Holland is only of the countries to enjoy good internet service. But many countries have better internet service than holland.
Here is an earlier post of mine.
https://broadband.forum/index.php?showtop...6440&#entry6440
Go through this forum-
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/fiberoptics. Check the fiberoptic speed test thread(beginning of that forum).
Japan now has 100mbit fiber for 30-40 $. Korea- 30mbit+ vdsl, us- 3-10mbit dsl, canada- 6-10mbit, sweden(20mbit average, 26mbit many places, 100mbit -at request), france- 8mbit(600-800 rs/month), china 768k-10mbit(southern cities). In the us, the bells are rolling out fttp(fiber to the premises) and the speed is 20mbit average. Hong kong provides 100mbit(internal) and 20mbit international bandwidth. If you have any doubts, just search "hk 100mbit" or "sweden 26mbit" etc. And the prices of bandwidth in these countries does not go above 40-50 $ average and 100$ max. The only country in Europe that is still getting shafted for bandwidth is portugal. Even australia now has 8mbit.
Ok, now for some links. I posted this on a journal for some friends a 8-9 months back.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/communicat...39154865,00.htm.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/29/135236&tid=95/
A journal about broadband in sk.
http://urban.blogs.com/seoul/2004/06/index.html/) From that blog, I came across this-
http://times.hankooki.com/tech/e_biz.htm/. 25 articles on broadband from the korean times. Even though they're 2 years old, they make for some very interesting reading.
One of the korean isp's- Hanaro telecom is offering 30mbit and 50mbit vDSL for upto 49 $ a month (
http://www.hanaro.com/eng/iproduct/vne_vdream.asp) http://www.chiefexecutive.net/depts/technology/197a.htm
If you aren't a regular visitor to dslreports.com, then start going there regularly. Go through this forum-
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/fiberoptics. Check the fiberoptic speed test thread(beginning of that forum). B-flets in japan is now offering 1
gigabit for 70 $ and hk telecom is also planning 1gbit by june. Kansai optic is planning 1gbit fiber by sep,oct 05.(
http://www.k-opti.com/press/2005/press09-2.html ). and so on.. Holland doesn't even come close to offering a low price/mb advantage. That advantage belongs to japan.
I got this link from
http://broadbandblog.in/278/tortoise-wins-the-race/ 3 days back. It links to nytimes which inturn links to a foreignaffairs.org article with comparision of us and japanese broadband.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050501faes...o-the-wire.html. Its a long article but details how japan got its broadband strategy right eventhough dialup in japan was costlier than dialup in india until 2000.
From the article(page 2)
"Meeting the e-Japan strategy's second goal -- making ultra-high-speed access (up to 100 megabits per second) available to ten million Japanese households -- proved more difficult. Such connections permit real-time video telephoning and video conferencing, telecommuting, and rich multimedia options such as digital high-definition
television, interactive games, and five-minute movie downloads (instead of the short, jerky video streaming that Americans are used to). But data cannot be transmitted at such speeds through existing phone lines, and new fiber-optic cable had to be laid throughout Japan. Having decided that those lines, too, should be open to competition, the Japanese authorities set out to devise significant incentives to persuade Japanese companies to invest in new ultra-high-speed cable, especially in rural areas.
The government used tax breaks, debt guaranties, and partial subsidies. It allowed companies willing to lay fiber to depreciate about one-third of the cost on first-year taxes, and it guaranteed their debt liabilities. These measures were sufficient to ensure that new fiber was laid in cities and large towns, but in rural areas, municipal subsidies were also needed. Towns and villages willing to set up their own ultra-high-speed fiber networks received a government subsidy covering approximately one-third of their costs, so long as those networks, too, were open to outside access.
These incentives created the right environment for the rapid deployment of fiber networks. Again, other companies decided to compete with regional telephone companies. The first, Usen, a nationwide distributor of background
music with its own fiber network, was later joined by electric power companies. The resulting competition quickly drove the price of an ultrafast fiber connection down to $30 to $45 per month.
By the end of 2002, ultrafast fiber connections were available to more than ten million households in Tokyo and Osaka; a primary goal of the e-Japan strategy had been met. But the program -- and the government's tax incentives - had also called for fiber lines to run directly to homes and offices, and those connections proved economic only in densely populated cities. In less settled areas, the government agreed to provide tax incentives for fiber taken only as far as neighborhoods, leaving it to individual users to decide how to connect. Some have chosen -- and paid for -- a direct fiber connection; others have opted for a cheaper but slower wireless connection. By mid-2004, ultra-high-speed broadband was available to more than 80 percent of Japan's citizens. With more than two million subscribers, it can be said to have gone mainstream."