Why is American internet so slow?

[Harry Dresden]

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.

yea i can get 45.....and more if i want it....

 

[WinterBorn]

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

Are you using the same shovel here that you use for the cable trenches?

Seriously, it's a worthy subject, have any substantive input? Especially if you are "in the business".

How about that cable trenches rarely involves hand digging?

 

[Missouri_Mike]

So I decided to click on the now banned OP's link and if you do you will notice a few interesting things.

First of all the US is pretty good with internet speeds. Not the top but sure as hell not the bottom.

The big communist countries seem to be slower than we are....

Russia- 21.5 Pretty close to us but still behind.
China- 17.3, of course you can only access the websites they approve of anyway.
Venezuela? A smoking 1.8
The libtard country of free healthcare Cuba...1.8

Nobody in South America exceeds 15, Chile, the apparent leader in the interwebs sits at 13.2.

Africans fare a bit worse but apperently it's plenty to get out the scam emails Kenya wins with 6.7 but there are a lot without the information needed to actually assign them a number. Nice job Africa.

Europe is a mixed bag but not really if you understand what you're looking at. Germany is right up there along with France but Greece? Yeah not so much.

We're doing just fine here. Get over it.

BTW? Little countries like Japan an island with like a billion people and South Korea seem exceptional. North Korea has nothing. Just for comparison.

 

[Bill Angel]

My landlord recently upgraded the wi-fi that he offers to his tenants, so now I can watch HDTV on my tablet computer without glitches, freezeups, etc. So my internet connection is now as fast as I need it to be for what I like to do on the net. I admit that response times can be terrible when I visit certain particular websites, but isn't that a server issue rather than an ISP issue?

 

[WinterBorn]

We need a public option in this market.

Great.

Who pulls the lines? Who installs the backbone? Who buys the switches?

This doesn't happen by magic.

We do. I work for a company that builds fiber optic systems.

The good news is that many power companies and some municipalities are buildingtheir own fiber systems.

Chattanooga has a pretty good one with EPB. It is getting around more and more. We are almost finished with a major rural fiber optic build that was subsidized by some stimulus money. I hope I never work another job under those rules again.

 

[The T]

We need a public option in this market.

Great.

Who pulls the lines? Who installs the backbone? Who buys the switches?

This doesn't happen by magic.

We do. I work for a company that builds fiber optic systems.

The good news is that many power companies and some municipalities are buildingtheir own fiber systems.

Chattanooga has a pretty good one with EPB. It is getting around more and more. We are almost finished with a major rural fiber optic build that was subsidized by some stimulus money. I hope I never work another job under those rules again.

I do radio work for public safety entities that use fiber for their networks. It's the way to go.

 

[Jughead]

Why is American internet so slow?

Here's a solution that should eliminate a slow internet problem.

 

[The T]

So I decided to click on the now banned OP's link and if you do you will notice a few interesting things.

First of all the US is pretty good with internet speeds. Not the top but sure as hell not the bottom.

The big communist countries seem to be slower than we are....

Russia- 21.5 Pretty close to us but still behind.
China- 17.3, of course you can only access the websites they approve of anyway.
Venezuela? A smoking 1.8
The libtard country of free healthcare Cuba...1.8

Nobody in South America exceeds 15, Chile, the apparent leader in the interwebs sits at 13.2.

Africans fare a bit worse but apperently it's plenty to get out the scam emails Kenya wins with 6.7 but there are a lot without the information needed to actually assign them a number. Nice job Africa.

Europe is a mixed bag but not really if you understand what you're looking at. Germany is right up there along with France but Greece? Yeah not so much.

We're doing just fine here. Get over it.

BTW? Little countries like Japan an island with like a billion people and South Korea seem exceptional. North Korea has nothing. Just for comparison.

​

 

[Political Junky]

Other countries have faster and cheaper internet service...same with mobile phone service.

 

[Missouri_Mike]

Other countries have faster and cheaper internet service...same with mobile phone service.

You're an idiot. Who fucking cares? Based on what? Other countries (99%) of them have slower internet if they have it at all and no cell service.

WTF is your point?

 

[WinterBorn]

One thing I will say about most Americans, if you tell them someone else has something faster, bigger, better or cheaper, they will jump thru hoops to argue.

I have fast internet. I also have internet most places I go.

Is there some reason that shouldn't be enough?

 

[Londoner]

It's a Monopoly. The large telecom giants divided US markets into fixed no-compete zones. Nearly every local market has a captive audience which means these companies don't need to invest and innovate to retain or grow their customer base.

Capitalism is a "God-send" when it fosters perfect competition. However, capitalism - or should I say, the final phase of capitalism, monopoly capitalism - becomes lethal when it leads to the formation of a rentier class over necessary utilities. Many of the forces preaching the value of deregulated markets ended up, in the back of the house, creating mega-merger-monopolies over energy, health care and the internet. These monopolies have played a role in bankrupting middle class consumers.

If you are not innovating and competing, than the government should bust you up.

Google wants to offer the most advanced internet speeds in the country for a fraction of the current rates (and they also have a free option which is better than what over 80% of the country gets). But, unfortunately, Google is being denied entry into all but a handful of regions because it cannot unseat the telecom monopolies. One of the reasons we can' fix this problem is because 1/2 the country listens to people like Rush Limbaugh, who, as rule, never, ever, ever talk about the ant-trust monopolies that control our domestic economy. If the rightwing voter challenged his news sources, we could begin to address all the corrupt markets that have bankrupted our nation. As it stands, though, they lack the resources to even investigate if there is a telecom monopoly. Why? Because they are among its chief victims.

Go here
Search Results for 'captive audience' - Book TV

 

[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

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.

Cablevision (Optimum) and Time Warner Serve your town?
That's pretty rare.

 

[thereisnospoon]

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.

nope..Not yet. Next up..Fiber.

 

[thereisnospoon]

The short answer is that the market does not do everything better

The short answer to what?

 

[thereisnospoon]

We need a public option in this market.

Great.

Who pulls the lines? Who installs the backbone? Who buys the switches?

This doesn't happen by magic.

We do. I work for a company that builds fiber optic systems.

The good news is that many power companies and some municipalities are buildingtheir own fiber systems.

Chattanooga has a pretty good one with EPB. It is getting around more and more. We are almost finished with a major rural fiber optic build that was subsidized by some stimulus money. I hope I never work another job under those rules again.

Really..Can you give some examples of the most frustrating issues?

 

[buckeye45_73]

Other countries have faster and cheaper internet service...same with mobile phone service.

You're an idiot. Who fucking cares? Based on what? Other countries (99%) of them have slower internet if they have it at all and no cell service.

WTF is your point?

it's junkey, he always opposes the US, and cant think for himself and I'm sure he wants to strangle closed for suggesting competition and not a government solution

 

[buckeye45_73]

It's a Monopoly. The large telecom giants divided US markets into fixed no-compete zones. Nearly every local market has a captive audience which means these companies don't need to invest and innovate to retain or grow their customer base.

Capitalism is a "God-send" when it fosters perfect competition. However, capitalism - or should I say, the final phase of capitalism, monopoly capitalism - becomes lethal when it leads to the formation of a rentier class over necessary utilities. Many of the forces preaching the value of deregulated markets ended up, in the back of the house, creating mega-merger-monopolies over energy, health care and the internet. These monopolies have played a role in bankrupting middle class consumers.

If you are not innovating and competing, than the government should bust you up.

Google wants to offer the most advanced internet speeds in the country for a fraction of the current rates (and they also have a free option which is better than what over 80% of the country gets). But, unfortunately, Google is being denied entry into all but a handful of regions because it cannot unseat the telecom monopolies. One of the reasons we can' fix this problem is because 1/2 the country listens to people like Rush Limbaugh, who, as rule, never, ever, ever talk about the ant-trust monopolies that control our domestic economy. If the rightwing voter challenged his news sources, we could begin to address all the corrupt markets that have bankrupted our nation. As it stands, though, they lack the resources to even investigate if there is a telecom monopoly. Why? Because they are among its chief victims.

Go here
Search Results for 'captive audience' - Book TV

you're an idiot, I listen to Rush Limbaugh and I love competition. Conservatives want competition, hence we want lower regulation, so more companies can start up without having to pay as much and jump through all the hoops the major corporations can easily do.

Also we want lower taxes to increase incentives to invest and make profits. Democrats, well smart ones do this all the time, they're called mayors and they have all kinds of tax breaks to lure jobs and it works.

so next time don't quote talking points when all your side wants is government solutions, which cause most of the bullshit. I'm all for anti-monopolies, but I'm also for letting companies die if they cant compete and for having laws that encourage people to start a business, not bitching about profits and act like they're stealing from you.

 

[Political Junky]

Other countries have faster and cheaper internet service...same with mobile phone service.

You're an idiot. Who fucking cares? Based on what? Other countries (99%) of them have slower internet if they have it at all and no cell service.

WTF is your point?

The US doesn't make the top ten in speed of the internet.

Top 20: Where to Find the World's Fastest Internet: The Download - Bloomberg

Check out the mobile phone situation -

http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/an_international_comparison_of_cell_phone_plans_and_prices

 

[Iceweasel]

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.

I have a quadruple boot setup, three are linux based, XP on another partition. All linux distros run video better but only after selecting the right driver. The overhead is much less too, plus I have three (or more) virtual desktops with two monitors. My browsers don't crash, but bear in mind that Ubuntu distros and their offspring are based on Debian unstable.
I'm on Wheezy (stable) but I didn't have issues with the various Ubuntus, Mint, etc. until I tweaked them into not working. Windows takes a long time to boot so I seldom use it. Maybe they fixed that in 7?