USA pays more for slow Internet

[Guest]

Our only real solution is to vote with our wallets and go for the smaller providers, but not many consumers are aware that these smaller providers operate as wholesale resellers with a limited cap of customers they can put on their account, and are always at the mercy of said large providers when costs change.

 

Comparisons are frequently made between the US and Canada to other countries boasting better broadband and wireless infrastructure at cheaper prices but always discounting the relative sizes of these countries. I'd kill to have cheap Internet at blazing speeds but I imagine us in North America aren't willing to give up our houses built on large lots of land for that luxury ;)

 

The way how infrastructure also comes into play. In Sweden, for example, getting great internet is super cheap if you take into account the amount of money they make here, and there are no traffic limits or whatever caps that screw people. The actual infrastructure belongs to the local municipality, which rents out infrastructure to internet providers. Thus, you cannot really get screwed by the internet providers, as you can switch to a different provider whenever you want.

[trag3dy]

16 Mbps for 10 EUR in Macedonia, 30 EUR for 50 Mbps. 12 Mbps for free in Sweden. All unlimited without throttling.

 

It is super weird how developed countries such as the US have so crappy internet connections, expensive contracts with stupid traffic limits. -_-

 

EDIT: Damn, I am 1337!

 

Just to put things into perspective a bit, the state of California is roughly the same size as the entire country of Sweden. And that doesn't even touch on population or population density.

 

It's easy to get infrastructure in place when you don't have to worry about there being hundreds and thousands of miles between your towns and cities, and quite a bit less expensive.

[Guest]

Just to put things into perspective a bit, the state of California is roughly the same size as the entire country of Sweden. And that doesn't even touch on population or population density.

 

It's easy to get infrastructure in place when you don't have to worry about there being hundreds and thousands of miles between your towns and cities, and quite a bit less expensive.

 

Even if you take that into account, doesn't justify why the people in the highly populated areas are still getting crappy speeds and stupid caps.

[vf-]

Actually it's worse here. Much worse.

 

USA doesn't realise how good they get it.*

 

 

Most in the UK are well below 10Mb and you can't buy more. Further you are away from the exchange the slower it becomes on good old copper. Then some areas aluminium and copper. While Fiber is still getting rolled out.

[-T- Member]

Actually it's worse here. Much worse.

USA doesn't realise how good they get it.*

It was gonna be much better, but then Abbott somehow got in and ruined everything

[Luc2k]

Internet speeds and costs are not fairly spelled out I find...

 

I would very much be interested in stats showing how close to advertised speeds do consumers get across the world. As OOKLA data suggests that even these "high speed" countries consumers are getting far less than their advertised speeds (and ISPs tend to lie to OOKLA by ensuring its traffic is handled faster to gum up speed tests results). It does nothing if you can buy a 1Gbps pipe for $25/m when you realistically only have access to a fraction of this speed.

 

Verizon advertises me as getting 75Mbps down and guarantee that I'll get that speed consistently.

Even if 1Gbps is not guaranteed, it would still make that Verizon speed of yours look pitiful in the bang for buck department.

 

Anyway, is there any country with cheaper 1Gbps than Romania? It's less than 16$..

[Hum]

Internet speeds and costs are not fairly spelled out I find...

 

I would very much be interested in stats showing how close to advertised speeds do consumers get across the world.

Amen to that brother.

 

I had DSL for a while.

 

Upload speeds were never close to advertised.

 

CenturyLink just argued ande ignored my complaints.

[Denis W. Veteran]

The way how infrastructure also comes into play. In Sweden, for example, getting great internet is super cheap if you take into account the amount of money they make here, and there are no traffic limits or whatever caps that screw people. The actual infrastructure belongs to the local municipality, which rents out infrastructure to internet providers. Thus, you cannot really get screwed by the internet providers, as you can switch to a different provider whenever you want.

 

Oh gosh, I would LOVE it if the infrastructure belonged to the municipality. At least if it goes down we have one party to yell at. ;) There is a risk though of response times plummeting when city contractors can't be arsed to quickly fix your salted exposed wires or down connections, since they're not losing business either way. 

 

Sadly this does not address the problem of funding the infrastructure connecting the many municipalities and small towns that span hundreds and thousands of kilometres across this country. Theoretically we could nationalize all telco infrastructure in the country but risk turning the clock back to monopoly days when only one provider controlled all (AT&T in the US, Bell in Canada). Plus there's the tricky business of buying that back from the incumbents which will not let go without a fight.

[dvb2000]

There are a few cities in the U.S. where you can find 1000-megabit connections. Chattanooga, Tenn., and Lafayette, La. have community-owned fiber networks, and Google (GOOGL, Tech30) has deployed a fiber network in Kansas City. High-speed Internet users in Chattanooga and Kansas City pay $70, while in Lafayette, it's $110.

 

 

Australia is spending billions rolling out a new fibre network, which was going to give us 1GB/s long before now, but then our neophite liberal government were elected and they have nobbled it. We'll be lucky now to get much more than ADSL speeds, but we are still spending the same billions of dollars to duplicate the existing network!

[hagjohn]

No surprise here.

[Kami-]

My connection speed is 70 Gbps,but in reality downloads take longer. I pay around 60-70 bucks a moth w/ Family tier cable TV. I am on Xfinity and do not have their "Voice" services (home phone).

70Gbps eh? I wouldn't complain getting that for 60-70 USD...

[devHead]

I believe it; when I lived in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, I had 70 Mbps fiber optic connection and telephone and I paid about $27 a month.  There were plenty of ISPs all over town, so prices were very competitive.  When I lived in the capital, Sofia, I had 100 Mbps speed and paid about $20 a month for it.  It was broadband (or LAN Internet as they called it), but it was pretty good.  After 9 PM and until 6 AM, they would double your speed too!

 

Here in AZ, I have Cox cable, and get 50 Mbps, bundled with my TV and phone for $100 a month.  Not bad, but after 2 years it will go up.  The Internet will cost $58 I believe.

Amen to that brother.

 

I had DSL for a while.

 

Upload speeds were never close to advertised.

 

CenturyLink just argued ande ignored my complaints.

 

Same here in AZ.  CenturyLink is so hilarious trying to get me to drop Cox for them.  They can't even come close to the speeds I get.

[DeadEndAccount]

It was gonna be much better, but then Abbott somehow got in and ruined everything

 

I think what they're planning to do is take the same approach NZ has taken which is to have FTTN, wireless for rural customers and then phase in FTTH but that would require the separation of Telstra's line business from the existing organisation aka the de-merging of Telecom NZ and what eventually became Chorus (the old lines business of Telecom NZ which has become Spark). Personally they should have gone with the plan way before Telstra was privatised which was to separate the two businesses and have the lines company owned by the government with the top layer being privatised which would have given the government a lot more control over upgrading the infrastructure without the complexities of what existed under Rudd/Gillard.

[-T- Member]

I think what they're planning to do is take the same approach NZ has taken which is to have FTTN, wireless for rural customers and then phase in FTTH but that would require the separation of Telstra's line business from the existing organisation aka the de-merging of Telecom NZ and what eventually became Chorus (the old lines business of Telecom NZ which has become Spark). Personally they should have gone with the plan way before Telstra was privatised which was to separate the two businesses and have the lines company owned by the government with the top layer being privatised which would have given the government a lot more control over upgrading the infrastructure without the complexities of what existed under Rudd/Gillard.

 

Structural separation for Telstra has been the plan since the inception of the NBN, it's almost complete. You should look that up as it's exactly what you say should happen, and it started years ago

[DeadEndAccount]

Structural separation for Telstra has been the plan since the inception of the NBN, it's almost complete. You should look that up as it's exactly what you say should happen, and it started years ago

 

I'm having a look through here:

 

http://www.telstrawholesale.com.au/structural-separation-undertaking/index.htm

 

and it talks about having a separate unit within Telstra with oversight but I can't seem to find where there is a compete separation so that Telstra and 'Telstra Wholesale' become two separate companies. Maybe I'm a little blind but I can't seem to find it.

[Stoffel]

$60 for 1Mb/s

That's what we pay here, but no download caps :)

 

We can get faster but the prices are just silly

 

$100 for 2Mb/s

up to

$250 for 5Mb/s