Congress is debating America’s broadband network with more urgency. How quickly can the U.S. catch up with other world technology leaders?
How high quality is the type of video that YouTube recently announced support for? So high, you need a 25-foot screen to appreciate it. It’s the latest reminder that as technology companies invent cooler and cooler applications, they won’t just eat up bandwidth—they’ll devour it. Can America’s broadband network, already under strain, handle what’s coming next?
Measuring Internet speed can be tricky, but few dispute that America’s network has fallen behind South Korea, Sweden, and other global leaders. A growing group of policymakers agrees that America needs to make its broadband faster, while also extending service to the one in three Americans who don’t use it. The current average broadband download speed in America is about 10 megabits per second, according to speedtest.net, a site that allows you to test the speed of your current connection. Those with dial-up obviously have much slower average speeds. Determining how to speed up Net access for everyone is a question that Congress, broadband companies, and interest groups are debating with greater urgency than usual, thanks in part to a federal appeals court decision in April that raised legal questions about how the government subsidizes and regulates broadband. For now, there’s no telling how (or when) the fight will lead to something substantial.
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9 comments:
2020 huh, there will be no internet or electricity for that matter. We will already of been at war for years by then. A WAR AMONGST OURSELVES.
40% of Wicomico County will still be on DSL or dial-up because Comcast will still refuse to wire 4 out of every 10 houses in the county!!!!
better question
What will it cost?
Probably even slower than it is now. I have Verizon DSL and the phone lines are of a small gauge and very old. They break all the time. My speeds are sub-standard. The road is 1 mile long with 9 houses, so Verizon deems it un-profitable to replace the line. They refuse to do substantial fixes to the copper infrastructure that we've continued to pay for over many decades.
No competitor will come in. The cable company won't get a fast enough payback to run a line, either. We're 2 miles from their nearest node. No CLEC will fill the gap, because they will be held mercy to the same deteriorating Verizon infrastructure.
This leaves satellite (lol) and wireless as the only options. Nothing is ever as good as a physical cable (unless it breaks every month or two). Even though I am 1 mile from town, ATT is bad. I doubt that Verizon is going to offer a decent rate and a huge amount of bandwidth over the air.
We'll never have wide-spread innovation on our existing copper if we don't maintain it to necessary standards. And our existing copper infrastructure (power and telephone) are our best bets for quickly rolling out broadband.
After the internet goes thru the government filters it will be 14.4 Kps
most of us in the rural areas still are forced to have dial up. So anything is better than that
Charter Cable and Verizon disgust me-they both send me junk mail begging me to sign up for highspeed internet and yet neither is available where I live.The nearest DSL line is 5 miles away ad cable is about the same.Instead of wasting $$ advertising what they can do,they should invest money and actually provide services to more homes.
Hey all your free market freedom lovers. Every country with faster and better internet is a country where the government invests in the infrastructure. We let private business figure it all out. How's that magic hand of the free market working for you?
I hate to agree but you have a good point there.And notice also that the countries with better broadband access also are those whose cultures place a high priority on education and technology.The free market is only interested in urban media markets and the companies in areas like the Shore are bloated unionized utilities who have no real motivation to upgrade their networks because they know customers have little other choice.
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