Sorry state of (US) broadband

[vishalrao]

Saw this blog post - http://chrisholland.blogspot.com/2006/02/n...tate-of-us.html

which was mentioned on this GigaOm post about French vs. US broadband - http://gigaom.com/2006/02/14/france-vs-us-in-broadband


hehe, if the US is in a sorry state compared to France, and we're surely in a sorry state compared to US... then WHAT-the-heck-state are we in compared to France? ans: more than sorry, tragic even

 

[Sushubh]

i dont like this giga om guy. he once threatened to sue me.

 

[vishalrao]

ahahaha, americans (and "naturalised" immigrants) are like that... "litigious". maybe you told him he writes like a sissy or something

 

[amogh_gulwady]

Originally posted by vishalrao
ahahaha, americans (and "naturalised" immigrants) are like that... "litigious". maybe you told him he writes like a sissy or something


Maybe this would help.

Om Malik is a San Francisco-based senior writer for Business 2.0. He has covered technology and telecom for over a decade for publications like Forbes, and Red Herring. Om has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and MIT Technology Review. He is the author of the book Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist. His daily rants on tech/telecom and broadband can be found at his often updated blog, [url=http://gigaom.com]http://gigaom.com[/url]

His blogs get around a 1000 views a day, and google results showed more than 2 million results. Enough said.

 

[blr_p]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 05:29 AM
hehe, if the US is in a sorry state compared to France, and we're surely in a sorry state compared to US... then WHAT-the-heck-state are we in compared to France? ans: more than sorry, tragic even
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We dont pay 50% income tax here, neither does the US

..nuff said.

 

[Sushubh]

Originally posted by amogh_gulwady+Feb 16 2006, 07:10 PM-->QUOTE(amogh_gulwady @ Feb 16 2006, 07:10 PM)

 

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[vishalrao]

maybe he got fame from his "Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist" book...but in any case, why bother about the guy, i just read some of his broadband-related posts when they show up, coz that's what we need... brooaad band !

 

[rastapopulus]

Itz Gettin Hot in here!!!!!

 

[amogh_gulwady]

Please dont take off your clothes.

 

[vishalrao]

heh, and the topic of the post was supposed to be... government net neutrality...the chris holland blog post, mentions that some of the countries (like France) have such good broadband IN SPITE of government involvement (regulations etc)... paradoxically... (second paragraph is the juicy bits)we need local loop unbundling and de-cartelisation, to boost competition...right now the greedy isps want to utilise their bandwidth for mobile phone talk time... charge you megabucks for speech bandwidth... which is like, what? - 8 kbps? they charge you rs 250/- per month for that plus per-minute charges...rs 250 per month for 8 kbps is much more lucrative than say, charging you rs 250 for a 256 kbps home plan hehebut there is hope, if only trai and bsnl can see the light, and start affordable, high-speed, and unlimited (or virtually unlimited) plans... without waiting for other players to compete, catch up and surpass (like airtel's doing). that will kick off some real world-class broadband here...its like how bsnl kicked off broadband when they launched home plans of at least 256k, while the other greedy bastids (including airtel) were peddling 32, 64 kbps, made them play catch up didnt it?too bad there are not many PCs in homes, which is why these people dont bother competing here... rather compete where every tom, dick and harry carries mobile phones...maybe we'll just skip over wired broadband and go straight for wireless everywhere... WiMax, EDGE, EVDO, HSDPA and all that ... once the dust settles and some successful standard emerges, that will be the end of the cable and phone-company monopoly of the wires then the only differentiator will be if they offer speeds higher than whatever the wireless tech can do (256k - 2 mbps or more! hheh)

 

[blr_p]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 09:07 AM
maybe we'll just skip over wired broadband and go straight for wireless everywhere... WiMax, EDGE, EVDO, HSDPA and all that ... once the dust settles and some successful standard emerges, that will be the end of the cable and phone-company monopoly of the wires then the only differentiator will be if they offer speeds higher than whatever the wireless tech can do (256k - 2 mbps or more! hheh)
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That just might be the turning point ie reason at which they realise they have to unbundle.

As to which wireless std will win out, thats still a few yrs away atm.

 

[max]

WiMax, EDGE, EVDO, HSDPA are _not_ the answer. These technologies come nowhere near the bandwidth provided by OFCs. Also remember if these techs were used solely for retail consumers then we would be screwed with _VERY_ high costs along with capping.

 

[blr_p]

Sure, no one says they will be better than OFC, but 256k on them shoudl be possible i think. Of course it ill be oversubscribed, but i'm betting these techs will get 10x the amt of ppl that are on currently.The option to take wired connections does not go away, it receives more competition.

 

[vishalrao]

right... and these are "new" wireless techs... HSDPA is supposed to be about 2 mbps or more... WiMAX you know...just a matter of time, for these to settle down, the tech to get more mature and miniaturised like Wifi, say HSDPA or Wimax built-in to cellphones, smartphones, pda-phones, laptops/tablets, and also available as add-on PC-cards... and... at least one telco taking the plunge and launching, say, 1 mbps packages...unfortunately, why take a plunge when you can milk the market at your own convenience, coz there's no competition and the govt is useless here, hehe.even EDGE can do 256k i think, and its supposed to be a software "upgrade" and some hardward upgrades to current mobile phone infrastructurelook at all the pda-phones coming out with built-in EDGE right now! visit some sites like engadget.com or mobilewhack.com or somethingi dunno what the heck are all these people with fiber lying around are waiting for... why not FTTH or at least FTTP? I bet the govt is hassling the private players not letting them into their territory. and the private players are also sitting tight coz they can milk it in the mean time.man, i just hope there are some shock announcements this year... like:govt forces local loop unbundlingprivate players allowed to do FTTPtrai actually manages to bring down international bandwidth prices by 50%isps investigated for anti-trust (monopolistic and restrictive trade practises) forced to drop prices and boost speeds hehereliance and tata/vsnl actually start their own broadband plans which helps bolster competition..."xyz" ISP announces 1 mbps unlimited broadband for rs 1000/- per month! woohoo

 

[shamit]

I am not a Telecom Engineer, but Bandwidth (not in terms of net, in terms of radio) is a limited resource.With so many services (GSM, CDMA, FM ,AM, MW, Govt, Military.......) how many channels can be supported at a time.And in a city like Mumbai where 20 million people live in a small space, even GSM providers are not able to provide good service. What would hapen if so many wireless things are fighting for a limited amount of spectrum.But these tech can be really useful for small cities with lesser number of cell phones and other devices.