Sorry state of (US) broadband

  • Thread starter Thread starter vishalrao
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Hiya 🙂 thanks for stopping-by 🙂Regardless of country, I agree that there are a lot of good opportunities with Wireless forms of broadband, be they wifi, wimax or whatever else.the main point i'm making is that whenever possible, i tend to think that broadband infrastructure should be "sponsored" by local government, so the infrastructure essentially belongs to the *people*, who would collectively grant access to it to the private sector. The government would essentially act as a very-low-involvement middleman between the people and the private sector.The same way your local community may have built welcoming sidewalks, allowing more foot traffic, allowing businesses to prosper. The City employs a few people to keep the streets clean, take the garbage out.
 
OMG, "chrisholland" are you the real deal? neat!

let's just look at your "net connection type" under the profile and weep, shall we? :

Speakeasy/Covad DSL at...... 6 mbps down, 768 kbps up !

on www.speakeasy.net it looks like the prices range from about $45 to $75 pre month...

boohooo 🙂

compare the "cost"... lets say california rents are about $1500/- per month - this means the cost is nearly 5% of your rent.

my rent's rs 7500/- per month, with my 512kbps at rs 2000/- per month, thats over 25%...

applying some quick mathematical formulas, thats like 5 times more expensive for more than 10 times slower (and poorer quality) broadband ! 🙂 and this is just compared to the US, not places like France/Japan!
 
Originally posted by chrisholland@Feb 19 2006, 02:45 PM
the main point i'm making is that whenever possible, i tend to think that broadband infrastructure should be "sponsored" by local government, so the infrastructure essentially belongs to the *people*, who would collectively grant access to it to the private sector. The government would essentially act as a very-low-involvement middleman between the people and the private sector.

The same way your local community may have built welcoming sidewalks, allowing more foot traffic, allowing businesses to prosper. The City employs a few people to keep the streets clean, take the garbage out.
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Heh, this is exactly what happens in France.

We being a socialist country as well, but got too much corruption to make it work out.
 
hi vishalrao 🙂

Your estimations are pretty accurate! 🙂

I'm actually paying around $100/month for the specific DSL package, which is broadband without phone service. and i switched the phone service to voip from lingo.com for $20/month. and $10/month for EarthLink's "online experience" - 8 online identities with email (spam filter + challenge/response tied to address book), web space, SIP accounts, and the "protection control center" for the windoz boxes i have (AV + Firewall + Spyware + Scams/phishers etc.)

So yeah, i'm definitely counting my blessings, all things considered, we're darned lucky 🙂

Yet, like most geeks, I look at who controls most aspects of communications and media in the U.S. (and other countries), and realize it can pretty-much be paired-down to a handful of industry moguls, out to preserve their quasi monopolies, keeping us in line like nice little drones 🙂

The Internet Protocol and fat, unbridled pipes (wired or unwired) to people's homes opens the doors to new businesses, new opportunities, new forms of media and entertainment, new forms of communications, more efficient, more flexible, better tailored to our needs.

a few ppl don't see that way:

http://news.com.com/U.S.+broadband+A-OK/20..._3-5517695.html

... so we can just sit around in a 1990's frame of thinking where e-mail and "the web" are *the* big opportunities behind the Internet Protocol. I think that's where Declan's mind's at 🙂

Either way, it's enriching to look around at what other countries are doing, challenges they face, and how they overcome them.

Originally posted by vishalrao@Feb 19 2006, 07:57 AM
OMG, \"chrisholland\" are you the real deal? neat!

let's just look at your \"net connection type\" under the profile and weep, shall we? :

Speakeasy/Covad DSL at...... 6 mbps down, 768 kbps up !

on www.speakeasy.net it looks like the prices range from about $45 to $75 pre month...

boohooo 🙂

compare the \"cost\"... lets say california rents are about $1500/- per month - this means the cost is nearly 5% of your rent.

my rent's rs 7500/- per month, with my 512kbps at rs 2000/- per month, thats over 25%...

applying some quick mathematical formulas, thats like 5 times more expensive for more than 10 times slower (and poorer quality) broadband ! 🙂 and this is just compared to the US, not places like France/Japan!
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i wont be surprised. a friend in norway told me they pay very high taxes too. the benefits are though good. free 'decent' health care and the likes. and not like the ones we get in india in civil hospitals.
 

I think we should seriously stop paying our taxes. We don't get even 10% returns i.e. in the form of public services like good roads, public libraries, parks, playgrounds etc... 🙁 Infact the municipal corporation here is so pathetic that even though they have lots of money they spent only about 15% of it in development and maintenence work in the 7-8 months of the year and now they are on a spending spree...
 
i just came to know that i am supposed to pay 2% as education cess on my income tax which is already touching the sky. i was devastated when i landed back at home after consulting my nana for taxes to see that i had no power.
 
my guess is they've already commissioned "a number of independent reports", to come-up with some really far-fetched demonstration on why the bill would be a bad idea. *sigh*.

Originally posted by vishalrao@Mar 5 2006, 08:41 AM
oooh, a net neutrality bill in the US:
http://www.ipdemocracy.com/archives/2006/03/02/index.php

i wonder how much the greedy telcos will kick and scream about it 🙂
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