Why is American internet so slow?

[Contumacious]

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

Incorrect.

The internet is slow so that the NSA and the GCHQ can best monitor our movements.

Its a matter of national security

 

[DiamondDave]

American taxpayers already paid for fibre to every single home in America. Congress let them off the hook based on some crazy idea that we would rather have wireless cell phone data plans.

1.. no they did not
2.. you're not going to get fiber to every home in ability any time soon.. some just too out of the way
3.. The government has no business in the business of ISP

Yes, we did. Excuses. Govco's job is to break of monopolies and regulate interstate commerce, yeah that's the internet and other types of communication trunks and right of ways leased to telco's by our government.

No... that is the common myth that the pols told you.. in fact, it was never the plan to be able to go to every house.. it is an impossibility with current technology.. unless you think an extra 200K in materials, equipment, and labor to lay fiber to a rural farmhouse or remote outpost is feasible

Government should be out of it all together.. if I own a rail line and I want to lease tyo company A but not company B.. so be it.. if I want to get rights to run it thru your yard, I deal with you, not mommy government...

This whole myth of fiber to every house is laughable

 

[RDD_1210]

All that NSA snooping eats up bandwidth.

The lack of competition is the problem

WAAAIIIIIT A second. There are several competitors, but what's funny is I thought you would want govt control, you want competition? multiple PRIVATE companies, no way. Only the Government can do this!


btw my internet is just fine, I can play any game, post, watch videos, all at the same time.

Do you want it to remain that way?

 

[thereisnospoon]

Why is American internet so slow? - The Week

The country that literally invented the internet is now behind Estonia in terms of download speeds

A
ccording to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. The leaders in the world are Hong Kong at 72.49 Mbps and Singapore on 58.84 Mbps. And America? Averaging speeds of 20.77 Mbps, it falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

Its upload speeds are even worse. Globally, the U.S. ranks 42nd with an average upload speed of 6.31 Mbps, behind Lesotho, Belarus, Slovenia, and other countries you only hear mentioned on Jeopardy.

So how did America fall behind? How did the country that literally invented the internet — and the home to world-leading tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Facebook, Google, and Cisco — fall behind so many others in download speeds?

Susan Crawford argues that "huge telecommunication companies" such as Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T have "divided up markets and put themselves in a position where they're subject to no competition."

How? The 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was meant to foster competition — allowed cable companies and telecoms companies to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly, allowing them to charge customers higher and higher prices without the kind of investment in internet infrastructure, especially in next-generation fiber optic connections, that is ongoing in other countries. Fiber optic connections offer a particularly compelling example. While expensive to build, they offer faster and smoother connections than traditional copper wire connections. But Verizon stopped building out fiber optic infrastructure in 2010 — citing high costs — just as other countries were getting to work.

Crawford told the BBC:

We deregulated high-speed internet access 10 years ago and since then we've seen enormous consolidation and monopolies… Left to their own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge high prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight. [BBC]

If a market becomes a monopoly, there's often nothing whatever to force monopolists to invest in infrastructure or improve their service. Of course, in the few places where a new competitor like Google Fiber has appeared, telecoms companies have been spooked and forced to cut prices and improve service in response to the new competition. But that isn't happening everywhere. It's very expensive for a new competitor to come into a market, like telecommunications, that has very high barriers to entry. Laying copper wire or fiber optic cable is expensive, and if the incumbent companies won't grant new competitors access to their infrastructure, then the free market forces of competition don't work and infrastructure stagnates, even as consumer anger and desire for competition rises due to poor service.

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

This is an issue that crossed all lines of political ideology.
Unfortunately, the ISP's are doing the bare minimum to get by and charging us an arm and a leg.
And there is little that can be done to stop it..
THIS....https://fiber.google.com/about/...Could be the product that breaks the chains of tortiselike internet...
Now, here's the rub....
Too often when broadband competitors announce entry into a marketplace, the existing company in the market will use their clout to keep out the entry.
For example, the incumbent firm may use it's influence in the region to coerce the power company to set higher per pole fees. This is the cost per utility pole the provider pays to the utility pole owner.
Or the incumbent company may suddenly start filing lawsuits seeking relief from intrusion on it's "rights of way"..
It's a tough business to any new wire line ISP/video/telecom provider to enter into a new market.
Let's hope that Google can out muscle the big boys on this.

 

[francoHFW]

ANOTHER thing shortsighted Pubs won't invest in, we'll be a banana republic in no time...

 

[Antares]

I remember that campaign in the nineties to pass that telecom bill. The industry was all for it,

telling everyone how much better it would be for consumers.

Basic lesson: when corporations tell you they want certain laws because they will make it better for you, the consumer,

if you bet that they are lying, you will win much more than you lose.

...and yet YOU believe that when the GOVERNMENT says it THEY mean...too funny.

 

[Rozman]

We have a few members here who are on the Internet all the time trolling.

 

[The T]

We have a few members here who are on the Internet all the time trolling.

Waiting for their Gubmint Check...

 

[RKMBrown]

1.. no they did not
2.. you're not going to get fiber to every home in ability any time soon.. some just too out of the way
3.. The government has no business in the business of ISP

Yes, we did. Excuses. Govco's job is to break of monopolies and regulate interstate commerce, yeah that's the internet and other types of communication trunks and right of ways leased to telco's by our government.

No... that is the common myth that the pols told you.. in fact, it was never the plan to be able to go to every house.. it is an impossibility with current technology.. unless you think an extra 200K in materials, equipment, and labor to lay fiber to a rural farmhouse or remote outpost is feasible

Government should be out of it all together.. if I own a rail line and I want to lease tyo company A but not company B.. so be it.. if I want to get rights to run it thru your yard, I deal with you, not mommy government...

This whole myth of fiber to every house is laughable

That's complete nonsense. With people like you around to tell everyone how impossible and expensive it is to run a wire, it's a miracle we have power lines and roads at all in this country.

 

[thereisnospoon]

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]

Vista is perhaps Microsoft's worst OS ever.
Please, go buy Windows 8.

 

[thereisnospoon]

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

LIke I stated, this is an issue that crosses all lines of political ideology.
I would hope that as consumers, we could set aside our political differences.

 

[thereisnospoon]

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.

Which ones. Verizon? Local Cable co. What else?

 

[Jarlaxle]

I'm on a fairly slow DSL due to living in the middle of nowhere...though my mother (on a dead-end street in a town of 2500) has fiber-optics running at about 72K.

 

[The T]

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.

Same here. Competition is fierce.

 

[buckeye45_73]

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

LIke I stated, this is an issue that crosses all lines of political ideology.
I would hope that as consumers, we could set aside our political differences.

I think the funny thing is the reasons to support this in the OP, which are valid, but the OPS would prefer we have single payer health insurance, NO OPTIONS, NO COMPETITION......and health insurance is more important and way more expensive than internet.
But I do applaud him for starting to figure it out.

 

[longknife]

Just an aside - I was browsing this with Firefox with thee tabs open and it was sooooooo slow.
Just switched to Opera with only 1 tab open and it's ten times faster.

 

[Old Rocks]

All that NSA snooping eats up bandwidth.

I don't like NSA snooping any more than any other American. But that is irrelevant to this thread.

There are a bunch of nations with better internet access than the US. And that is reflected in our access to education. Like health care, we are way behind a bunch of 1st world nations in citizens access to the internet. And, like health care, the reason we are is that a bunch of people are protecting profits for the few over the interests of the whole nation.

 

[buckeye45_73]

All that NSA snooping eats up bandwidth.

I don't like NSA snooping any more than any other American. But that is irrelevant to this thread.

There are a bunch of nations with better internet access than the US. And that is reflected in our access to education. Like health care, we are way behind a bunch of 1st world nations in citizens access to the internet. And, like health care, the reason we are is that a bunch of people are protecting profits for the few over the interests of the whole nation.

bullshit, you love government and want it controlling more. And to prove it, we have the inevitable laundry list of how the government provides for all other countries. I'd rather have the private sector do it......

 

[Harry Dresden]

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.

I ain't gonna hold my breath. You are, afterall, a stupid fucking dimocrap

Holy fuck, did you just say voltage???? Really???

Oh and by the way, I saw your original post where you blamed it on the number of computers per capita. Why did you delete that post? Hahahahaha

Depending on the system your provider has, the number of users can effect the speeds. Fortunately many areas are going to fiber optics from source to the house.

thats what i have.....2 years now, no problems with it, never been down.....with Time Warner it was always going down....sometimes for a couple of hours....

 

[Darkwind]

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.

Thats correct, but we are still using some infrastructure from the old PSTN. Old copper wires that a single strand in rural areas are trying to carry digital loads they were never meant to carry. That is the first generation communication infrastructure after the telegraph.

Its funny, but I'm pretty sure that there is still miles and miles of dark fiber out there. Perhaps if the companies that own them are not going to use them, they should sell the fiber....but that becomes an ownership problem and I am against ANY Government intervention.