It’s interesting to note that the telecomm companies refused the federal stimulus money set aside for them (7.2 billion) because the strings attached stipulated that they had to improve infrastructure across the country, which would have essentially brought broadband to areas where it wasn’t available, and bring the dl/ul cap up.
I read one of the comments at the site. 500 megabit a second connection in rural Japan, with potential for 1 gigabit a second in the near future? Seriously?
I’m also hearing about Time Warner imposing and charging extra for bandwidth caps. (Most of the industry is leaning this way too.)
My opinion:
Take the 7.2 billion in stimulus money the telecomm companies refused, and establish a federally-run ISP. (Pipedream, I know)
Britain Internet faster than the US, when did this happen. I don’t even think they have fiber yet. But I can vouch that even the small and poor towns in Japan are wired better than most of the US.
US infrastructure is the shittiest because it’s the oldest. Plus, our large landmass makes it a huge pain in the ass for us to replace any/all of it. Japan and the UK, being island nations, have less to worry about in that sense.
Yeah we got Fibre Optic Broadband, we had an advert for it with Samuel L Jackson to saying its “the mother of all broadband”. Sep is right too, I am not sure about America but I THINK that UK broadband runs above ground anyway.
When there a 2 big companies (Virgin and BT) each vying for the broadband market eventually they will step up constantly trying and out-do the other. That’s essentially what happened in England and high speed fibre optics across the country is the result.
In America I don’t see how that is going to happen when shitty companies like comcast are supreme and AT&T and Verizon can’t get there FIOS shit everywhere in the country.
In Chicago, we have ATT and Comcast in direct competition, and we don’t see much improvement.
I’m on the 6Mb plan with ATT for like $40. Comcast, I’m sure, is faster than that, but I think it’s average is 12Mb. Comcast is introducing a new DOCSIS service, but it’s hella expensive. $62.95 per month 22Mbps down / 5Mbps up or $139.95 per month 50Mbps / 10Mbps connection.
We actually have some fiber infrastructure in place but not in use. It’s inactive, so we call it “dark.”
Anyway, I have a 10 Mbps cable connection right now because FiOS isn’t available in my area. Time Warner is garbage. My average throughput is only around 6-7 Mbps, and my HD channels look so shitty that they might as well be SD.
Time Warner’s HD service is by far the worst I’ve ever seen, and their customers really could benefit from an infrastructure upgrade.
What’s a good way to check what your average speed is? I have a regular comcast line, but since I am next to a hub, whenever i test my speed using speakeasy or speedtest.net , I get readings like 37Mbps dl and 1.8Mbps up. I know that’s not right and probably just spike readings.
I can vouch for Time Warner sucking, my connection drops at least once a day typically. Their HD is just a joke, looks terrible but half the time the channels are “Not available at this time” or stutter, skip, and lock up.
right now i have verizon dsl and i’m getting 3.2Mb dl/850Kb dl. when i living in new brunswick my house had cable with the optimum boost and we got 30/15Mb d/u
