wired Internet without any cap on monthly usage. Who cares if it's blazing fast if that just means you end up using it all up faster?

erm what? Usage caps went extinct in 2007-2008 here. Even the last ISPS still holding on that gave up in 2011 or so because people simply refused to use shit like that (and the caps were like 300gb per month, what most people wont use anyway). It amazes me how backwards a country has to be to still use internet caps. i can understand greedy ISPS with no infrastructure to run higher speeds but caps are pure evil invention.

 

[devotedsniper]

UK here and I'm on 60mb fibre optic @ £30 a month and I can't complain, I average roughly 4mb/s sometimes hitting 7mb/s depending where I download from/what time of day. Also just did a speed test and was pleasantly surprised to find i'm actually getting more than what I paid for;

Spoiler: The speeeeeed!!

Can't complain at all, UK internet is getting faster every year, I'm getting a free upgrade to 100mb from my ISP (Virgin Media) at no extra monthly cost next year didn't even have to ask they just sent an email to let me know.

*EDIT* Before I get shouted at, our internet isn't great everywhere and not every ISP is good. I was on Sky previously who you would think would be one of the best but there internet was slower than tortoise walking, it would constantly die and the router/modem they supply (which you can't change legally!) would give up if you connected another device (would only supply one machine for a minute or so before realising there was another to give net to).

 

[Strazdas]

I feel lucky and upset at the same time. Yeah, I get about 43 MBPs on a good day and 37 on a bad, but I'm paying for 50 and paying $85 a month for it.

you pay 10 times more for 3 times less. Not really that much to feel lucky about.

One of the "problems" the US faces, is it was one of the first countries to build it's infrastructure. So it's not very easy to just say tear up every copper wire, railroad track, road, etc. and replace it with the latest.

Soviets have left us with a copper wire infrastructure everywhere (even in palces none was needed, because the purpose was to build, not to be efficient). We do not use it anymore because its obsolete and have placed a better infrastructure there instead of hanging on the old one while we were recovering from basically being a hostage for 60 years. you dont even have excuse of outside military power forcing your hand and still cling to obsolete ifrastructures. Internet isnt the only one it seems as you do that same with roads as well. funnily enough Rairoad tracks seems to be about to fall apaprt themselves anyway.

IN the 80s we had the internet, and phone lines everywhere, how many countries could say that.

in the 80s we had phone lines everywhere yet we are the fastest internet in the world now. this is no excuse.

It's tough though to say, go spread fiber or glass or towers everywhere, when the majority of people won't pay for it.. yet. I think the next advancement will have to come from a very low infrastructure base, i.e. wireless. Why do we have to be 1st anyway?

But they already paid. the prices for internet in america is so high you could ahve built fiber optics infrastructure twice over already and still made profit.
Also you dont have to be 1st, but the way your going your going to be the last.

Majori cities here already got wireless infrastructure here that is directly competing (altrough poorly) with fiber optics infrastructure. meanwhile you got your ovepriced dialup monopolies.

I work part-time for a large Cable Company. We recently upgraded our speed to our service are at no-cost to the customers, and are slowly replacing equipment for the next upgrade. For anyone who knows about Internet through DOCSIS, we are almost at the DOCSIS 3.0 standard today. The extreme discount people get 10-15Mbps, Normal Customers get 20-25Mbps, and the Fast Customers get 30-50Mbps. We can achieve speeds of up to 100Mbps in certain areas. We even double our Upstream, but our equipment is still pretty slow on that. It an extremely complicated and expensive problem on upgrades, our company does not have the financial backing to upgrade everyone at once. We were losing money about 5 years ago, and now we are barely making profits. This goes for most of the Cable companies in the United States. I know in about 5 years we'll be closer to DOCSIS 4, which is guessed at around 5Gbps Down, 1Gbps Up.

I want to wager money though that Riga ISPs do have some sort of Bandwidth limits, I know they are the norm outside the United States, as where the US is unlimited.

Since you work there may you mind telling me what sort of idiotic problem is causing ISPs to not give same upspeed as downspeed? as soon as i find this is the case that ISP isnt even in my consideration list when looking at internet, as far as im concerned that should never happen and the only explanation i ever managed to recieve was because "lol it stops piracy".
Riga ISP does not have bandwtich limits, and they are not the norm. they were the norm 5 years ago and more. not anymore.

Oh Google, I'll forgive you for your butchering of YouTube if you can just spread your Fiber to my city! Our world is that of darkness and despair; You're our only hope!

They cant, your local ISP can sue them for doing so and win, because "unfair competition".

Edit: Oh, FYI - I'm using DSL (because it was half the price of Road Runner). As I write this post, I'm watching streaming video (via my PS3) on my television and browsing the internet. I realize my connection is probably too slow for online gaming, but I hate online multiplayer so I don't care.

Streaming isnt much now, especially if its not "HD" streaming (thought i find it insulting to call it HD, whne its really so compressed its as good as SD, actual HD streaming takes upwards of 40mbps and no site i know actually does it. Twitch comes close by allowing "source" which only works if they use specific codec and compression but thats as close as you get on the internet now.
Dont worry about online gaming though, if you can do streaming you can do online gaming unless you got massive pings (which dont matter for streaming but matter for gaming). MMOS are optimized to run on very very slow internets, and ping intensive games liek shooters can still be run on slow internet provided ping is low enough (most people talk about 50ms and bellow but i saw no difference between 17ms and 77ms when the server was behaving in time) While yes you are behind couple frames on 77 ms but unless your sniping from a distance that will matter little.

Next some idiot will be saying "AFFORDABLE INTERNET IS A RIIIIIIGHT!"

Like shoes.
And clothes.
And healthcare.
And houses.
And phones.
And other things that DIDN'T EVEN EXIST in early society!

The narrower it gets, the stupider it gets.

WOman rights didnt exist in society for thousands of years till less than a hundred years ago. Surely then their rights are bogus and stupid.

Access to internet is currently labeled as a basic human right. It does not state affordability of the thing, but the assumtion is just like you cant starve people to death because "lol you cant afford it" same should apply to other commodities.

 

[RicoADF]

Notice other countries like UK and Australia have similar problems.

Actually Australia is currently in the process of rolling out fibre cable to 95% of the population, atleast assuming that the Liberals that took over don't screw it all up. FYI our Liberals are like America's Republicans, a bunch of rich conservatives that put themselves first and no-one else after.

 

[legendp]

I live in australia and this is my experiance

Well Up until 2010 I was on a 60-140kb/s speed with a max down load of 15gb a month, paying $70. then we moved, in 2011 we had 100-200kb/s and I thought that was really fast. now we have a speed of 120kb/s all the way up to 3mb/s and I think it's ridiculously quick, admiteddly we were still paying top dollar for like 20gb but finnaly now that it's 2014 we will be getting 200gb a month.

What am I trying to say here, that it is really all perspective. and that anything more than mb/s is good for 99% of occasions. so be happy if you have that, if not than beleive me I understand the pain, like I said, back in 2010 I ussually only got 80kb/s, hope you can get better internet soon

these are my results, but I don't think I have ever seen my internet hit these speeds in real world performance (unless that is mega bits and not megabytes).

[http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3199050222]

(turns out the above result is in mega bits, so take that and divide it by 8, 4.48 diveded by 8 is 560kb/s)
so whats everyone elses results, out of curoisity

 

[spartan231490]

Of course we pay more, we're the wealthiest country in the world. We pay more for everything.

 

[fenrizz]

Of course we pay more, we're the wealthiest country in the world. We pay more for everything.

Take a trip to Norway, and experience what paying more really means.

 

[Sectan]

Most of it comes from having around 5 big names when it comes to communication businesses. There's no competition so you can charge as much as you want and people will have to choose between you or nothing. Right now I'm living in rural Southwest Minnesota and I'm paying $60 USD a month for less than 1MB speeds.


Captcha: Neckbeard. You know what? Fuck you too captcha.

 

[Demonjazz]

I'm suprised that they haven't already put in some kind of law to force higher internet speeds, if only to allow the NSA to gather more information on people.

You see I like to think that the NSA is intentionally sabotaging our internet speeds because We are all secretly in a Reality Television show and nobody's told us yet and they want us to yell at our computers for being slow to get more views on their show... What? It's better than the alternative.

 

[Living_Brain]

They cant, your local ISP can sue them for doing so and win, because "unfair competition".

Sure they can. I live in Chicago where there's plenty of competition and choices. (Well not plenty, but all the big players are here) It's not some backwoods' town with only one ISP available.

EDIT: The thing is, all the services are overpriced (as compared to Google Fiber), as if they have an agreement not to outdo each other. Interesting... Maybe you're right. I f***ing hope not.

 

[Griffolion]

-snip-

Rural Brit here. My ISP is a local company that uses wireless transmission to get high speed, low latency access to many rural areas (I'm in the north west). Without them, I'd be on 1.5 mbps with BT.

I agree our government needs to kick BT in the backside as far as fiber rollout is concerned, but Ofcom does do a good job of making sure the line rentals to VNO's (anyone else that isn't Virgin fiber optic) are fair.

As far as the US is concerned, no regulator (no, the FCC doesn't count as a regulator, guys) and the government bought out by the big corporations means you guys aren't going to get any better any time soon. It's weird to say, but a player like Google are your only hope.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I hate how Americans think they are the focus of everything.

No, Scandinavia has the best internet, you twat.
No, Japan and other Asian countries have the best transportation, you idiot.
No, India has the best cosmetics, and safest, cheapest plastic reconstruction surgeries, you fuckwit.
No, many poorer countries around the world even have better health care than you, many of which offer it for free.
And there are many other places in the world that are better than you at other things. Just because you're one of the biggest doesn't mean that you're good at it. (+1 Freud)

As for the whole Internet thing, this is a suprise to no one. And I have no idea what anyone's expecting to be done about it. Airlift American?