A cable-installation worker sets up broadband internet links. (NEWSCOM)
Why do so many Americans have crummy Internet speeds?
At least 14 countries have zoomed past the US when it comes to broadband Web access.
By Tom Regan| Columnist for The Christian Science Monitor/ June 3, 2008 edition
A decade ago, I lived in a small town in Nova Scotia while working for csmonitor.com. Windsor had a population was about 3,500 and I don’t imagine it’s grown much since then. But even back then, I had high-speed broadband access, which at the time was almost unheard of in Boston. In fact, I used to joke with my Monitor co-workers that it was hard to visit them in Massachusetts because it meant my Internet speeds slowed down so much.
While broadband access has grown in the United States over the past 10 years, it’s not as dramatic as you might think it is based on the TV commercials and direct-mail flyers trumpeting high-speed access.
In fact, a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that the US ranked 15th out of 30 developed nations in 2007 when it comes to broadband penetration – a drop of three places from 2006. While the US has the largest number of broadband subscribers – about 70 million – only 23 percent of Americans subscribe to broadband.
The report also shows that Americans pay more, on average, for broadband connections than residents in 21 other OECD countries – and those connections run at slower advertised speeds than 13 other countries. In other words, the performance of US broadband service is pretty mediocre.
In the past, defenders of US broadband performance have argued that countries with a higher population density – more people living in closer quarters – have an easier time rolling out broadband services.
Well, as the guys on Car Talk would say, “Boooogus.” Five countries with lower population densities than the US – Canada, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Iceland – are beating the US when it comes to broadband penetration, the report says.
But it’s not just broadband itself where the US is lagging behind much of the rest of the developed world. The next big step in broadband is fiber-to-the-home networks. Fiber cables can carry much more data into the home than the copper wires used by cable providers. The US ranks 11th in the world in fiber connections – about 1 percent of all households. Norway and Sweden, both with lower population densities, have a higher percentage. And the US number pales in comparison with South Korea (20 percent) and Japan (17 percent).
We keep hearing that high-speed connections are key to the future success for everything from the entertainment industry to government accountability to small business development. So why is the US doing such a so-so job?
One reason could be that the US doesn’t have much of a national broadband policy. Earlier this year, FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein reportedly said they weren’t sure if the US had such a policy.
The Bush administration, however, says it does have a policy: Keep the government from intervening and let the market decide. This approach is outlined in “Network Nation: Broadband in America 2007” a report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
“Past experience teaches that when government tries to substitute its judgment for that of the market by favoring one product or vendor over another, it can easily divert investment and/or discourage research necessary to bring new and better products or services to market,” the report said. “Given the rapid pace of technological change, such unintended effects can have long-term and far-reaching adverse consequences that extend across multiple sectors of the economy. For this reason, the administration has consistently and strenuously advocated for technology neutrality in order to take the government out of decisions more appropriately left to the marketplace.”
But is this policy – or lack thereof – really helping the consumer? According to a report by Ars Technica on the 2007 study, there were 13 OECD countries with lower prices and greater government involvement. It’ll be interesting to see what that figure is this year once the data is examined.
Critics say that all this shows that the US is not giving consumers adequate broadband choices. “The fact is that the countries outperforming the United States have something we lack: a coherent national broadband policy,” S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, a media reform group, said in a statement after the release of the OECD report. “Policymakers who are serious about America’s economic and social well-being should focus on the open access policies that bring the benefits of broadband to all Americans.”
But that’s not likely to happen under the present administration, so the US will probably drop farther down the list next year. Given that the current presidential candidates have widely hailed the Internet for boosting their campaigns, it will be interesting to see if a new broadband policy emerges next year.
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Comments
2. Tim | 06.04.08
I have a question. How does this play in with Net Neutrality? Would a national policy guarantee net neutrality, or allow corporations to regulate internet usage and boost prices?
3. Heidi Pope | 06.04.08
As someone who lives in southern New Hampshire (just two towns away from both Concord and Manchester), yet does not even have the option to get high-speed internet, I say “Preach it, brother!” I have to live with DSL that is usually as slow as a 56k modem (and I always know when all the kids in the neighborhood are indoors playing on their computers). Working from home is not an option for me, high gas prices or no, and forget ever trying to run a business on this pitiful system. We even pay extra for faster DSL, but I think we are being snookered there.
We are looking for land and, in most locations, if we want cable, we will have to pay the full cost to bring the cable (poles and lines)from wherever it now ends to our house…even if that is along a public road. New Hampshire is covered with ‘half-cabled’ towns…we probably would not do better than most third-world countries if the OECD looked at individual states!
Dunbarton, NH
4. Jim Crosby | 06.04.08
For me I do have DSL but I would like to get Fiber. It is not available here on the seacoast yet and it’s too expensive anyway. I think the price is one of the biggest problems with the spread of broadband. Both the cable and phone companies want too high a price for most people to afford. I’ll bet if they lowered their prices for it by oh say 50% they would quadruple their subscriber lists at the very least.
This happend with another product i read about recently. i forget what it was but it was similar subscriber type and they lowered their price by 40 or 50% and the customer list went up SIX times the previous level.
5. Robert M. | 06.04.08
I have a high speed wireless service that runs from the providers antenna tower to mine.(No phoneline) It works pretty good as long as I use it early in the morning or late at night. Otherwise, there are so many users hogging bandwidth, that access to almost anything is slow. Sometimes it’s as bad as dial-up. What good is having am expensive high speed service when the Internet as a whole is so overloaded?
6. Christopher Bieda | 06.04.08
Everytime I hear the chicken littles decry U.S. Internet speeds or broadband penetration or the percentage of people who inexplicably hang the toilet paper roll so that the free edge rests on the back of the roll, I wonder how many of them remember the “gee-whiz-why-can’t-WE-have-that” fuss over the French Minitel?
As noted in Wikipedia, this inferior-to-the-Internet service (rolled out in 1982 by the government postal monopoly) may have acted to retard French acceptance of the Internet. I believe it did.
So we have a classic, real-world example, on a national scale, of a cutting-edge technology (while the French were tapping away on their Minitel terminals, I was using TheSource, CompuServe and GEnie here) actually hindering adoption of the NEXT generation of technology. That it was a product of the French government makes it only too relevant.
A U.S. broadband “policy” that did anything other than stay the hell out of the way of the private market runs a risk of slowing progress precisely insofar as it has real teeth, that is, specifies performance standards or preferred technologies. It has happened before.
I do not liken a broadband policy to the goal of universal analog telephone service or electrification. For starters, there is a disturbingly large number of people who don’t want to use the Internet, even though it is readily available to them. I do not believe the telephone or electricity suffered from nearly so much reluctance. As a result, stringing phone lines or power lines to even the most remote areas (some still don’t have ‘em, by the way) rarely produced the phenomenon of “pass by,” which is a burden of providing unused infrastructure that is borne by users. Not so broadband Internet. Laying fiber that 10-15% of homes passed by it will decline puts a significant additional burden on the 85-90% that take the cure.
I see no good that can come from any policy other than “hands off” and “no new taxes.” The easily-served paid for rural electrification and universal service, whether by taxes, tax subsidies or higher prices. When the Internet reaches the “must-have” status of Edison’s bulb or Bell’s phone, there won’t be any “broadband gap” in America that purportedly demands a national response.
And if in 10 years, the cutting-edge technology available to the most favored Americans (mostly in big cities with big universities) blows away South Korea’s standard technology (fiber is it?), who among those who now say that we need to catch up to the Koreans will admit error, and send a check to the South Korean telecom companies to help them write off their enormous investment in 2008 technology? After all, they’ll be the French of their time.
7. Sally McPherson | 06.04.08
My high speed connection is REALLY high speed, and it is not solely due to my having a DSL modem, but more especially I have a Macintosh computer with Airport Extreme built in, which is the way it was when I bought it. When I see Macintosh computers selling for $1,000.00 with all its carefree great features, I will NEVER go back to a Windows OS computer.
8. John Dryfhout | 06.05.08
I also live in rural New Hampshire with NO HOPE of any hard wired broad band service by either cable or by telephone. I think we need to continue to lean on our delegations (Congress/Senate) and local state delegations to require that entities provide a plan for bringing hard wire to all residents (and not the ones that live on the main highways that they must cover to get from one large market area to the other). We need to support the FCC and request that the fees we all pay for our local and long distance telephones be used to provide the financial incentives to bring service to rural areas BEFORE any more build outs in the urban areas. We need to lean on our Presidential nominees to make this a goal of the future Pres’ administration. We need to lean on our State Communications Commissions to assure that the so-called providers are adhering to their charters in providing these services.
What bothers me is a nearby town of Hartland VT - had a small company for telephony - GenTel I believe it is called. Well that firm had no trouble hooking up everyone (at no extra cost) to high speed (and Hartland is a VERY rural community with lots and lots of rural road mileage. Then to add insult to injury COMCAST could not sit by and do nothing - but they bent over backwards to provide cable services to all comers as well. My question is why can they do it in Hartland with a small telphone company and the big boys and girls like Verizon and now Fair Point can’t.
We need to get our act together before rural New England is emptied of under 55 year olds.
Cornish, NH
9. David H. | 06.05.08
Knowing what speed you have and comparing it to others in your and others area/state/country/continent is a real eye opener.
Visit speedtest dot net
10. Latigo | 06.05.08
When the consumers DEMAND efficient high speed Internet, it will happen. Until that time, as long as the lion’s share of Internet users are happy with accelerated dial up, things will not change.
Please don’t delude yourself into thinking that if high speed rates were lower more would ues them. I promise you, other than promotional pricing, ISP’s will not be lowering their subscription prices.
Quite the opposite, because it costs a bundle to keep upgrading service in the metro areas to keep the business users happy. As long as resources go to the metros and SANs, mr Jow Blow Rural American is S.O.L.
11. Don Griffith | 06.06.08
A thoughtful article, and lots of good responses.
Do you want free Internet access? Here’s how you can have it.
We live in a rural Georgia area some 13 miles from the nearest small town. The entire county has approximately 19,000 people. We have no hope of getting dsl at our house for at least another decade, and the phone modem is very difficult for anything but the most basic needs. Purchasing dsl via satellite is cost prohibitive for the relatively simple needs my wife and I have.
But, even in our little town, we have access to dsl at a McDonalds, a Ford Motor dealership, a cafeteria, and a public library. Using our 2 MacIntosh laptop computers (iBook G4) and its built in Airport feature, we make it into town twice a week on the way back from church. Regardless of the time (day or night) we can access high speed Internet at one of these choices. We sit in our car outside (or go inside the location if open) and use their dsl clouds (after asking permission, of course.) We send and/or receive emails, videos, photos, etc. via their high speed Internet connection. There is no charge for this service.
The only caution is that you may be able to receive but not be able to send emails if you try to do this using your local Internet provider. Many places have blocks to stop spamming. But, if you get a gmail email address, you can send emails without restriction. You can do this by going to gmail.com (and there you will receive instructions for hooking up–also for free).
After having lived in Atlanta with dsl service in the home, we have had to make some small adjustments, but they are certainly worth the benefits. When we travel, we just ask around for the local Internet access sites in that town (if they don’t have dsl in our hotel or motel) and partake of rapid Internet service at no expense other than a little adjustment and some preplanning on our part. Hope this helps some of you. Happy surfing!
12. Helga do Rosario Gomes | 06.06.08
After years of frustration with dial-up in Boothbay Harbor, ME and being told my house missed Verizon’s tower by a few meters I finally got high speed internet from Time Warner. I used to have to go to my lab on weekends just to browse/work on simple projects. Many of my colleagues still cant work from home and have invested in mediocre but expensive satellite connections. And Heidi Pope, please dont disparage third world countries like many like to do. My sister in Bangalore had broadband long before I did as did my friends and relatives in one of the smallest states of India - Goa. The latter is also investing in fibre optics cables.
13. iPC | 06.07.08
In my rural neighborhood, we formed a nonprofit organization. Then I put up two twenty-feet tall hinged towers with N1 Vision routers inside weatherproof boxes. We’ve been covering over 25 acres with up to 5Mbps business DSL for a year now offering wifi to nearly 300 residence. A dozen or so well placed wifi repeaters help individual computers get their signal to the towers. We run the latest WPA2 security too.
I’m about to put up two more towers for even better coverage (these four routers usually go into only four homes). The annual cost of operation per residence will be about $20 per year for all four towers. Do we have problems? Occasionally. But the savings are worth it and even the phone company techs think it’s great.
14. zqahtt | 06.08.08
I actually work for one of the giant telecoms(Verizon) and I still contend that the only way for this to be solved by the “free market” rather than government is to separate the ownership and operation of the physical infrastructure from the services providers.Having the service providers also being the owners of the infrastructure creates a conflict of interest.I know this from an inside point of view.Separation of infrastructure ownership from services providers is what should have been done back in 1986.
15. Amd | 06.08.08
I searched for ‘Cpu Temperature Range Amd Turion 64 Dual Core’ at Google and found your post named ‘nnial 2007 - salvatore iaconesi - del.icio.us poetry’ in search results. Quite interesting to read.
16. KWilliams | 06.12.08
Hi - there is a company that you can sign up with for free. This company is within the last stages from years of testing and will be offering a wireless broadband T1 level service for only $19.95 per month. In addition, you will also receive a commission back each month on the service you use so in essence your wireless internet will be less than $19.95 per month. Also you will be able to add a first class VOIP telephony to your service for only $9.95 per month. In order to receive a commission back every month, you must sign up as an affiliate. However, it’s free to sign up as an affiliate. You can sign up for this service at https://itsyournet.com/index.php?id=28563kj&id=28563kj&page=signup
They already have dialup services but at least when the wireless service is offered you will be able to get that service as well.
17. Duane | 06.15.08
To Tim, regarding net neutrality;
Slow broadband speed and net neutrality are directly linked. For the longest time, network capacity outstripped content. Over the last few years, content has grown to outstrip capacity. The ISP’s stopped investing in expensine fiber optics after the dot-com bust, now they must somehow make do with the old copper lines. Rather than increase bandwidth to match content, they are looking to limit content to match their existing capacity.
This means that we can expect continued slow speeds, and even slower speeds or blocked service for bandwidth-demanding content like video, P2P and VoIP.
Oh, joy!
Meanwhile, countries like Japan and South Korea who have invested in fibre optics will enjoy much faster speeds and without the nightmare of traffic shaping.
18. Andy | 06.25.08
Any service provided via a costly, extensive infrastructure will not follow market forces. To deter regulation is only to encourage oligopoly, not innovation. On the other hand, regulation can obscure the real costs of services from consumers, dampening innovation and leading to waste. Ideally we’d have a shareholding group consisting of the systems’ users that regulates the system (like a credit union but for internet, not money). That way the regulation is both directly interested in performance and prevented from abusing infrastructure for profit. I guess you could call that market socialism, but I’m sure that term is already taken by some other pesky concept.
19. Aaron | 07.28.08
Japan has an average of 61mbps download speed versus the US average of 1.5mbps. People don’t care enough here in America to look at how we compare globally, most just assume we’re better than everybody else with no facts to back it up. Wake up people.
20. Dave | 08.22.08
Sorry Aaron, but I think a lot more people than you think know that the US is one of the slowest developed countries on high speed internet speed. This has not been hidden or anything like that. Sounds like you just woke up.
Sally on reply 7 says “My high speed connection is REALLY high speed, and it is not solely due to my having a DSL modem, but more especially I have a Macintosh computer with Airport Extreme built in, which is the way it was when I bought it. When I see Macintosh computers selling for $1,000.00 with all its carefree great features, I will NEVER go back to a Windows OS computer.”
I am sorry Sally but my $400 [faster than your Apple] Windows OS computer is no slower than your Apple at high speed internet. Yes I initially had to work a little harder to make it run well, but I do not have really any issues with my Windows computer when compared to a mac mini I have for testing…almost all problems/viruses on a windows computer can be blamed upon 3rd party programming errors (3rd party software for the most part is a small part of using an Apple) and also that virus and spyware writers don’t target Apples because the market is so tiny. If Apples were 90% of the market, you would definitely see viruses and spyware target Apples and not Windows OS machines. I have been in the IT industry for many years, and have had to specifically debug many Windows errors and problems. Almost ALL of these problems are based upon lazy 3rd party programming and are actually almost always never to blame on Microsoft.
Specifically, internet speed honestly has nothing to do with using an Apple or a Windows based machine.
If Apple was the only company offering high speed internet, nobody would be able to afford the service, because they would charge whatever they wanted for it (such as a higher priced Apple computer because of no competitors of its product).
I am sorry for the dismal situation in New England I have heard about on here; I am in Portland, Oregon, and Verizon FIOS fiber, 12mbps cable speeds are all over the place.
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1. Donna Bonetti | 06.04.08
I tested my broadband access at an online site. I found that my access speed was really 126 not the 256 that I have been paying for. There is somewhat of a monopoly in my area with access available only through the cable TV company or the phone company. Both want to sell their services through bundled “packages. Since my husband and I do not have or want a TV, we deal with the phone company even though its reputation is the worst in the nation. We figure that the phone company is giving us slow access and poor service hoping we will buy into a higher priced bundled package that offers higher speeds but would want us to switch our cell phone accounts over to them. We never plan to do that so we are stuck with ultra slow service that will not allow us to watch online videos and have to wait for things to download slowly just like 56K modem days.