Why is American internet so slow?

[boedicca]

Perhaps it would be faster of Obama's NSA weren't tracking everything we do on the interwebs.

Just sayin'.

 

[GISMYS]

Nsa computers take time to record your internet use!!!

 

[buckeye45_73]

The thing about it, is the article is right about competition, but im skeptical since the op mocks that idea and thinks the govt and tons of regulation will fix most if not all problems.

As for monopoly,they are bad, cause poor service and higher prices. Conservatives like me advocate it all the time and yes its still the best way to go. And thats why we laugh at big govt vs big business, because most times theyre o tne same side, but deregulation is a great way to enhance the free market and if someone gets too big, then cause more competition. Remember regulation hurts the little guy, mot the rich one

 

[Edgetho]

Edge, please tell us more about how the difference in voltage is what causes the slower speeds. I'm fascinated.

Not sure tho. I second your request for a clarification. I'm sure it'll be edifying.

I never said that voltage had anything to do with the speed of the internet.

How did you people ever make it past the third grade? Honest to God.

What I said was, 'look at why we have 110 v. Europe's 220.

Because of the evolution of electricity.

We had it first. We had the inventors of it right here, in the US of A.

Europe soon had electricity too. At one time, Europe and America both used 110 (120, whatever) but....

Then Tesla invented the Alternating Current. Which changed everything. Europe, the Germans in particular wanted to go with the 220 but with 50 Hz.

We wanted to stay with 60 Hz and 110 Volts.

Eventually... Here it is better written than I can manage --

Originally Europe was 120 V too, just like Japan and the US today. It has been deemed necessary to increase voltage to get more power with less losses and voltage drop from the same copper wire diameter. At the time the US also wanted to change but because of the cost involved to replace all electric appliances, they decided not to. At the time (50s-60s) the average US household already had a fridge, a washing-machine, etc., but not in Europe.

The end result is that now, the US seems not to have evolved from the 50s and 60s, and still copes with problems as light bulbs that burn out rather quickly when they are close to the transformer (too high a voltage), or just the other way round: not enough voltage at the end of the line (105 to 127 volt spread !).

Same thing with the internet. We invented it. We set up the infrastructure to support it YEARS before the Euro-Weenies.

When they finally got around to it, the technology had evolved to a point that they could start from scratch with cutting-edge tech where for us to start over would cause massive problems and unnecessary expense.

You people are dense.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

Uhm, TCP/IP gave the ability to use the existing communications infrastructure for what became known as the internet. In other words, the communication lines, your phone lines, were the first usage. .

 

[OnePercenter]

All American internet isn't slow. In Vegas I have Cox. (150 Mbps down/45Mbps up) Privately held company vs. publicly held.

OBTW; The future is WiFi.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

Why is American internet so slow? - The Week




I get tired of being right. This is why American internet access sucks because there isnt any competition and the companies dont give a shit. Since they have it locked down they jack up the prices and keep services wack and give you the finger

Yup. Where I am there's only Comcast and Verizon. And it's only going to get worse.

 

[Edgetho]

All American internet isn't slow. In Vegas I have Cox. (150 Mbps down/45Mbps up) Privately held company vs. publicly held.

OBTW; The future is WiFi.

WISPs. Wireless Internet Service Providers.

They've been around for a while but mostly in rural areas.

I understand they're f a s t

Then there's the density thingie. Europe has somewhere around ten times the population density that we do.

Also, somewhere around 5% of Americans still use dial-up service... Kinda slow.

And there's the Telephone Pole dealio.

You can't just go stringing wires and cables from telephone poles without permission.

Interesting.

Sometimes it's better to let someone else invent something, sit back and let them work the bugs out of it and then, when it's set up and running right, just use what they've perfected.

The entire world does that to us.... All the time. Especially the Russians and the Chinese.

And the Europeans and Indians and South Americans and Asians and Martians and Arabs and Africans and......

 

[Sunshine]

I don't see the issue. How fast do you WANT the internet to be? Are you willing to upgrade your own equipment to make it faster. I really can't complain about mine. It's plenty fast. I remember when I was in school having to go to town on Saturday to use an encyclopedia because the school I went to had burned 2 years before I started and we didn't have a library for several years, and when we did, it was limited for a very long time. I think we got what the other schools around wanted to discard. With the internet all I have to do is input what I want to know about and voila the knowledge of the universe is at my fingertips. If anyone had told me there would be such a thing as the internet when I was in 8th grade, I wouldn't have believed it. It is more like magic than technology, IMO. So are microwaves. I just don't get the pissing and moaning about how slow the internet is. Getting what I want is a matter of seconds, not minutes.

 

[whitehall]

The short answer is "AVERAGE". Everybody in Singapore has the same server probably maintained by the government but case you didn't notice the U.S. is a lot bigger than Singapore and the internet servers are varied as the terrain. Almost everyone in the U.S. has access to the internet and rural folks depend on satellite which is notoriously slow and some people still have dial up because of their phone service. When you average it out it makes the US appear to have slow internet service while the service for the majority of Americans is fast.

 

[SmedlyButler]

Edge, please tell us more about how the difference in voltage is what causes the slower speeds. I'm fascinated.

Not sure tho. I second your request for a clarification. I'm sure it'll be edifying.

I never said that voltage had anything to do with the speed of the internet.

How did you people ever make it past the third grade? Honest to God.

What I said was, 'look at why we have 110 v. Europe's 220.

Because of the evolution of electricity.

We had it first. We had the inventors of it right here, in the US of A.

Europe soon had electricity too. At one time, Europe and America both used 110 (120, whatever) but....

Then Tesla invented the Alternating Current. Which changed everything. Europe, the Germans in particular wanted to go with the 220 but with 50 Hz.

We wanted to stay with 60 Hz and 110 Volts.

Eventually... Here it is better written than I can manage --

Originally Europe was 120 V too, just like Japan and the US today. It has been deemed necessary to increase voltage to get more power with less losses and voltage drop from the same copper wire diameter. At the time the US also wanted to change but because of the cost involved to replace all electric appliances, they decided not to. At the time (50s-60s) the average US household already had a fridge, a washing-machine, etc., but not in Europe.

The end result is that now, the US seems not to have evolved from the 50s and 60s, and still copes with problems as light bulbs that burn out rather quickly when they are close to the transformer (too high a voltage), or just the other way round: not enough voltage at the end of the line (105 to 127 volt spread !).

Same thing with the internet. We invented it. We set up the infrastructure to support it YEARS before the Euro-Weenies.

When they finally got around to it, the technology had evolved to a point that they could start from scratch with cutting-edge tech where for us to start over would cause massive problems and unnecessary expense.

You people are dense.

I was pretty sure you weren't putting internet speed and voltage in the same basket. But your original post was a little ambiguous. Maybe one reason I didn't pick up the inference is I'm not sure the analogy is valid re: the Internet. There are no industry speed protocols or such that limit hardware as did the choice of voltage and a.c. over d.c. when designing and building infra-structure. An interesting proposal though, I'm going to research it a bit. Thanks.

 

[DiamondDave]

Coming from someone in the business.. the article, like the OP, is complete horse shit

As shown by your plethora of evidence.

Dear retard.. you and your little banned OP buddy (hopefully his troll ass is banned for good) fail to realize 1 thing

The plethora of circumstances in each person' perceived feelings about internet speed..

We have the highest concentration of OC-192 backbone in the world... we also have the highest concentration of high speed lines in most all urban and suburban areas.. even in rural areas, the availability of DSL and other technologies (including satellite, 3g and 4g) is second to none... now.. take into account the propensity of people to hold on to equipment, for people to be ignorant of what is even traversing their own transmission connection, and the thought that if it is not instant, it must be slow, and you will easily see that the conclusions in the article are nothing more factual than Alice in Wonderland.. it is a bullshit article with a bullshit premise with improper scope and information to back it up... and the idiot OP is just about as idiotic...

This, written for you across a 4G connection, 50+ miles outside of DC and 15 miles from any incorporated town, while riding a train traveling over 40MPH thru a grove of trees that has not ended in miles... by an engineer who has worked in data transmission for over 23 years

So fuck you, idiot

 

[RKMBrown]

You're wrong. But... You're a dimocrap, which means you're stupid.

Ask yourself why Europe uses 220 Volt systems and we use 110.

If you can answer that, you'll have the answer to our slower internet.

XXXXX

Odd... I live in the states and I have dozens of devices running on 220. Do you live in a place where you don't have 220?

 

[DiamondDave]

All that NSA snooping eats up bandwidth.

The lack of competition is the problem

Lack of competition?

Here in NY I am bombarded daily by salespeople for a multitude of internet carriers.

BINGO

And hey.. if the 'monopoly complainers' own or can lease rights to land spanning miles to make a fiber mesh or ring, you go ahead and lay the millions and millions of dollars for fiber for a backbone... be my guest.. more competition is a good thing

In my town alone, I have have basically 5 choices for last mile or household internet service.. companies battling for it in a town with less than 750 houses

Laughable, these little progs are

 

[DiamondDave]

Interesting that the conservative posters here are arguing in favor of monopolies. You have a leftist OP making the Capitalist argument for more competition and the right wingers rebuffing him. I must have fallen into the Bizarro World

Is internet access deemed a monopoly?

Right off the top of my head I can get access via TWC, VZ and Optimum....and I know there are others.

WISPs.

These idiots are pushing for the net neutrality act but are too dishonest to state it outright

They want the gubmint in charge -- Of everything.

Bingo

 

[ogibillm]

Interesting that the conservative posters here are arguing in favor of monopolies. You have a leftist OP making the Capitalist argument for more competition and the right wingers rebuffing him. I must have fallen into the Bizarro World

Is internet access deemed a monopoly?

Right off the top of my head I can get access via TWC, VZ and Optimum....and I know there are others.

WISPs.

These idiots are pushing for the net neutrality act but are too dishonest to state it outright

They want the gubmint in charge -- Of everything.

that sentence there shows you don't understand net neutrality.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I don't know about the rest of you but I get totally frustrated with the slowness of browsing the internet on forums such as this. Whether it's Firefox, or Opera, or Chrome, that stupid little circle at the top keeps going and nothing happens.

It may be because I'm still using Vista.

[Just counted 3.5 seconds to go from quick reply to advanced]

Browsing depends on a great many variables. Connection speed is one of the factors. That you have Vista could be an advantage. Longhorn based systems (Vista, 7, 8) make use of graphics hardware through the DirectX API. That is, IF your machine has decent graphics hardware. The ability of the remote server to provide information is also a factor. A faster machine and more bandwidth will do little to speed USMB up, the big issue here is the servers can't meet the demand on them. Latency is another factor.

That said, our speeds in this country ARE pathetic, and there is little excuse for it. Most areas have fiber backbones and could easily serve 10X the speeds we see today. But ISP's like Charter want to bleed this in slowly, to maximize the return on their investment.

 

[Plasmaball]

All American internet isn't slow. In Vegas I have Cox. (150 Mbps down/45Mbps up) Privately held company vs. publicly held.

OBTW; The future is WiFi.

compared to south Korea you are on dial up.

 

[Uncensored2008]

It was almost instant for me. I am using an 8 year old computer w/ 2gigs of memory and the slowest internet cable speed Comcast has. I think the big difference is the OS. I'm on Linux Debian and using Iceweasel (Firefox). Chromium runs about the same.

I duel boot the machine I'm on between Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I have never seen Ubuntu responding faster. Chromium or Firefox. Windows 7 has better drivers for my GTX480, so on graphic intensive sites, I get better performance from Windows. Most of the time I can't tell the difference.

Firefox crashes, Chromium doesn't - but OS is irrelevant in that regard.

 

[Plasmaball]

The lack of competition is the problem

Lack of competition?

Here in NY I am bombarded daily by salespeople for a multitude of internet carriers.

BINGO

And hey.. if the 'monopoly complainers' own or can lease rights to land spanning miles to make a fiber mesh or ring, you go ahead and lay the millions and millions of dollars for fiber for a backbone... be my guest.. more competition is a good thing

In my town alone, I have have basically 5 choices for last mile or household internet service.. companies battling for it in a town with less than 750 houses

Laughable, these little progs are

i have one company.
I hope google fiber takes off and kills prices and all the rape they do.

But no you go switch to those 5 companies, They all give you the same basic rates for the same shit ball quality