Monday, August 30, 2004
Business Week says U.S. Falling Behind in Broadband
According to this article:
. . . the U.S. is becoming something of a broadband backwater . . . Many Americans may think that the U.S. is making progress because the number of broadband Net links continues to climb, but that misses the bigger picture.
The U.S. has steadily fallen behind other nations, both in terms of the share of the population with broadband and the speed of those connections. Consider this: In 2000 the U.S. ranked third in broadband penetration among the nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. Last year it dropped to 10th place. [Lower! Below #15 according to my calculations -- David I] That's behind recognized leaders such as Japan and Korea, as well as countries like Belgium and Canada. "It's ridiculous that the U.S., of all places, is so far behind in this key measure of economic development," says Tim Johnson, publisher of London's Point Topic, which analyzes world broadband trends.
Comments:
The real question is what to do to catch up? Legislation can help (e.g. IPv6 and other initiatives). But also, fierce competition, and that will come probably from the MSOs, which will force the RBOCs to counter their triple play offerings.
http://gruia.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/9/1/133633.html
http://gruia.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/9/1/133633.html
One interesting assertion is that South Korea wasn't heavily subsidizing broadband access, which other articles obviously disagree with. The authors also make that argument that it wasn't driven by subsidies but don't provide any proof.
In the US, the options are typically the cable company or the telephone carrier providing either cable modem or DSL service acess for broadband Internet.
Is there any analysis of profitability of the ISPs providing broadband access? It's nice to have broadband access of whatever speed and as a taxpayer you're paying for it indirectly in the form of a subsidy.
Will this be an artificial buildout by the S. Korean govt to drive boradband access? Maybe the strategy makes sense as taxpayers pay ISPs or telecom service providers just so someone can watch a soap opera over the Internet?! TV or cable TV isn't good enough?!
That's an important cultural difference. S. Koreans enjoy networked gaming while Americans tend to like the standard Nintendo, Playstation type of gaming paradigm of pluggin a gaming box into their TV. The Internet also assists Koreans with dating as their traditional culture requires intermediaries instead of just approaching one another to strike up the initial conversation. An article showed young Koreans engaging in online chat then if they like each other, they're actually meet face-to-face even while they're physically in the same internet cafe!
SMS - Simple Text messaging took off in Europe while it's being introduced in the US and do you really need it?
There's no real tangible metric analysis that we're falling behind. Behind in what? Content? Cheap high-speed access? Service area availability?
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In the US, the options are typically the cable company or the telephone carrier providing either cable modem or DSL service acess for broadband Internet.
Is there any analysis of profitability of the ISPs providing broadband access? It's nice to have broadband access of whatever speed and as a taxpayer you're paying for it indirectly in the form of a subsidy.
Will this be an artificial buildout by the S. Korean govt to drive boradband access? Maybe the strategy makes sense as taxpayers pay ISPs or telecom service providers just so someone can watch a soap opera over the Internet?! TV or cable TV isn't good enough?!
That's an important cultural difference. S. Koreans enjoy networked gaming while Americans tend to like the standard Nintendo, Playstation type of gaming paradigm of pluggin a gaming box into their TV. The Internet also assists Koreans with dating as their traditional culture requires intermediaries instead of just approaching one another to strike up the initial conversation. An article showed young Koreans engaging in online chat then if they like each other, they're actually meet face-to-face even while they're physically in the same internet cafe!
SMS - Simple Text messaging took off in Europe while it's being introduced in the US and do you really need it?
There's no real tangible metric analysis that we're falling behind. Behind in what? Content? Cheap high-speed access? Service area availability?
