Re: The embarrassment of American broadband

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Atkinson <rca53 () columbia edu>
Date: April 26, 2009 10:35:05 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    The embarrassment of American broadband

If the issue is how to increase broadband adoption levels in the United
States, the Pew data implies that the unavailability of broadband  
facilities
is not the major problem.

See
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Stimulating-Broadband-If-Obama-build
s-it-will-they-log-on.aspx?r=1

And see the chart entitled "Summary of the reasons dial-up and non- 
internet
users cite for not having broadband at home" which notes that 14% of  
these
non-users of broadband (4.5% of all adults) cite "Availablity" as the  
reason
for not having broadband at home. Pew notes that "Usability" (17% of
non-broadband/ 5.5% of all adults) and "relevance" (51% of
non-broadband/16.4% of all adults) are by far the larger reasons for not
having broadband at home.

This data (and Pew's interpretation) implies that the internet and  
computer
training and literacy projects (which are eligible to be funded by the  
NTIA
portion of the broadband stimulus, BTW) may be more worthwhile, in  
terms of
encouraging broadband adoption, than broadband deployment projects which
would address the much smaller "availability" problem.

Bob Atkinson


On 4/26/09 9:57 PM, "David Farber" <dave () farber net> wrote:

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
> Date: April 26, 2009 8:50:07 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   The embarrassment of American broadband
>
> Brett Glass's reading of the Pew survey is incorrect.  The exact
> phrase in the second chart is "number of non-Internet users" and that
> number is 25 percent of adults.
>
> That means that 25 percent of adults polled said they did not use the
> Internet.  It has NO IMPLICATION WHATSOEVER regarding availability of
> HIGH-SPEED INTERNET.  It does not cite statistics about households,
> nor does it cite availability of high speed service.
>
> Why not help Brett avoid embarrassing himself?  Read what he cites
> before reposting it?
>
> David Farber wrote:
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
> > Date: April 26, 2009 12:49:17 PM EDT
> > To: dave () farber net, "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
> > Subject: Re: [IP] The embarrassment of American broadband
> >
> >
> > > To be fair, the U.S. has a population of more than 300 million
> > > spread out
> > > over more than 3.5 million square miles. That's a lot of people and
> > > a lot
> > > of space to cover. But it's pathetic that roughly three-quarters of
> > > the
> > > people in this country don't have broadband Internet service.
> >
> > This figure is very incorrect. According to the Pew Research Center,
> > penetration in the US has reached about 75% of adults; see the
> > second table at
> >
> > http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/Reasons-people-do-not-have-home-broad
> > band.aspx
> >
> > Of the 25% who do not have it, only 13% claim it's because they
> > can't get it. (About 9% of adults, for example, are just sticking
> > with dialup, and 33% just plain aren't interested!) And many of
> > those who claim they "can't" get broadband are apparently unaware of
> > their options. Thanks to WISPs and cellular broadband, there are
> > very few "dead zones" now.
> >
> > WISPs now serve an estimated 3 million customers (substantial market
> > share in a country with 300 million people; assuming 3.5 people per
> > household, we're over 1% penetration and growing). I was out this
> > Saturday on a new user's roof, and was rained on, snowed on, and
> > once nearly blown off the 45 degree slope by gusts of wind which I
> > estimated at 45 to 50 MPH. However, this family, which lives 12
> > miles from the nearest town and 3 miles from the nearest paved road,
> > needed good broadband. They didn't get it from a competitor which
> > used Motorola's proprietary "Canopy" equipment, so I installed an
> > FCC certified system which conformed to IEEE standards. (Ironically,
> > it cost less, even though it had a much better antenna with lower
> > wind resistance and a sturdier mount.) The family is now online and
> > very happy with the service.
> >
> > > The speed and price of broadband in the U.S. is shameful as well.
> > > In my San
> > > Francisco neighborhood, the fastest available DSL service is 3Mbps
> > > downstream and 512Kbps upstream for $25 a month. In my previous SF
> > > location, which was closer to a central office, I could get 6Mbps
> > > down and
> > > 768Kbps up. By comparison, Macworld contributor Kirk McElhearn, who
> > > lives
> > > in the French Alps, gets DSL with speeds of 6Mbps down and close to
> > > 1Mbps
> > > up for €30 a month (about $40); that includes free VoIP phone  
> > > service
> > > within France. If he didn't live in a semi-rural area, his service
> > > would be
> > > even faster.
> >
> > Our ISP is already offering service at a 54 Mbps signaling rate
> > (though not 54 Mbps continuous throughput per user; backbone
> > bandwidth costs $100 per month here, so throughput to the backbone
> > is priced accordingly). And we do it for $30 per month.
> >
> > We could do even better were we not constrained by the impossibility
> > of obtaining clean RF spectrum (despite the fact that almost none of
> > it is used in our area) and backbone providers' unwillingness to
> > provide local on-ramps to the FOUR fiber backbones that traverse our
> > valley. Give independent WISPs dedicated spectrum to work with, as
> > well as reasonably priced backbone access, and we can beat anything
> > the French or anyone else can do.
> >
> > --Brett Glass
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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