more on U.S. broadband A-OK A REAL MUST READ

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Bjørn <bv () norbionics com>
Organization: Norbionics
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:19:08 +0100
To: <dave () farber net>, Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on U.S. broadband A-OK A REAL MUST READ

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 18:23:47 -0500, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:

> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Les Vadasz <les () vadasz com>
> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 15:11:49 -0800
> To: <dave () farber net>
> Subject: RE: [IP] U.S. broadband A-OK
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> Usually I read these news items and go on to the next one. Some of
> factual,
> some are amusing, some - like this one - is downright infuriating. Maybe
> the
> writer should realize that this Country did not get where we are by
> making
> excuses for difficult tasks.
...

I might add that some of the excuses seem to be utter nonsense:

...
>   By contrast, the United States sprawls over nearly 10 million square
> kilometers--100 times the size of South Korea--with a population more
> evenly
> distributed between rural areas, towns and cities and far more likely to
> live in single-family homes. Geography and demographics explain why
> broadband will take longer to become available in the United States.
...
>   It's not just South Korea. All the nations that the OECD ranks above
> the
> United States are either much smaller (Netherlands) or happen to have
> people
> clustered around large cities that can be wired more easily than rural
> areas
> (Sweden, Norway).

I find little difference between rural Norway and rural United States
except that people in rural US tend to cluster in towns whereas we live
more spread out in Norway.
About 80% of the Norwegian population live in their own privately owned
homes. We do not crowd together in major cities like they do in the United
States. From a Norwegian point of view, it is extremely cheap and easy to
build infrastructure in the United States. That it is so, is easily proven
by the much higher penetration of cable TV in the US.

 From what I have seen, comparing my wife's home area in rural Pennsylvania
with my own in one of the most densely populated parts of Norway, there
are more houses with no close neighbours in Norway. The important reason
why there are fewer medium to high-speed Internet connections in the
United States is that you have a large population who cannot afford it. If
the standard of living for the lower 25% were improved to our level,
broadband penetration would certainly flourish. That is, after all, how
you got the automobile revolution started, and how everybody got their own
TV. Since then, class differences in Europe have kept decreasing (with a
few exceptions) while they have been increasing again in the US.

-- 
-bv

------ End of Forwarded Message


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