Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow(corp.sonic.net)
corp.sonic.net
Why U.S. Broadband is So Slow
http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2011/03/05/why-us-broadband-is-so-slow/
18 comments
Hey, as a WISP employee myself, thanks. It is really frustrating sometimes that potential customers have been trained that the duopoly the article mentioned is reality.
In truth, there is a vibrant, resourceful, and outspoken group of entrepreneurs out to take all of the incumbents marbles. But, like the article says, we have to fight at every turn for access that telco's and cable co's take for granted.
In truth, there is a vibrant, resourceful, and outspoken group of entrepreneurs out to take all of the incumbents marbles. But, like the article says, we have to fight at every turn for access that telco's and cable co's take for granted.
Telco's don't usually advertise "naked DSL." If you search hard enough it's out there.
Same goes for cable companies here in the states. For example Comcast you can buy your own modem then pay $42 a month for Internet when u subscribe to local cable channels for additional $15. You can also just subscribe to Internet for $60 sans local cable.
Further if you live in apartment complex an open wifi access point is the cheapest!
Further if you live in apartment complex an open wifi access point is the cheapest!
Further if you live in apartment complex an open wifi access point is the cheapest!
Be careful with this one, since a combination of some recent court cases could be used to argue that accessing an open access point is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and result in penalties more serious than if you'd stolen a gift card and used it to buy Internet access (IANAL).
Be careful with this one, since a combination of some recent court cases could be used to argue that accessing an open access point is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and result in penalties more serious than if you'd stolen a gift card and used it to buy Internet access (IANAL).
I could get naked dsl from ATT only after i found this phone number in an old blog comment!
spread it 1-800-288-2020
spread it 1-800-288-2020
The last line stood out to me.
> ... passing by along the way the idle fiber infrastructure that the FCC set aside nearly a decade ago.
Can anyone elaborate on what exactly they mean? Is this dark fiber sitting around somewhere? Did the FCC sanction the deployment and private companies built it out (and then ignored it) or was government money spent to lay the wires?
> ... passing by along the way the idle fiber infrastructure that the FCC set aside nearly a decade ago.
Can anyone elaborate on what exactly they mean? Is this dark fiber sitting around somewhere? Did the FCC sanction the deployment and private companies built it out (and then ignored it) or was government money spent to lay the wires?
There is tons of dark fiber, due to the economics of laying cables.
Digging a ditch is expensive. The fiber you put in the ditch is cheap. So if you are already digging a ditch, you load it up with 100x as much fiber as you imagine yourself ever needing in the future.
This is vastly cheaper than digging a second ditch 5-10 years down the line.
Digging a ditch is expensive. The fiber you put in the ditch is cheap. So if you are already digging a ditch, you load it up with 100x as much fiber as you imagine yourself ever needing in the future.
This is vastly cheaper than digging a second ditch 5-10 years down the line.
Yeah, but aren't we talking about the "last mile" problem, not about dark fiber? I thought that most of the dark fiber was in long inter-city/state runs, not running down my neighborhood street.
I thought he was referring to dormant fiber that the telco owns that used to be available to third-parties at wholesale rates.
I thought he was referring to dormant fiber that the telco owns that used to be available to third-parties at wholesale rates.
That's exactly what I was talking about.
In exchange for less regulations, the FCC had private companies build out fiber networks in the 1990's. Most of it was never used, though, as companies instead focused on increasing bandwidth in copper wiring.
Actually, yes. Tons of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fibre
I'm not sure what they mean by "set aside", but back in the 90's there was a huge buildout of fiber as part of the dot-com bubble.
It's refereed to today as "dark fiber"; fiber optics that are not active.
However, I don't know that using that dark fiber would improve our internet. The backbones are already extremely fast; it's the downlinks and uplinks that are slow, and I'd guess most dark fiber is not routed to homes.
It's refereed to today as "dark fiber"; fiber optics that are not active.
However, I don't know that using that dark fiber would improve our internet. The backbones are already extremely fast; it's the downlinks and uplinks that are slow, and I'd guess most dark fiber is not routed to homes.
The conclusions are interesting, although I think they give government intervention way too much credit. If other product lines are any indication, people can become pretty content pretty quickly; they may not demand more even if they might achieve it. I suppose life is just too short and people move on to more pressing concerns. If tomorrow all TVs in the world stopped working and shows could only be watched online, I think customers' attentions would shift and demand for high speed would see a new life. That's just the way these things work.
Incidentally, I hate the use of the term "Republican led FCC" in this article when "FCC" would have sufficed. I'm no Republican, but these kinds of loaded phrases invite ad hominem arguments. Readers should be able to learn about the actions of an organization such as the FCC and judge them as good or bad based on relevant facts.
Incidentally, I hate the use of the term "Republican led FCC" in this article when "FCC" would have sufficed. I'm no Republican, but these kinds of loaded phrases invite ad hominem arguments. Readers should be able to learn about the actions of an organization such as the FCC and judge them as good or bad based on relevant facts.
But it's entirely true that the FCC was under the watch of Republicans when the telecom act was defanged and shared access to customer copper was rolled back. Maybe you don't remember, but ten years ago you could get various providers on the copper you had -- I had DSL from a local company over my Verizon-provisioned phone line. My dad had earthlink service over his time-Warner cable line. There was a price difference and most definitely a difference in service. Nowadays the best you can do is speakeasy, and they have to pay covad to roll a truck and use a second pair of copper. This change was courtesy of the FCC, who agreed with an industry assessment that competition was really driving them nuts. And like it or not, the FCC was run by Republicans (Kevin Martin, remember him?) when this anti-consumer change was made. Your comment that "people become content" more accurately describes today's marketplace, where people are faced with a dearth of options for home and mobile broadband and just suck it up, pay the outrageous amount, and get on with life.
I didn't say the Republicans' involvement was untrue, I said it was irrelevant. When an article points out a political party in this way, the publication is implying that the outcome is because of that party (something that simply can't be known from the facts). I suggested that they leave this out because it is more important to report on exactly what the FCC did and exactly what the outcome was. It allows people to have reasonable debates without becoming heated over their politics.
I didn't say the Republicans' involvement was untrue, I said it was irrelevant.
IMO the constant flip-flopping between the extreme policies of either party is a significant contributor to our country's lagging Internet speeds (and a number of other problems in the US), so I consider the party association highly relevant.
IMO the constant flip-flopping between the extreme policies of either party is a significant contributor to our country's lagging Internet speeds (and a number of other problems in the US), so I consider the party association highly relevant.
On the other hand, Verizon didn't upgrade our copper to make DSL possible until the requirement to share it was eliminated. And I lived in a very high population density area.
My mother lives in a small European 5k residents town, she does not spend much time on the Internet and she watches mostly satelite television. Yet she was interested in choosing the best among 4 or 5 offers -- just because she had a choice. Her offer was much better than everything I've seen in the US, and it still was only medium price to speed ratio, because she does not live in a big city. She does not actually need the amount of bandwidth she bought, but it was cheap, so she got that nevertheless.
It's not the customers demands that drive the prices down, it's the fear that other companies put better offer. If there are no other companies to worry about, they happily retain high prices, and that's what happens in the US.
It's not the customers demands that drive the prices down, it's the fear that other companies put better offer. If there are no other companies to worry about, they happily retain high prices, and that's what happens in the US.
Bait taken. What exactly has the FCC done recently (seeing as how it's a gov't agency) to protect the interest of consumers?
I might even strike the "recently" from that question. (I'm not being facetious)
The regulation of spectrum benefits consumers by specifying who can broadcast under what circumstances/conditions/amplitude. This prevents interference, which enables surprisingly reliable communication over such a noisy technology.
Yes, but what of the charge that the FCC has consistently given preference to well-monied lobbyists (e.g. the National Association of Broadcasters vs. Low Power FM radio operators) when handling spectrum rights?
Is there a way of managing spectrum that is more efficient for businesses and more beneficial to consumers? We don't know, because the FCC is governed by increasingly antiquated rules.
Potentially silly question: Why did we dig ditches and bury cable? Why didn't we dig ditches and bury pipes that you can snake cable out of and into as needed? This makes our Internet seem less like a problem of feasibility, and more like a complete engineering fuck-up.
Cost. I would also say that most of the 'cable' is laid inside conduit, but conduit with limited space and owned by a particular carrier who has no incentive or regulation dictating that he share that conduit.
Now i can't help but wonder, would it be wise for the government (likely local) to lay pipe and license room in it to ISPs? Much of it could even be done when working on sewers and roads, I'd imagine.
(Cue complaints of government interfering with business.)
(Cue complaints of government interfering with business.)
You might find your answer in the history of municipal network projects. But I'm strongly biased against the incumbents, so I'll avoid leaving any details here.
Switched to Sonic.net about 2 months ago and love it! Twice the speed (getting over 6 megabit now) of AT&T and for 1/2 the cost ($40/month vs. almost $80).
Just tested my connection (fiber):
Download Speed: 54.13 mbps (6.8 MB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 51.97 mbps (6.5 MB/sec transfer rate)
The price? $20/month. But I am not in USA.
The price? $20/month. But I am not in USA.
Hmmm, is that considered fast? On Comcast in SF I get about 20Mbps down and I never really thought of it being particularly speedy.
edit: Someone should create a website that both tests your speed, but then also shares that result with the world (anonymously). I'd love to pop up a list of ISPs in a specific city and see exactly how accurate their listed speeds are before buying.
edit: Someone should create a website that both tests your speed, but then also shares that result with the world (anonymously). I'd love to pop up a list of ISPs in a specific city and see exactly how accurate their listed speeds are before buying.
Does Speedtest.net not do this for you? There is the small problem that the local Speedtest.net server was moved from a high-quality independent ISP to Comcast, so all Comcast speed tests are now completely unrealistic.
Ookla — the folks who run speedtest.net — have interesting displays of the data they've collected:
http://www.netindex.com/
Top download speeds by country:
http://www.netindex.com/download/
http://www.netindex.com/
Top download speeds by country:
http://www.netindex.com/download/
I'm on sonic.net and get 20mbps down, 2 mbps up. You need bonded Fusion service to get those sorts of speeds though.
dslreports.com has speedtest results, down to zip code, though they don't include things like what service product and/or whether the service has some bandwidth cap.
dslreports.com has speedtest results, down to zip code, though they don't include things like what service product and/or whether the service has some bandwidth cap.
I have AT&T U-Verse (fiber to the end of the block, copper to my door), and I get 18mbps down, 1.5mbps up for $55/mo (internet only, no landline). I was paying $99/mo for 15mbps down, 2mbps up with Time Warner (internet only, no TV/phone).
Or, you could do what Verizon did: Build a large fiber optic-based network in several metropolitan areas and, for the first time, give Comcast, Charter, and Time Warner a run for their money. Then, turn around and dump several "second-tier" markets (Portland, Redmond/Kirkland/Bellevue, most of North Carolina, etc) onto a company that is actively trying to persuade customers not to use that network.
Sometimes large telcos just baffle me.
Sometimes large telcos just baffle me.
The interesting bit is that I'm not sure in many cases it matters.
I'm lucky to have FiOS (25down/5up), and I have many times the bandwidth I can manage. I can be downloading a couple torrents, my wife and I can both be streaming a movie, our phones can both be updating, I can forget I left Pandora running, and a friend can be in another room doing goodness knows what, and web sites still load more or less the same as normal.
I'd don't think I've ever come close to saturating my connection mainly because the sites I'm connecting to...even major sites...can't serve me data fast enough. For example, I routinely wait for youtube to buffer (though oddly 720p appears to load faster and more smoothly than any other resolution)...often I'll watch something on hulu while a videoclip buffers on youtube.
I've been on 100mbps connections in East Asia and didn't notice any perceptible difference...I did about the same amount of stuff in about the same amount of time...the sites I was connected to simply weren't servicing me any faster.
I'm lucky to have FiOS (25down/5up), and I have many times the bandwidth I can manage. I can be downloading a couple torrents, my wife and I can both be streaming a movie, our phones can both be updating, I can forget I left Pandora running, and a friend can be in another room doing goodness knows what, and web sites still load more or less the same as normal.
I'd don't think I've ever come close to saturating my connection mainly because the sites I'm connecting to...even major sites...can't serve me data fast enough. For example, I routinely wait for youtube to buffer (though oddly 720p appears to load faster and more smoothly than any other resolution)...often I'll watch something on hulu while a videoclip buffers on youtube.
I've been on 100mbps connections in East Asia and didn't notice any perceptible difference...I did about the same amount of stuff in about the same amount of time...the sites I was connected to simply weren't servicing me any faster.
Please note that most of the bw in Asia is to other parts of Asia. There is lots of peering and lots of fibre. Trying to get to the US, on the other hand, and you have a few, very expensive (comparatively) cables. This is why you find cloud companies in korea doing live disk replication into japan. The fibre in the region is just so cheap that it just doesn't matter anymore.
You would probably notice that if you were using local (or even localish) sites, that there would be a dramatic improvement.
You would probably notice that if you were using local (or even localish) sites, that there would be a dramatic improvement.
Unfortunately, due to the duopolies described in the article, most of the rest of us are stuck dreaming of such a fibery heaven. Verizon has said explicitly that they won't be coming to my area. Ever.
I should have probably been more clear. There are consumer level DSL and cable connections that are >5mbps. Except for very very heavy usage, I doubt that somebody on a ~5mbps connection would see an appreciably different Internet than I do.
Or look at it another way, I wouldn't consider it a major penalty to move someplace without FiOS and "only" a 5mbps connection. My day job has 2 paired T-1s and I only notice a slight slowness compared to my fiber home connection.
Either way, I wait about as long for a youtube video to queue up, and I can watch hulu without problems in the meantime. I supposed it'd really matter if I wanted to stream 1080p HD. But there's really not a ton of that sort of content on the web anyway that's streamable.
Or look at it another way, I wouldn't consider it a major penalty to move someplace without FiOS and "only" a 5mbps connection. My day job has 2 paired T-1s and I only notice a slight slowness compared to my fiber home connection.
Either way, I wait about as long for a youtube video to queue up, and I can watch hulu without problems in the meantime. I supposed it'd really matter if I wanted to stream 1080p HD. But there's really not a ton of that sort of content on the web anyway that's streamable.
I do find it strange that you can go and get wholesale bw in the US for $1/mbit or less, yet residential ADSL tails, sold with contention ratios in the order of thousands:1 can be sold for like $60/month....
In the UK the main speed factor is the line between you and either your cabinet, or your exchange. You're sold packages that are probably either 8 or 24 MB/s, and you get what you can. I'm 1.1 miles from the exchange directly with no fibre in the road, so I get 6.5 while paying for 24. When fibre comes any nearer, it will be free. How is it in US? Is fibre to the street/cabinet common?
My favorite article on this topic, by Robert X. Cringely in 2007, on the Telecommunications Act of 1996: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_0026...
"The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen."
"The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen."
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Why doesn't another big company step up and lay down its own copper/fiber into homes? Sure, it will be a BIG investment but the return should be awesome. I am sure it will be worthwhile in at least some areas like NYC, Bay Area, Boston etc.
Because as soon as a new player wants to connect a town with fiber (or the town decides to lay fiber on it's own) suddenly the big telcos are very interested in also laying fiber in that town, ruining any chance of profitability. There are even cases of telcos suing towns that tried to lay their own fiber.[0]
I know this is an unpopular view in the United States, so please do not downvote me for stating my opinion, but I believe that phone/internet service should not have been privatized in the first place.
0: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/telco-to-town-wer...
I know this is an unpopular view in the United States, so please do not downvote me for stating my opinion, but I believe that phone/internet service should not have been privatized in the first place.
0: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/telco-to-town-wer...
It's a small drop in the bucket, but at least a start somewhere. Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber
Can you fathom how much it will cost to dig up the streets, lay fiber and fill them back in? Will cities even allow that, due to the impediment to the traffic?
It's been managed before for fiber deployments in northern Europe. I remember seeing a perspective on Ars Technica from Amsterdam, with a photo of a sidewalk tiles neatly removed and replaced without damage: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how-amsterda...
So, it can be done.
So, it can be done.
In the UK there've been some pilot deployments of fibre using sewers ( e.g.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7202396.stm ).
Avoids the need to dig up roads and keeps the cost of deployment low
Avoids the need to dig up roads and keeps the cost of deployment low
Hong Kong is small country which makes it faster / cheaper to adopt new technologies compared to adopting it in 50 states where some states are magnitude bigger than Hong Kong.
The Western capitalist dogma is that state-run economies like those of China are inherently inefficient. But it seems to me that more and more recent evidence suggests that it may be that the partisan gridlock of Western democracies, dominated by monied interests and their lobbies, is more detrimental.
The "Western capitalist dogma" to which you refer applies to competitive situations. But cable and phone companies are not competitive in the U.S.A., they are monopolistic.
Read that section of a western economics text that explains monopolies for further enlightenment.
Read that section of a western economics text that explains monopolies for further enlightenment.
When Utah's municipally-sponsored fiber optic ISP project looked poised to become the fastest, most consumer-friendly option for Internet and TV in the state, the cable and telco companies got the state to pass a law that indirectly but effectively shut the project down. So on one hand it looks like governments can do some things right, but on the other hand regulatory capture results in the kind of deadlock you describe.
Decades from now when I near the end of my useful lifespan, I would not be in the least bit surprised to see that technological progression in the United States follows an S curve over time, with increasing life expectancy just giving even more inertia to the status quo.
Decades from now when I near the end of my useful lifespan, I would not be in the least bit surprised to see that technological progression in the United States follows an S curve over time, with increasing life expectancy just giving even more inertia to the status quo.
There are state-run organisations that are fairly efficient - the UK NHS, which is pretty much the epitome of a large socialistic undertaking, is actually pretty economically efficient. The fact that it has problems being largely because we don't spend much money on it, not because it isn't efficient in using what money we give it (at least in comparison with other healthcare systems).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most...
Not sure what people are going to do with 20mbps+ broadband when they will certainly set caps that will be used up within the first few days of your billing cycle?
Sonic apparently has no cap but that's virtually unheard of today. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/05/...
Which would you rather have, unlimited speed with a 150gb cap or 6mpbs with no cap?
Sonic apparently has no cap but that's virtually unheard of today. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/05/...
Which would you rather have, unlimited speed with a 150gb cap or 6mpbs with no cap?
My guess is that bandwidth caps are only used when there is virtually no competition. Because in practice, most people will only saturate there connections for very small amounts of time. But it's a nice way of squeezing more money out of your customers.
I have had 20MBit downstream for at least six years and now 120MBit, with no bandwidth caps (The Netherlands). There is a lot of competition in this area, with at least a dozen DSL ISPs, plus cable.
Mobile internet is completely the opposite. We only have three major carriers. My previous phone subscription had no caps for mobile internet, my current subscription has an 1GB cap, and the caps are now being lowered. It's an oligopoly, so they can force caps down everyone's throats.
I have had 20MBit downstream for at least six years and now 120MBit, with no bandwidth caps (The Netherlands). There is a lot of competition in this area, with at least a dozen DSL ISPs, plus cable.
Mobile internet is completely the opposite. We only have three major carriers. My previous phone subscription had no caps for mobile internet, my current subscription has an 1GB cap, and the caps are now being lowered. It's an oligopoly, so they can force caps down everyone's throats.
I'm not sure if you missed it, but this article is actually written by sonic. You know, the people providing 20+mbps without any cap.
Are bandwidth caps really that common? I was under the impression Comcast was the only major ISP in the US that imposed caps.
FWIW I just signed up for Grande's fiber service in central Texas -- 40Mbps/4Mbps (though I have not dropped below 70+mbps down) for $56 a month. They seem to be sticking by their "no caps" policy: https://twitter.com/#!/iansltx/status/94395597351698432
FWIW I just signed up for Grande's fiber service in central Texas -- 40Mbps/4Mbps (though I have not dropped below 70+mbps down) for $56 a month. They seem to be sticking by their "no caps" policy: https://twitter.com/#!/iansltx/status/94395597351698432
First off, caps are not "virtually unheard of". Secondly Comcasts cap is 250GB/month. Who would use that in a few days? The biggest bandwidth eater I can think of is Netflix and a user would have to watch 108 movies in the best quality to reach that number.
I think your Netflix number must be wrong, because I work at an ISP and there are a lot of subscribers going over 250 GB/mo on Netflix. Anyway, one movie a day (or 3 TV episodes) on 4 computers is 120 movies/month.
When choosing internet service 4 months ago for my new place, i made a decision that my next job hunt will be around areas were walking distance from the office are covered by sonic.
Startups think about mentioning this as a benefit. seriously.
Startups think about mentioning this as a benefit. seriously.
Soooooo ... hate to point it out, but basically the Republicans gooned this up to?
Seriously? Move to China, then we'll talk about slow broadband...
I have line-of-sight to our local water tower, though, so I was able to get a wireless internet connection and bypass everyone else. It's not super-high-speed, but I have 2.5 down and 1.5 up, and that's not too bad... and I have the moral satisfaction of not paying anything at all to either the cable companies or the telcos.