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Is your slow American internet acceptable to you?

Is this acceptable?

  • Yeah, so what. 'Merica!

    Votes: 6 25.0%

  • No, this is ridiculous

    Votes: 16 66.7%

  • I'm worthless and weak for clicking here

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Total voters
    24
LOL - 1st world issue: my fast technology isn't working fast enough. Wah wah.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Except that people do live there. It's funny that you're trying to justify why infrastructure in the USA is no better than Russia's.

Me: The EU has a faster average download time than the USA.
You: The USA is more rural, that's why.

Me: Russia is more rural than the USA, yet they have the same download time as we do.
You: That's because it's rural and nobody lives in those areas.


LOL.
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sorry charlie, I haven't made any of those claims.....
 
Aunt Spiker said:
LOL - 1st world issue: my fast technology isn't working fast enough. Wah wah.
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yep. even the "poor" people in the 1st world are better off than most of the "rich" people in the 3rd world.

When I was in Basrah, some of the richest Iraqis in the city lived in mud brick houses with sheet metal roofs held down by rocks
 
MoSurveyor said:
Oh, I freely admit we're not the best and I've been trying to explain why it's that way - besides us being just plain cheap.
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The problem is we have local monopolies like the Time Warner monopoly here in Dallas. You have two choices - AT&T via the phone line or Time Warner via the copper coaxial cable. Well, you have a third choice as well - you can go without internet.

I don't have a faster option, yet my cable bill goes up every month. Golly.

You know why that is? Because they can. Years ago, Dallas County put out a bid to see who would get to lay down cables under the streets of Dallas. Time Warner lined the right pockets and schmoozed the right people, and they won that bid. Now, they're the only ones who have cabling in the city of dallas and nobody else can get a permit from the city to come in and offer their competing service.

No competition = high prices and crappy service.

Welcome to America.
 
What exactly is 70 mbs going to get me that I don't get with 21 mb?

I can upload email, stream HD movies and use SIP based software for phones at the same time during the busy network hours of 11 am to 3 pm local time and I do that with 20 mb down and 3mb up consistently. Given that websites, routers and most servers which have high traffic already throttle inbound traffic and load balance to provide a more consistent experience, what is 70mb going to give me other than a larger bill?
 
Ockham said:
What exactly is 70 mbs going to get me that I don't get with 21 mb?

I can upload email, stream HD movies and use SIP based software for phones at the same time during the busy network hours of 11 am to 3 pm local time and I do that with 20 mb down and 3mb up consistently. Given that websites, routers and most servers which have high traffic already throttle inbound traffic and load balance to provide a more consistent experience, what is 70mb going to give me other than a larger bill?
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THE WORLD, Baby, Yeah!

You could have the whole WIDE world and not just your Hemispherical version of it. No more HWW - Hemispherical World Web.
 
Aunt Spiker said:
THE WORLD, Baby, Yeah!

You could have the whole WIDE world and not just your Hemispherical version of it.
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I don't want nor need the whole wide world.
 
Ockham said:
What exactly is 70 mbs going to get me that I don't get with 21 mb?

I can upload email, stream HD movies and use SIP based software for phones at the same time during the busy network hours of 11 am to 3 pm local time and I do that with 20 mb down and 3mb up consistently. Given that websites, routers and most servers which have high traffic already throttle inbound traffic and load balance to provide a more consistent experience, what is 70mb going to give me other than a larger bill?
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What's a car gonna give you that a horse won't? What's an HD TV gonna do that a regular TV can't? Give me a break. If we all have gigabit internet (1000 mbps, which is what Google Fiber is offering) then you don't think there would be content developed for it?

It's called making technical progress, and it used to be what we did better here in America than anywhere else in the world. Then we got fat and lazy and content.
 
Ockham said:
I don't want nor need the whole wide world.
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LOL

My internet usage is: A few websites for writers, Amazon and Smashwords, Debate politics, school based research sources, wikipedia, and sometimes Youtube.

Really - not much which is kind of pathetic. I don't email much or watching movies and shows, blah blah. I sort of do the same things every time I sit down. My net usage has actually dropped in the last year.
 
Peter Grimm said:
What's a car gonna give you that a horse won't? What's an HD TV gonna do that a regular TV can't? Give me a break. If we all have gigabit internet (1000 mbps, which is what Google Fiber is offering) then you don't think there would be content developed for it?
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I have a car, it goes 100 miles an hour and I only need it to go 70. You're telling me I should have access to a car that goes 250 mph. I don't want it nor do I need it. Live within your means instead of wasting resources.

Peter Grimm said:
It's called making technical progress, and it used to be what we did better here in America than anywhere else in the world. Then we got fat and lazy and content.
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You remind me of idiots I deal with in the public. The midsized business owner says he wants a full gigabit network end to end and is shocked when I tell him that all the PC's on his prem that he has have gigabit network cards in them, yet the PC itself cannot push that much data, nor can all the PC's on his network. He's adamant that he wants everything gigabit and is then shocked about the cost to pull fiber. He's shocked further about putting in high availability redundant connections for failover.

Technical progress is great - no one wants to pay for gigabit. The ignorance is not knowing how the internet backbone works - not just in the US but around the world. That because 70mb is faster than 20mb doesn't make it better especially when it's not needed. All you end up doing is paying more... and for companies that own those networks people like you who pay more for usage they don't come close to maxing out, is soooo good for business.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Uhh.....

Wow. Look at the list again dude.
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What part of the list disproves his statement. Because so far as I can tell it only supports it.
 
PeteEU said:
Not really... just a lame excuse. Most populations live in clusters, which are easy to service if you just try. Of course there will always be those that live in the middle of no where, and there might be more of those in the US and Russia and Canada, but they are a relative statistical irrelevancy when 99% of the population lives in clusters.

It all comes down to investment and willingness to do so by companies and government, and here places like the US and others lower on the list are not willing to do the investment needed because there is no real competition to drive such investment. If you look at the list also, the countries at the top are also countries with lots and lots of choice... something those lower on the list dont have in many areas.
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This may be a valid point.
 
Ockham said:
I have a car, it goes 100 miles an hour and I only need it to go 70. You're telling me I should have access to a car that goes 250 mph. I don't want it nor do I need it. Live within your means instead of wasting resources.

You remind me of idiots I deal with in the public. The midsized business owner says he wants a full gigabit network end to end and is shocked when I tell him that all the PC's on his prem that he has have gigabit network cards in them, yet the PC itself cannot push that much data, nor can all the PC's on his network. He's adamant that he wants everything gigabit and is then shocked about the cost to pull fiber. He's shocked further about putting in high availability redundant connections for failover.

Technical progress is great - no one wants to pay for gigabit. The ignorance is not knowing how the internet backbone works - not just in the US but around the world. That because 70mb is faster than 20mb doesn't make it better especially when it's not needed. All you end up doing is paying more... and for companies that own those networks people like you who pay more for usage they don't come close to maxing out, is soooo good for business.
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That's a great theory and all, except we have gigabit internet in places like Kansas City where google fiber is located. The cost is 70 bucks per month plus a 300 dollar installation fee. I'd gladly pay that if it were offered.

Now Time Warner may charge business clients much more than that for the same service, labled "wideband," in fact I'm sure they do. But they don't need to as the example with Google shows.

Are you gonna sit there and tell me it isn't faster than this time warner 15mbps garbage I have now? Unlikely. People who have Google Fiber rave about it. Even if you're only getting half of the advertised speed, that's still 500mbps for basically the same price I'm paying now for 15mbps.

Also, you're talking about bottlenecks. Well, if we were wired for google fiber, maybe the bottleneck would be somewhere other than the fiber optics. Fine, what does that do? That puts pressure on other parts of the system to upgrade their services, to upgrade their products. So yes, it's a positive as technical advancement always is.
 
For myself personally, I'm fine with my current internet provision - granted it's cable, somewhat limited due to location, only Comcast serves that area, but....

It's better than the 56k dial-up I had before....now only a traumatic memory...
 
Peter Grimm said:
Average download speeds by country below. This is a good indicator of the state of infrastructural development in each country. Once upon a time, the United States was the most developed country in the world. Now, we lag behind almost everybody.

In my opinion, this is an unacceptable report card. America gets an "F." We need legislative action to fix it immediately. What say you?



*All values in mbps

1. Hong Kong 72.06
2. Singapore 60.76
3. Romania 56.81
4. South Korea 51.70
5. Japan 42.24
6. Sweden 40.80
7. Lithuania 39.99
8. Andorra 39.84
9. Macau 39.83
10. Netherlands 39.35
11. Switzerland 38.82
12. Denmark 36.54
13. Taiwan 35.71
14. Luxemborg 34.22
15. Latvia 33.54
16. Iceland 32.21
17. Moldova 30.98
18. Bulgaria 29.09
19. Belgium 28.97
20. Norway 27.29
21. France 27.18
22. Finland 26.63
23. Germany 25.20
24. Portugal 24.95
25. Hungary 24.21
26. Estonia 24.17
27. Czech 23.70
28. UK 23.48
29. Aland 23.23
30. Liechtenstein 23.14
31. Israel 21.80
32. United States 21.48
33. Russia 21.28
36. Canada 20.29
44. China 16.76
87 Italy 7.78


**All data from ooka.com
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Not really. This almost reads as the countries by population density in the developed world. I think that's probably a factor.
 
SBu said:
Not really. This almost reads as the countries by population density in the developed world. I think that's probably a factor.
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Made me curious

So: List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to that list, in descending order of population density (country they are dependent on in parentheses):

  1. Macau (China)
  2. Monaco
  3. Singapore
  4. Hong Kong (China)
  5. Gibraltar (UK)
  6. Vatican City
  7. Bahrain
  8. Malta
  9. Bermuda (UK)
  10. Sint Maarten (Netherlands)
  11. Maldives
  12. Bangladesh
  13. Jersey (UK)
  14. Guernsey (UK)
  15. Palestine
  16. Saint Martian (France)
  17. Taiwan
  18. Barbados
  19. Mauritius
  20. Mayotte (France)
  21. San Marino
  22. Aruba (Netherlands)
  23. South Korea
  24. Nauru
  25. Lebanon
  26. Tuvalu
  27. Saint Barthélemy (France)
  28. Rwanda
  29. Puerto Rico (US)
  30. Netherlands
  31. Comoros
  32. Haiti
  33. India
  34. Israel
  35. Belgium


As you can see, many of these are islands and such.

Here are a few key ones, and their rankings, however:

39 Japan
53 Germany
83 China
95 France
120 Romania
182 United States
224 Russia
230 Canada


Edit: Romania is doing fairly well, considering density.
 
PeteEU said:
Not really... just a lame excuse. Most populations live in clusters, which are easy to service if you just try. Of course there will always be those that live in the middle of no where, and there might be more of those in the US and Russia and Canada, but they are a relative statistical irrelevancy when 99% of the population lives in clusters.

It all comes down to investment and willingness to do so by companies and government, and here places like the US and others lower on the list are not willing to do the investment needed because there is no real competition to drive such investment. If you look at the list also, the countries at the top are also countries with lots and lots of choice... something those lower on the list dont have in many areas.
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And your comments demonstrate an inability to understand distance and size. We are talking about HUGH countries. Even though people may be clustered in groups. There are far MORE groups in the US, Canada, China, and Russia than there would be in any in single nation in Europe.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Are they gonna put a spool of fiber cable on the back of a railroad and let 'er rip? Come on, how does having a railroad that runs through Novosibirsk make it easier to run internet cable out there?

By the way, people do live out there, since the area is very resource rich.
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Not just A railroad, THE railroad.

First off, most of the nasty terrain work and access problems have already been taken care of. Need to get over/through a mountain? There's already a tunnel. Have a river to cross? There's already a bridge. Need power for those relay stations? The power line is right there. It's an uninterrupted route with (usually) plenty of room for other stuff along side it.

Secondly, if you don't get that it's much, much easier to do any engineering project on a main supply line rather than hundreds of miles off the supply line then there's really no help for you.


Not that many people. And how's the Internet service in the middle of nowhere?
 
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CaptainCourtesy said:
And your comments demonstrate an inability to understand distance and size. We are talking about HUGH countries. Even though people may be clustered in groups. There are far MORE groups in the US, Canada, China, and Russia than there would be in any in single nation in Europe.
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And that is still irrelevant. Just because you need more infrastructure because you have more groups means nothing... because with more groups you have more money to pay for it.

It amazes me that most American's still hang on the size issue. Sweden has some of the highest speeds and best infrastructure out there...and only Alaska and Texas are bigger in the US. France is only slightly smaller than Texas and has better Internet I believe. South Korea, some of the best Internet on the planet.. is the as big or bigger than 40 of the US states and has more population than any US state.

Size DOES NOT MATTER... it is the willingness to invest that matters.
 
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