Discussion Forums > Technology
ISP Bandwidth Limits
TMRNetShark:
--- Quote from: karakurared on September 13, 2011, 01:32:34 AM ---Yeah the U.S. is seriously dropping the ball when it comes to broadband.
When I was in Japan 10 years ago we got what the average American citizen gets today (which is around 10meg). And Europe practically mandates that their people get good service. This chart pretty much says it all.
That being said, I recently upgraded my service to 60/6 and it's pretty descent. Cost me $100/month. Got a 500gb monthly cap but I've been breaking it a lot and they haven't cut me off yet. Keeping my fingers crossed though.
Looked into the business service. It's almost double the money for the same speed. No caps though.
--- End quote ---
Japan is about 145,882 square miles. USA is about 3,794,083 square miles. Once again, South Korea is 38486 square miles. Why some smaller countries have amazing internet speed versus even smaller countries having terrible speed is all about infrastructure. Do countries lower on the speed list have less demand for internet? Hell no... do countries with higher bandwidth speeds use 100% of the bandwidth? I certainly don't use all of my 20 Mb/s 90% of the time. I don't care how big my connection is (although, it is important), it isn't as important as the SPEED (or ping/latency). Some people have terrible latency issues in Canada or AUS/NZ. Why? Infrastructure.
karakurared:
That's a good point about the size difference impacting the infrastructure. And they only have half the population of the U.S. so that help them out too.
But I think the point being made by the others was that there is a price/performance disparity. While what you say is indeed true, the sheer cost of broadband vs. the performance Americans get leaves much to be desired.
I pay about $100 for 60mb service.
My friend in Japan pays $60 for 160mb service.
I would call this a substantial difference :P
And I'm pretty sure that the stats on that chart only take the average of people who actually buy broadband service so it's not like millions of people contribute zeros to the equation. (haven't confirmed that)
TMRNetShark:
--- Quote from: karakurared on September 13, 2011, 02:24:03 AM ---That's a good point about the size difference impacting the infrastructure. And they only have half the population of the U.S. so that help them out too.
But I think the point being made by the others was that there is a price/performance disparity. While what you say is indeed true, the sheer cost of broadband vs. the performance Americans get leaves much to be desired.
I pay about $100 for 60mb service.
My friend in Japan pays $60 for 160mb service.
I would call this a substantial difference :P
And I'm pretty sure that the stats on that chart only take the average of people who actually buy broadband service so it's not like millions of people contribute zeros to the equation. (haven't confirmed that)
--- End quote ---
It probably doesn't add people without broadband/no internet at all. Seriously though? The average in the USA isn't even up to 10 Mb/s? I've had 17-20 Mb/s for at least 3 years now. The only thing is, I live on the east coast. Comparatively speaking, I'm within 175 miles of 4 major cities (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York)... There is also a much greater concentration of suburbs and rural areas that constitute a higher population per square mile of the east coast. In lame terms, there is a lot of people spread out among east coast, and infrastructure to handle the internet load is easily made (Verizon proved that point quite easily around here). Don't have internet infrastructure in your rural house? Verizon will lay down infrastructure to get service to your house within 2 weeks... and all you pay for is the installation at your house (or free if they are running a promotion). So think of the east coast as a big "web" of inter-connected internet pipelines connecting major areas together.
Then take a look at the West coast. There is LA, San Diego, San Fransisco, Las Vegas, Denver, and all the other major cities. There isn't much need for sprawling infrastructure between each city... so there is maybe 2-3 major dedicated pipelines of intrawebs connecting each city to create it's "larger" web. Then again, the choices of ISPs is limited anywhere you are in the USA. I'm sure that since Japan is a very geographically tiny country (with well over 1/3 of the USA's population), it is able to lay down the infrastructure relatively fast and cheaply (because they probably manufacture all the equipment, routing boxes, cable/fiber optics lines) all right there in the country. Not only that, but there is probably massive competition between each ISP in Japan... which is probably why it's cheaper and faster.
On a side note... Japan probably has massively cheaper cell phone data plans than in the USA. There is only REALLY a choice between 4 companies. The 2 bigger companies (ATT and Verizon) both impose a data limit each month (before the rise of the smart phones, data was unlimited). So not only is competition thriving in Japan, but it's good for the end user because the Japan people probably get the best quality internet/cell service in the world. Why? Small country = less area to cover for infrastructure... meaning better quality infrastructure per square mile (for both internet and cell service).
Then again, there is a "Sunlight" tax in Tokyo. ::)
karakurared:
rofl at the sunlight tax 8)
And yeah I didn't even think about wireless. Things have changed so much since I moved so I can't really say much about it.
Speaking of wireless... I recent got on the 4gLTE network with Verizon, and just in time to get unlimited data plan :)
I'm not sure how it compared to Japan's wireless but it's pretty frickin' sweet!! I grabbed the latest Nichijou episode while I was away from the house and that downloaded at a pretty steady 2000k. Dunno if I could get it faster with more seeds, but whatever I'm happy with what I get.
So do you guys get FIOS over there in the south west?
Edit: East coast I mean... was reading about L.A. while typing :P
Stsin:
Why US broadband sucks hard:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=competition-and-the-internet
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-is-european-broadband-faster-and-cheaper-blame-the-governme/
http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2011/03/05/why-us-broadband-is-so-slow/
It's due to lack of competition that the govt forced upon us. I'm sure some representatives are wealthier now after removing shared access to essential fiber infrastructure for competitive carriers.
I've once said that a project that the fed can do to create jobs, is to help lay down the fibre infrastructure so that we don't get passed up by 3rd world countries. But what's the point, when it can't be shared with other competitors?
No matter how large our country is, saying we can't do the same as Italy or any other country that have upgraded overnight, is pure BS. It's like saying it's difficult to supply water or electricity to rural areas....and totally ignoring the ease of doing it in the metropolitan areas. So why does our metropolitan areas sucks so hard?
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