Is this true?

Re: Is this true?

Yes, in Japan and Korea they are heavily investing in their bandwidth. But think about the size of the countries, they are tiny compared to the U.S. Think about how much money it would take to run faster stuff throughout the U.S. However, once again those governments are spending billions to make their stuff faster, and I don't know if our government is spending anything. I'm sure it would take a whole lot more money than what they are spending though.

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I can't see the picture, but yes, going to Japan was like stepping into the future.

--
H

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But like the picture clearly explains, the metropolitan areas are more or less equally dense. So what's the excuse?

Many infrastructure projects may seem like a waste. But digital infrastructures are the difference between a highly competitive nation, and one that's on the verge of collapse.

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Not all servers are located in the same metropolitan area though. And the distance between those areas is much less in Japan and Korea. All Korean web servers could be within 300-400 miles of each other (tip to tip). In the U.S. that server you're accessing could be 3,000 miles away. Even if you upgraded the bandwidth for all large cities, whose gonna run the lines in between them.

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I was working in the telecom industry when it collapsed, and I had a front-row seat to that train wreck. The telecom industry seemed to have unlimited growth, and it was looking for ways to spend its money. Sprint and MCI were both committed to building nation-wide fiber-optic, terrestrial networks and spent billions doing so. Today, 90% of the nation's fiber network goes unused, and all that investment just led to bankruptcy. If the money hadn't run out, MCI would probably be half way done building fiber optic to the Moon. (Okay, not really, but you know what I mean.)

Research shows that most people in the US who want broadband already have it, and most of those who don't have it don't want it. We spent the 90s building out infrastructure nobody wanted, so we're not doing that again. Today telecom corporations find it easier just to expand their wireless coverage a little at a time, first for voice, then for data, as the market warrants.

I don't see this as a bad thing.

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The revolution in online business and information access shows that online access leads to innovative new businesses. High-speed access enables businesses that were impossible before. It's not a stretch to predict that increasing speed another ten-fold would lead to new businesses that aren't possible now.

I think America would substantially benefit from national, high speed internet access.

As for those who don't have it and don't want it, well I'm sure there were those who had their horse and didn't have nor want a car.

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It is simple. The Japanese/Koreans use the people's tax dollars to build their network. We let the free market do it.

The problem with having the government do it is that they often pick the wrong technology/solution. The free market is better at choosing the best solution [assuming a level playing field].

Does 100Mbits/sec give a society THAT MUCH more of an economic advantage than 5Mbits/sec? While, I would love to have the extra speed, what else can you really do with it besides watching porn/video clips faster?

Also, what Japanese/Korean pure Internet companies are setting the world on fire?

What will be interesting is when FIOS, UVERSE, and DOCSIS 3.0 start really start competing with one another.

I follow the EngadgetHD site, and the competition on the HD video side between FIOS, UVERSE, DISH, DIRECT TV, and the cable companies has been intense as they are all trying to out do one another. The are adding bandwidth, satellites, laying new cable, upgrading equipment at a frenetic pace. TWC recently spent $200 million upgrading their network in the DFW area only because they have been feeling the heat from the other companies.

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There's a lot more than just online video that could benefit from better speed. I work for a software company and I have to send large files all the time to folks. There's so much more that could be hosted and accessed remotely that can't be done as efficiently right now.

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The Gaming industry is a perfect example of what happens when the technology goes way beyond the basic needs of a game. Both graphics card manufacturers and game publishers have been going crazy for years trying to outdo each other. The true winners are all of us, who now benefit from outstanding games whose graphics look more realistic after every upgrade.

Build a faster Internet infrastructure, and see the technological advances fly out the door. Don't build the infrastructure, and watch the economy stagnate for years, possibly decades.

Also how can one say the Korean and Japanese governments chose the wrong technology? Their average home connections are twenty times faster than our average home connections, and we're the ones with the capitalistic society!

My Internet sucks!

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It's not a question of "wrong" technology, it's a question of what makes business sense. Your last sentence says a lot. "I want everyone else to pay for what I want!" Brian said the demand simply isn't there, so why should people be forced to pay for something they don't really want? "They'd want it if they saw it the way I see it" is not a good answer.

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Does 5Mbits/sec give a society THAT MUCH more of an advantage of 250 kbit/sec? Amazon and HTF would argue "Yes"

Some ideas on what to do with another 20x more bandwidth increase
* True HD movie download services. Not the overcompressed videos iTunes currently offers, but live streaming video comparable to Blu Ray

* Digital distribution of movies to movie theaters

* High resolution, 3D product images from online retailers. Think Crutchfield's detail, but better, everywhere.

But these are simply consumer facing uses. You've got to think bigger picture, what goes on behind the scenes. I'm running tests which produce currently pushing about 10 GB each run. All the the data is kept on the network and going from a 10 Mb/s connection to a 100 Mb/s connection decreased analysis time 5x. If I could go to 1 Gb connection, I'd be CPU limited. I can imagine, then with a high-speed national network being able to push this kind of data around so engineers around the country could see it.

Back to practical uses: high-speed bandwidth also enables effective telecommuting. Currently I can connect to work and the feel of Windows via Remote Desktop is very clunky. it's workable, but it's not the same as being there. Give me more bandwidth and I can remotely work with my full dual-20" LCD setup being sent to my home computer. Give me even more bandwidth, and I can video-conference with my coworkers. And now you start going more "green" with fewer people driving.

Make this normal across the nation and we can video-conference and tele-work with customers and vendors coast to coast and save the cost and wasted time of many business trips.

So, yes, I think order-of-magnitude bandwidth increase could lead to tremendous national economic gains.

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Amen! There's a defunct fiber optic line running along the interstate a block from my house which was laid 10 years ago.


The faster you can watch your porn, the more free time you end up having afterwards. Duh!

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Forget it. What's the point of telecommuting if you can't work in your socks and underwear?

Dave, seriously, you bring up some excellent points. But I agree with the assertion that all these points are more properly addressed by private industries in order to meet the demands of their respective markets.

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While I'm convinced that improved national bandwidth will help us, I don't know how we get there. Is this a consumer good, like an iPod, so we let businesses invent/invest/sell as people buy? Or is this an infrastructure issue, like roads and bridges, and how do we finance and build that out? Maybe it's all built out and "simply" needs to be turned on and put to use?

Beats me how to get there, but I think we'll benefit if we do.

Re: Is this true?

I'm not sure of myself here, but one thing the US doesn't have is "true nation-wide" telecom compaines like British Telecom, France Telecom, Deutsche Telecom, and NTT who can implement services everywhere.

We have this patchwork of companies that only provide certain services in certain areas.

I wonder if Japan also has a problem with the "If you build it, people will fill it up with junk" effect.

When you build more roads, tunnels, and bridges, it just encourages people to drive more.

If bittorrent is 50% of the internet traffic on a 5/Mbit network, is it also 50% of the traffic on a 100/Mbit network? I don't know.

This post is weird on so many levels. What does graphic card companies have to do with spending taxpayer dollars on broadband rollout? The last time I checked Japan and Korea were solidly capitalistic.


This isn't a bandwidth issue, the studios are scared to death of someone stealing a copy and then putting it on the internet. Also, doesn't cost a ton of money to retrofit a theater and power a LCD screen that is bright enough? I haven't read anything recently on this, though.

Also, what happened to all the government wireless projects that were supposed to happen in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and other places? They all seem to have fallen flat on their faces. I know the one in Addison, Texas was finished but I never hear anyone talking about it.

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Encryption. Yes there are practical problems with every idea I gave. And horses didn't need foul gasoline, could navigate rutted or rocky roads better than cars, and were much more personable.

Don't miss the forest for the trees

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Japanese are rich.

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Give it time. Of the original seven Baby Bells and Mama Bell, you now have essentially three major terrestrial phone providers: Verizon, AT&T and Qwest. The top five wireless providers (Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and TracFone) cover more than 96 percent of the United States's wireless subscribers. Cable companies aren't much more competitive; the top five cable providers (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter and Cablevision) cover nearly 75 percent of US cable subscribers. Almost all consumer broadband consumers get their internet through one of the aforementioned companies. If mergers continue at their current pace, it won't be long until America was one or two de facto national telecommunications providers.

Re: Is this true?

I have a colleague that lives in a suburb of Toyama (west coast). I asked him to do the speedtest at home-

2Mbps. Some of the other folks in the city that we know get closer to 10Mbps.

So, apparently, it's not universally fast.

Re: Is this true?

Well a little off topic but I just got FIOS installed. 20Mb down/5Mb up ($60 per month). I was downloading an update from Apple the other day and Safari indicated 2.4MB per second.

It is very nice. Highly recommended if available in your area.

-Keith

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Verizon has run FiOS by my parents' house, but the local franchising agreement prevents Verizon from offering TV service (they market a bundling with DirecTV instead). Since their cable bill jumped $10 to $107 this month for cable and internet, my father looked into switching. Without the bundled deal, the cost of getting just cable from Time Warner and just internet from FiOS would have been even higher than the $107 he's paying now. Those bundle deals are funny. When I was living in Boston, I subscribed to the Basic Cable because the discount for bundling TV and internet was greater than the $8 and change mandated for basic service by the city's franchising agreement. Since I get TV O.T.A. with a digital converter box, the only thing that keeps me from going with FiOS for internet is the contract structure. Right now my financial situation is very tenuous, and I don't want to be locked in for a year in case I have to drop service later.