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some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
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some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
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In this posting, i bemoaned the fact that the US is not # 1 as it relates to a lot of things. Internet service is sadly, now one of those things. In 2001, after the explosive growth of the Internet and online businesses in the 1990s, the United States had taken the lead online. In terms of percentage of the population with high-speed access, countries like Japan and Germany had half the penetration we did. France had less than a quarter. Now, all three of those countries have passed us. We’re falling behind in providing high-speed access to the Internet, and just as importantly, our high-speed connections are much slower and more expensive than other countries. How’d this happen? How did the U.S. go from setting the pace to falling far behind? Paul Krugman explains.
[T]he world may look flat once you’re in cyberspace — but to get there you need to go through a narrow passageway, down your phone line or down your TV cable. And if the companies controlling these passageways can behave like the robber barons of yore, levying whatever tolls they like on those who pass by, commerce suffers.
America’s Internet flourished in the dial-up era because federal regulators didn’t let that happen — they forced local phone companies to act as common carriers, allowing competing service providers to use their lines. Clinton administration officials, including Al Gore and Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, tried to ensure that this open competition would continue — but the telecommunications giants sabotaged their efforts, while The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page ridiculed them as people with the minds of French bureaucrats.
And when the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the F.C.C., the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there’s little competition in U.S. broadband — if you’re lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there’s nowhere else to go.
Effective market competition and effective regulation produced quality results. That was then, this is now.... .............. Without mentioning the "B" (or "W" if you prefer) word of course...  I demand better!
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Joined: May 2003
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some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
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some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
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sorry... you have to pay to see the article at the NY Times. Here's the full article for free.
The French Connections
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Monday 23 July 2007
There was a time when everyone thought that the Europeans and the Japanese were better at business than we were. In the early 1990s airport bookstores were full of volumes with samurai warriors on their covers, promising to teach you the secrets of Japanese business success. Lester Thurow's 1992 book, "Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe and America," which spent more than six months on the Times best-seller list, predicted that Europe would win.
Then it all changed, and American despondency turned into triumphalism. Partly this was because the Clinton boom contrasted so sharply with Europe's slow growth and Japan's decade-long slump. Above all, however, our new confidence reflected the rise of the Internet. Jacques Chirac complained that the Internet was an "Anglo-Saxon network," and he had a point - France, like most of Europe except Scandinavia, lagged far behind the U.S. when it came to getting online.
What most Americans probably don't know is that over the last few years the situation has totally reversed. As the Internet has evolved - in particular, as dial-up has given way to broadband connections using DSL, cable and other high-speed links - it's the United States that has fallen behind.
The numbers are startling. As recently as 2001, the percentage of the population with high-speed access in Japan and Germany was only half that in the United States. In France it was less than a quarter. By the end of 2006, however, all three countries had more broadband subscribers per 100 people than we did.
Even more striking is the fact that our "high speed" connections are painfully slow by other countries' standards. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, French broadband connections are, on average, more than three times as fast as ours. Japanese connections are a dozen times faster. Oh, and access is much cheaper in both countries than it is here.
As a result, we're lagging in new applications of the Internet that depend on high speed. France leads the world in the number of subscribers to Internet TV; the United States isn't even in the top 10.
What happened to America's Internet lead? Bad policy. Specifically, the United States made the same mistake in Internet policy that California made in energy policy: it forgot - or was persuaded by special interests to ignore - the reality that sometimes you can't have effective market competition without effective regulation.
You see, the world may look flat once you're in cyberspace - but to get there you need to go through a narrow passageway, down your phone line or down your TV cable. And if the companies controlling these passageways can behave like the robber barons of yore, levying whatever tolls they like on those who pass by, commerce suffers.
America's Internet flourished in the dial-up era because federal regulators didn't let that happen - they forced local phone companies to act as common carriers, allowing competing service providers to use their lines. Clinton administration officials, including Al Gore and Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, tried to ensure that this open competition would continue - but the telecommunications giants sabotaged their efforts, while The Wall Street Journal's editorial page ridiculed them as people with the minds of French bureaucrats.
And when the Bush administration put Michael Powell in charge of the F.C.C., the digital robber barons were basically set free to do whatever they liked. As a result, there's little competition in U.S. broadband - if you're lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go.
Meanwhile, as a recent article in Business Week explains, the real French bureaucrats used judicious regulation to promote competition. As a result, French consumers get to choose from a variety of service providers who offer reasonably priced Internet access that's much faster than anything I can get, and comes with free voice calls, TV and Wi-Fi.
It's too early to say how much harm the broadband lag will do to the U.S. economy as a whole. But it's interesting to learn that health care isn't the only area in which the French, who can take a pragmatic approach because they aren't prisoners of free-market ideology, simply do things better.
Warning. The word "French" is in the title so any knee-jerk reactions against "socialism" will be understood. Still, this sad state of affairs in not because of capitalistic competition in this country but rather because of a LACK of it.
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Son of Anarchist 15000+ posts
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Son of Anarchist 15000+ posts
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The Philippines is under a similar problem with quality of thur internetz. Basically, we have one giant tel-company that owns all the competition and just markets each of them under a different name. The qualities of their connection are all substandard and customer service is almost non-existent.
The National Telecommunications Commission and Department of Trade and Industries, two bodies that were designed to prevent the problem, are doing nothing.
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Your death will make me king! 15000+ posts
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Your death will make me king! 15000+ posts
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Still, this sad state of affairs in not because of capitalistic competition in this country but rather because of a LACK of it.
Welcome to America. Glad you could join us.
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Unbreakable 3000+ posts
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Unbreakable 3000+ posts
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This might explain why some posters are so damn angry and spiteful all the time.
Their connection is slow.
"Batman is only meaningful as an answer to a world which in its basics is chaotic and in the hands of the wrong people, where no justice can be found. I think it's very suitable to our perception of the world's condition today... Batman embodies the will to resist evil" -Frank Miller
"Conan, what's the meaning of life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!"
-Conan the Barbarian
"Well, yeah."
-Jason E. Perkins
"If I had a dime for every time Pariah was right about something I'd owe twenty cents."
-Ultimate Jaburg53
"Fair enough. I defer to your expertise."
-Prometheus
Rack MisterJLA!
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some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
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OP
some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 5,958 |
Worst 2 months in recent memory was having to use Netzro after having had the premium RoadRunner cable speed before that.
RoadRunner is still ridiculously expensive though. No matter how fast it is.
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terrible podcaster 15000+ posts
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terrible podcaster 15000+ posts
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maybe government subsidization would solve all those problems too!
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Who will I break next? 15000+ posts
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Who will I break next? 15000+ posts
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Am I the only one who has no idea with whats going on in this thread?
November 6th, 2012: Americas new Independence Day.
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Timelord. Drunkard. 15000+ posts
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Timelord. Drunkard. 15000+ posts
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As a result, there's little competition in U.S. broadband - if you're lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there's nowhere else to go. That's what's always pissed me off about cable companies. There's generally only one in a whole area. Until the likes of Dish Network and Direct TV came along, if you wanted more than what your antennae picked up, you were at their mercy. I'm also surprised at the FCC allowing AT&T to buy back BellSouth (a company created years ago when AT&T was broken up as a monopoly). It would seem as though the government would have long ago created the same rules for sharing lines with cable as they did with telephone service.
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet." Our Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said: "no, the doctor's right. besides, he has seniority."
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100+ posts
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Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man cool User Epicer Taker Makerer
10000+ posts Tue Aug 05 2008 01:06 AM Viewing list of forums
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Jeremy happy Moderator Hangin' out like double D's
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Ignored by 3 users and 2 moderators 4000+ posts
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Rob Kamphausen ass-kicky Administrator cobra kai
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