[GRLUG] NOT LINUX - broadband

[john-thomas richards]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 02:52:43PM -0400, Bob Kline wrote:
> http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090902/wr_nm/us_telecom_broadband_definition_2
> 
> Comcast is of course leading the charge
> for mediocre performance.  If you don't
> provide decent bandwidth, change the
> definition.
> 
> Note the bandwidth figures for Japan, S. Korea,
> and France.  What Comcast and others in the US
> propose is pathetic.

Japan's population density is 870 people per square mile.  South Korea's
is 1,260.  France's population density is 280.  The United States?  A
mere 80 people per square mile.  It is far more cost-effective to lay
high-bandwidth fiber to several hundred people per square mile than it
is to only 80.  The reports you cited were in response to the
President's desire to increase broadband coverage in America.  That
primarily means rural areas since most cities have some form of
broadband.  It makes sense to not define broadband as 16.0Mb/1Mb.
Laying the lines necessary for those speeds to a community of 300 people
is not economically feasible.  The return on investment would be
horrible.  That being said, defining broadband as 768k/200k is absurd.
It is somewhere in between.  The US will never have an average broadband
speed even close to that of Japan, South Korea, or France.  It doesn't
make economic sense.

I have friends who live in Colorado City, CO.  Colorado City was once
believed to be the next boom town out west so when you drive through it
you see lots of "roads" that aren't really roads.  Just down the
mountain from my friends' home is a plateau that has dozens and dozens
of street signs on "street corners" but with no evidence of actual
streets (since they were never actually built, given that the "boom"
never arrived).  They, in this small town, have fiber *TO THE HOME*.
They get their television (100+ channels), telephone and separate fax
line, and internet connection via fiber, with no copper but what is in
the home.  A local mom & pop ISP laid all this fiber, hoping to make it
big when the boom happened.  If you buy a lot and build a home, you can
have fiber hooked up right along with your electricity.  All of those
roads that don't really exist were not in the way when the fiber was
laid.  If the roads were already paved, there is no way a small ISP
could afford to lay that much fiber.  It's doubtful that a large ISP
could.
-- 
john-thomas
------
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
Isaac Asimov