That's not "discussion," that's political posturing and a power-grab. Don't let government fear-mongers and the general media be your only source for the state of technology today.

The free market has done very well at fixing the problems so far. Not perfect, but good. Right now I'm working with a company that is bringing wireless broadband to rural communities throughout AZ. I was the engineer who installed dialup in most of those communities eight years ago. How time flies.

Point being, the telco is behind on delivering it and over-priced where they do have it, so the free market is filling the need. No laws needed.

The free market hasn't done squat for me.

It's great your connecting the cactii to the web, really.

My original "problem" with the state of our broadband services still stands. I feel like we're in the heart of a "technological Mesopotamia", and we should have connections as fast or faster than the rest of the world.

Lemme guess...now are you gonna argue the validity of Mesopotamia in my post. :rolleyes: or perhaps correct something else that really has nothing to do with my original post.

Why don't you just ignore my posts from now on? and I'll return the favor.

Not sure if that's quite right, I live in the North West UK and it's all Telewest around here - they operate their call centre from Liverpool's Albert Dock.

It is TeleWEST after all!

I remember being infuriated by stupid NTL marketing calls - even if I had wanted to get their services I couldn't as I live in a Telewest area! Morons.

Anyway, it'll be a moot point soon as they're merging and the UK cable network will become practically a private monopoly, as opposed to the publically owned monopoly that telecoms privatisation sought to change.

oh no! i'm knit picking!


i did say "i'm sure" and "mainly"

they aslso operate from newcastle and edinburgh, and were first opened in fife. i think the telewest thing is 'just a name'

anyway sorry!

yeah i had heard about the merger, a lot of happy people in glasgow soon as they are all ntl there.

I wasn't actually referring to Skype. I use a VOIP service that completely replaces the home phone. There are several in the US, the biggest one being Vonage which I used for a year and then I dropped for Broadvoice because of the free international calls to everybody, not just other subscribers. Having relatives in Europe Asia and Australia this for us has been amazing.

____

As for Calvarez's reference to the free market, I don't believe it's working so well. Our connections lag far behind those of other countries, and I believe that this happen because the cable deregulation has been a failure. In most places you hardly have any choice, there is always a dominant cable provider which has bought all the other smaller competitors. They are recurrently trying to interfere with VOIP services, but so far luckily they have been shamed and forced to stop. And what's about locked phones? Where else does this happen? I don't think it should not even be allowed. What's next? A car that works only on Exxon fuel? This is not free market they way I see it.

So much for the cactii, but our cellular and cable services are far from cutting edge, just read about South Korea and Japan a bit on BBC and you will realize that they are far far ahead in both.

you guys should read this article this talks about more about high speed fibre lines we should have. Also talks about how this "free market" we have...not so free if you ask me. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/20...er-cover_x.htm

edit: from that article
"Broadband rates in the USA are already among the highest in the world — $35 to $40 a month. And that's for relatively slow speeds of 1 to 2 megabits a second. In Japan, consumers pay about $15 a month for speeds of 30 megabits or better"

From the same article found by rj89. As you can see, the situation is of an oligopoly hell bent in forcing legislation that DECREASES competition and even prohibiting municipalities from entering the market.

Thanks to rj89 what I said about Japan (and South Korea) is confirmed: 30mps versus 6mps maximum in the USA. We are not cutting edge, far from it. We lag behind in cellular technology as well. This is inmho a very bad trend if you consider how much global competition has increased, and it is a demonstration that the big player are far from being in favor of competition.

Fact is free market require regulations to work, but in order to analyze the reasons for our situation I should start down a path which is political. I know this is not welcome in this forum, which I consider splendid but at times too rigid, because there is no way to analyze technological trends without looking at the surrounding political environment. Cactii, anyone?

Fact is free market require regulations to work, but in order to analyze the reasons for our situation I should start down a path which is political. I know this is not welcome in this forum, which I consider splendid but at times too rigid, because there is no way to analyze technological trends without looking at the surrounding political environment. Cactii, anyone?

Depends what you mean by "political environment." We have other discussions going about proposed lawsuits and the legal and ethical issues at stake. It wouldn't hurt this discussion to go into what legislation has been passed. But terms like "political environment" usually take things in a different direction where, after a couple of exchanges, we are two or more removes from the discussion topic and people are busy denouncing and defending. That's what we don't want here re. religion or politics. But if you and others can stay close to the topic, that's fine.
- e.g. what laws have been passed that relate to the topic? what considerations informed the laws (stay close to the facts)? and so forth.

http://www.cssainc.org/

I still don't know what the original problem is, but I'm assuming you can't get broadband wherever you live? There are a vast variety of reasons why that could be.

We do have connections as fast as much of the world in some places. When someone hears of a Tokyo skyrise or block having 100mb fiber, they assume that is available everywhere in Japan--it's not. Now, Japan does have more ultra-high-speed penetration than we do, but have you compared the size and population density of that island to our country? There are few places here where the density approaches theirs, and that results in basic economy of scale differences.

We have 5-10MB cable available through all the more-populated areas of Arizona, and I'm working on bringing 2-5MB wireless to places with 10,000 people and less. What more do you want? At what point would the "problem" be fixed?

Hahahahaha, funny stuff. Sorry, but I don't pay attention to who posts what, I just read the posts and reply accordingly.

There have been a number of them related to cities putting up their own systems (Tempe, neighboring my city, has just done that). It's a clear affront to the free market since they are the lawmakers, the judges, the taxation authority, and the holder of the zoning ordinances for towers and such. So the city is in a unique position of advantage. I also can't find any legal authority delegated to the cities to do this, but I'd love to read references if anyone has them.

People will argue that it's a benefit to have cities provide broadband internet. But we must remember that this country is a republic founded on a basic rule of law, and if we let politics and desires over-rule the basic laws, then we end up with a mess. The playing field should be level and defined.

Politics is discussing whether there SHOULD be regulation or government-provided service. We should stick to the facts of whether the basic laws of this country even allow it.

Currently, delivery of electricity, gas, water, sewer, phone, etc. are granted "monopoly" status, however each state has established a public utility commission of some sort to regulate the fees/profits that those utilities can make from their "regulated" aspects of their business. There are also considerations like "right of way" and burying their equipment under public property (under streets). that must be resolved.

The mayor of Philadelphia is currently putting wireless in throughout the city (via Earthlink I think). I'm not aware of how the wireless arrangement got into Philadelphia. I haven't heard any mention of the Public Utility Commission being involved, consulted, regulating, etc. Seems odd that they will be creating a monopoly and using public structures to support this private venture without any real regulation.

cpragman, I don't think the term "monopoly" applies to a city contracting with a business to provide a service. If there were only one business with which a city might contract, then that business would be a monopoly. So while Philadelphia contracts with Earthlink, Pittsburgh might use AOL or another ISP. As for regulation, you can be sure it's written into the terms of the contract.

Utilities are a little different, but even there, you'll find different utility companies operating within most states, with shifting boundaries as they continually re-negotiate their areas of coverage. The rationale for state involvement with utilities is that the services they provide are so essential for the community's infrastructure that government has an interest in overseeing their functioning.

10 meg connection for free!

Beat that!

work pay for it! :D

Well, in the US where employers monitor Internet usage at work that attitude will lead you to a very quick dismissal which would probably wipe that green grin off your face. Not a very good solution around here.

What attitude ??

Photek said "work pay for it."

Not they use it at work or abuse it either.. you have made a massive assumption.


Many people at my work get BB at home paid for by the company.

This may not be the case for Photek, but you should wait for the "attitude" you allude to,
to be expressed rather than giving attitude.

HEY!

My company certainly get their pound of flesh from me, and I am certainly worth a few hundred quid a year in BB to keep them up and running. I can remotley connect to both servers and sort out their problems on MY time!

As for monitoring me..... I am the most technical person in the company! And for those of you that reply to my idiotic posts (Raven, Phil, Calvarez, Mark and ALL the others) that should make you smirk!!

wow calm down people everyone is so feisty. lets cool those jets and go read a nice chuck norris fact and everything will all be better. :)

ps: just trying to bring some humor in this for some reason heated debate.(not trolling or spamming)

You are right, I had an attitude. I was right in my massive assumption though: and I thought that I could safely assume that 'work pays for it' meant 'I am connecting on my employer's pipe and not paying a dime for it'.

Not a good enough reason to show my attitude, for sure. But to me this was like comparing cost of living with a thief (not a personal offense Photek, it's just the only analogy I can think of) that tells me nah inflation is not a concern for me.

My point was and is: in the USA we pay more for less for cable connections compared to other advanced countries like Japan and even less developed countries like South Korea.

I do not believe the current legislature is aimed at protecting consumer but -suprise surprise- in protecting major corporations contributing millions to political parties. Verizon's piece of work quoted in the thread speaks for itself: right of first refusal over public policy?

Lastly, I strongly believe this is a crucial and strategic gap that affects our competitiveness as a nation. In this day and time, I would like the US to be at the forefront in terms of offering connectivity to its people. Friedman has developed the point quite well in his brilliant book 'The world is flat', and I believe he's completely right.

Chuck Norris

Birth name :Carlos Ray Norris

debated with myself over writing this post, especially after such fiery debating in another recent thread, however when reading again that the title of the thread reads"...usa Vs the rest of the world" coupled with this statement. i couldnt help it.

i just dont want to sound like i am picking a fight or being in any way "off"
because i totally respect nationaly shared mentality throughout the world, its a natural given, in any culture.

and i'll state again this isnt a challenge it is purely my curiousity as it baffles me a little....so here goes....

but what is it that makes most americans feel that they deserve to be the best in everything? i just cant get my head around the sense of injustice thats being expressed in this thread, like you cant fathom being behind somebody.

i get that the essence of america is, the whole 'american dream' thing.
i'm just perplexed sometimes with my experiance of americans and their expectancy etc.

when i was a student i worked part time in a cinema, i remember serving an american and his son, both were very obese, asked for large cokes, and when served what i would consider a "bucket" each, they were sooo disparagent and mocked "is THAT a large!?" without thinking, and a little annoyed i replied, "no thats why our country's children arent famed for their obesity" it was out of turn i know, but, it was a pretty typical put down, and living in edinburgh, we get a lot of american tourists, and this type of attitude is fairly common with our visitors. just very demanding, and dissatisfied.

in another forum there was a chap, harping on about how the rest of the world wants to be like america! i think during ww2 there was certainly a bit of romantic notion felt this way about everything americana, a bit exotic etc, but, i feel its slightly different now.we are now 'warned' about becoming more like america.

i guess what i am aiming at is that i cant think of another country that would admit so freely about how competative it is, as i cant actually think of why a country would feel the need to, if i were to hazard a guess at the mentality, sociologically speaking would it be anything to do with historical identity, and if america isnt the best, what is it?

i know this seems spikey and really isnt intended to be in anyway confrontational, and i also appreciate that the majority of the users here are american, so its a bit like walking into the wrong bar dressed in drag and asking for a fight!

in larry davids words "...you know?...i took a risk"

just an honest bit of awe really.

for the want of a less existential question, but... if you are so competative, wont you finish first?

but what is it that makes most americans feel that they deserve to be the best in everything? i just cant get my head around the sense of injustice thats being expressed in this thread, like you cant fathom being behind somebody.

i get that the essence of america is, the whole 'american dream' thing.
i'm just perplexed sometimes with my experiance of americans and their expectancy etc.

Let's not go there, forum. Stick as close to the topic as possible, and avoid stereotypes about the attitudes of people in a country. That will only lead to troube.