ISP's In Uproar Over Verizon-MCI Merger
Dan Neel writes in CRN.com: [snip] The California ISP Association (CISPA) claims the merger of Verizon Communications and MCI will threaten ISP business models. CISPA represents more than 180 ISPs. Mike Jackman, executive director of the Sacramento, Calif.-based organization, said the multibillion-dollar Verizon-MCI merger, announced in February, will run many pure-play ISPs out of business or force them to diversify their offerings--possibly into more value-added services that could compete with those provided by VARs and system integrators. Verizon and MCI expect to close their merger by the end of the year. Another blockbuster telecommunications merger--between SBC Communications and AT&T--also is slated to close by the end of this year or in early 2006. Spurring the CISPA complaint is an Aug. 5 Federal Communications Commission decision to reclassify DSL service as an information service instead of a telecom service, which Jackman said frees phone companies like Verizon from regulations requiring them to share bandwidth with ISPs. The FCC has placed a one-year grace period on enforcement of the change, he added. [snip] http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessionid=P4TBQ... Sorry for the long URL. - ferg -- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg@netzero.net or fergdawg@sbcglobal.net ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
I think that big carriers have successfully convinced regulators that the telecom deregulation in late nineties was bad for the industry. It certainly destroyed quite a few big companies, e.g. MCI and AT&T. Also it dragged down a few big companies, e.g. Verizon has $40B debt. In the meantime, US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration because no carrier is interested in investing and building an infrastructure to be shared by their competitors. The only way they argue to get the industry out is to have a few large companies with little competition. True or not, FCC is listening to them. On 8/23/05, Fergie (Paul Ferguson) <fergdawg@netzero.net> wrote:
Dan Neel writes in CRN.com:
[snip]
The California ISP Association (CISPA) claims the merger of Verizon Communications and MCI will threaten ISP business models.
CISPA represents more than 180 ISPs. Mike Jackman, executive director of the Sacramento, Calif.-based organization, said the multibillion-dollar Verizon-MCI merger, announced in February, will run many pure-play ISPs out of business or force them to diversify their offerings--possibly into more value-added services that could compete with those provided by VARs and system integrators.
Verizon and MCI expect to close their merger by the end of the year. Another blockbuster telecommunications merger--between SBC Communications and AT&T--also is slated to close by the end of this year or in early 2006.
Spurring the CISPA complaint is an Aug. 5 Federal Communications Commission decision to reclassify DSL service as an information service instead of a telecom service, which Jackman said frees phone companies like Verizon from regulations requiring them to share bandwidth with ISPs. The FCC has placed a one-year grace period on enforcement of the change, he added.
[snip]
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessionid=P4TBQ...
Sorry for the long URL.
- ferg
-- "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson Engineering Architecture for the Internet fergdawg@netzero.net or fergdawg@sbcglobal.net ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
Richard Z <rzheng@gmail.com>
I think that big carriers have successfully convinced regulators that the telecom deregulation in late nineties was bad for the industry.
does not take much convincing in dc that what is good for big business is good for america these days.
It certainly destroyed quite a few big companies, e.g. MCI and AT&T.
no. they did brilliant jobs of destroying themselves, in two very different ways. randy
Apologies for this possibly off topic post, but it does touch on the future speeds and feeds of networks. What follows is my opinion, not employer's, etc, etc, etc. On Aug 23, 2005, at 4:42 PM, Randy Bush wrote:
does not take much convincing in dc that what is good for big business is good for america these days.
True. We've been through this in Texas recently. During our regular legislative session, we successfully fought and killed a bill that would have done much harm to local ISPs, regional WISPs operating in partnership with a city, and POTS consumers. Problem is that the cablecos and telcos came back with a somewhat under the table push during a special session that was supposed to be devoted to school funding only and passed a modified (read--written to benefit both cablecos and telcos, instead of just telcos) bill. There's lots of information from the opposition side at http://www.savemuniwireless.org/ For those outside the state or the US, Texas has some very odd political traditions and laws that are beyond explanation in email. On Aug 23, 2005, at 4:45 PM, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
The US ranks somewhere around 10th to 14th, depending on the survey. Yes, part of that is dues to our wide open spaces. I agree that it's much more difficult and expensive to deploy broadband in US-style suburbs vs. high density apartments. But there's also a speed gap. On Aug 23, 2005, at 5:23 PM, Daniel Senie wrote:
I'm not opposed to local telco and cable companies being the only players, IFF there's a "must serve" rule, same as there is for local telco service. There are lots of towns that have no broadband, and no chance of ever getting it unless there's a "must serve" rule like there was for rural telephone service.
So, if we're going to put Ma-bell back together, then let's do it right and make last-mile broadband a required service just like the telcos have to provide dialtone.
If we follow this course in the US, we'll be stuck with the minimum speed that can be defined as broadband. A while back, I think that was 128Kbits/sec as defined by the FCC. In the meantime, Japan, Korea, and the rest of the world are deploying cheap, fast services. Yahoo BB offers 100Mbit/sec residential service. Anyone in the US want to step up to that for $40/month? Oh, and you get VoIP too. 1 gig service coming Real Soon Now! http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_26/b3939087.htm Yes, this will make a difference. Say what you like about the dot com days, but it did change the world. Many of the companies that a good chunk of people on this list work for were started in dorm rooms with really fast always on connections. If we spread the college dorm's ResNet across the globe, how will the world look in five more years?
On 23-aug-2005, at 23:24, Richard Z wrote:
US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration
I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
because no carrier is interested in investing and building an infrastructure to be shared by their competitors. The only way they argue to get the industry out is to have a few large companies with little competition.
So I guess the choice is between lots of broadband against monopoly prices or less broadband at lower prices? Now I didn't take all that much economy in school, but something there doesn't sound right...
At 05:45 PM 8/23/2005, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
On 23-aug-2005, at 23:24, Richard Z wrote:
US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration
I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
because no carrier is interested in investing and building an infrastructure to be shared by their competitors. The only way they argue to get the industry out is to have a few large companies with little competition.
So I guess the choice is between lots of broadband against monopoly prices or less broadband at lower prices?
Now I didn't take all that much economy in school, but something there doesn't sound right...
Economics don't result in a good solution, no. I'm not opposed to local telco and cable companies being the only players, IFF there's a "must serve" rule, same as there is for local telco service. There are lots of towns that have no broadband, and no chance of ever getting it unless there's a "must serve" rule like there was for rural telephone service. So, if we're going to put Ma-bell back together, then let's do it right and make last-mile broadband a required service just like the telcos have to provide dialtone. Or, let's stop the farce and recognize we're living in the United Corporations of America. (exits soapbox, slaps self for off topic rant)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Yo Iljitsch! On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
So I guess the choice is between lots of broadband against monopoly prices or less broadband at lower prices?
You forget the third choice the AT&T taught us so well before the big breakup: Less broadband at higher prices. Just look at how hard it has been to get Qwest to fulfill their promises of more broadband outside of the cities in return for less state control over prices. RGDS GARY - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gary E. Miller Rellim 20340 Empire Blvd, Suite E-3, Bend, OR 97701 gem@rellim.com Tel:+1(541)382-8588 Fax: +1(541)382-8676 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFDC6K38KZibdeR3qURApARAJwJsixdlFEUAqjHJpR1WUICiKqfhQCdHkT+ i+e5xHWTrMohVirRV6pTS9Q= =5c3p -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration
I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
Graph at the bottom of the article. http://www.mbc-thebridge.com/viewbridge.cfm?instance_id=304
On 24-aug-2005, at 1:04, Michael Painter wrote:
US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration
I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
Graph at the bottom of the article.
No, the one you want is around the middle. US looks like just under 13% at #12, while 2-3 are around the 18% mark and 17-20 at around 8%. So this looks like a nice comfortable spot right in the middle. It's remarkable that US DSL penetration is unusually low, there is only one other country where this is below 5%, while many countries have very little cable.
On 23 Aug 2005, at 17:04 , Michael Painter wrote:
US is trailing other industrial countries in broadband penetration I'm not sure that's the case, AFAIK the US holds its own.
Graph at the bottom of the article.
And what does every country ahead of the US have in common? Tiny populations. And waht does every country but one have in common? Very small area. The US has states taht are larger than 10 of the 11 countries ahed of use, COMBINED. COuld it be better? Yep, sure could. But keep in mind the Cable/ Satellite penetration rate is only about 80%, and that's been around 30 years. The other thing that is not on that chart is the SPEED of the broadband. On that score, South Korea has thoroughly kicked our behinds. -- Lewis Butler, Owner Covisp.net 240 S Broadway #203, 80209 mobile: 303.564.2512 fx: 303.282.1515 AIM/ichat: covisp xdi: http://public.xdi.org/=lewisbutler
On 24-Aug-2005, at 19:16, Lewis Butler wrote:
And what does every country ahead of the US have in common? Tiny populations.
And waht does every country but one have in common? Very small area. The US has states taht are larger than 10 of the 11 countries ahed of use, COMBINED.
(populations; population densities in people per square km, pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_countries_by_population_density>) South Korea 48M; 491 Netherlands 16M; 395 Denmark 5M; 126 Iceland 0.3M; 2 Canada 33M; 3 Switzerland 7M; 181 Belgium 10M; 339 Japan 128M; 337 Finland 5M; 15 Norway 5M; 14 Sweden 9M; 20 United States 296M; 30 So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not. Not that this necessarily means anything, but I thought your sentiments above could do with some numbers. I don't see a strong correlation between broadband penetration and population density here. Joe
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Joe Abley wrote:
So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not.
I wonder how they figure population density... Is it just a matter of land area divided by the number of residents, or something more complex. I think that it would need to be much more complex than that for a country that has such diversity as the US or Canada. Smaller countries, such as European coundties, or Japan may be able to get by with straight averages, but I still think that it would be better. And what about penetration? Is this a matter of homes passed, or actual subscribers? Perhaps it would be a better measure to percentage of homes that are capible of having broadband access. -Sean
On Wed, Aug 24, 2005 at 07:15:44PM -0600, Sean Figgins wrote:
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Joe Abley wrote:
So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not.
I wonder how they figure population density... Is it just a matter of land area divided by the number of residents, or something more complex. I think that it would need to be much more complex than that for a country that has such diversity as the US or Canada. Smaller countries, such as European coundties, or Japan may be able to get by with straight averages, but I still think that it would be better.
And what about penetration? Is this a matter of homes passed, or actual subscribers? Perhaps it would be a better measure to percentage of homes that are capible of having broadband access.
I once spoke to a construction manager at comcast for their network buildouts. With my local township, they need to have 20 homes per linear mile along the route to justify a build. While my street has 11 homes, and 3 adjacent (where my private road meets the main road) there are an insufficent number of homes along the route to reach here. They also won't go more than 150' out of the way/on your property due to concern about signal loss. Something that is helping these network builds is that some people are now refusing to buy from builders if there is no broadband at their homes, so the builders are approaching the cable companies (and possibly the telephone company too) for network expansion. I've considered running my own conduit/fiber loop on the street with my other neighbors and providing that as a carrot to lower the cost for their network builds. I've been meaning to call the construction manager back and ask if this would get them to reconsider as well as a few of the nearby projects that will likely bring their plant slightly closer to me. - jared -- Jared Mauch | pgp key available via finger from jared@puck.nether.net clue++; | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/ My statements are only mine.
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Jared Mauch wrote:
I once spoke to a construction manager at comcast for their network buildouts. With my local township, they need to have 20 homes per linear mile along the route to justify a build. While my street has 11 homes, and 3 adjacent (where my private road meets the main road) there are an insufficent number of homes along the route to reach here.
Given it is Comcast, it appears that they are not interested. I know that some companies will do it if you pay for part of the construction. Of course, if it is just you, you probably would not want to foot the bill. Now, if the neighbors all pitched in, it would be more affordable. And don't even get me started about "homes passed" and "subscriber uptake" rates. Given that most companies really have no idea where their plant is, or the actual number of homes passed, it's all a number's shell game.
They also won't go more than 150' out of the way/on your property due to concern about signal loss.
What they say, anyways. I'm not into plant construction, so I can not say for certain what the signal loss is over 150 foot. I would guess that it is more of an excuse, rather than an explanation. Also, the local markets are on the hook for P&L (generally speaking), so they would not want to build something that would not have immediate payback.
I've considered running my own conduit/fiber loop on the street with my other neighbors and providing that as a carrot to lower the cost for their network builds. I've been meaning to call the construction manager back and ask if this would get them to reconsider as well as a few of the nearby projects that will likely bring their plant slightly closer to me.
What was the distance? I am thinking that they probably would want to avoid using your fiber/conduit. Probably the only way to get them to reconsider is cold, hard cash. A sales guy of mine has been quoted a dollar amount to build to his property, along with the 4-5 neighbors. But, I think he might be able to get it built for free now, after waiting for 3 years. We'll see what happens. I really imagine that the "broadband penetration" publications are, like most things, manipulated to prove your point, whatever that might be. -Sean
I once spoke to a construction manager at comcast for their network buildouts. With my local township, they need to have 20 homes per linear mile along the route to justify a build.
Given it is Comcast, it appears that they are not interested. I know that some companies will do it if you pay for part of the construction.
Someone didn't do a very good job of negotiating their cable franchise. Around here (Tompkins County in upstate NY), the franchises with Time-Warner all say that they have to build on request anywhere there are 10 houses per mile, and at lower densities if residents will pay the difference. The local manager said they'd often do it even if it's not quite 10 because they don't want to lose customers to satellite, and I can imagine their pain when the 10th house is built, demands cable, and the other 9 already have DirecTV. R's, John
On 25-aug-2005, at 3:31, Jared Mauch wrote:
I once spoke to a construction manager at comcast for their network buildouts. With my local township, they need to have 20 homes per linear mile along the route to justify a build.
Turns out that the US has a cable penetration of some 67%. (http:// www.ncta.com/Docs/PageContent.cfm?pageID=86) That's pretty high, if you consider that coax can't carry a signal very far. But I still attribute the non-stellar uptake of broadband to lack of DSL in the US. A significant portion of that 33% that doesn't have cable (and can't get it) should be within range for ADSL. On the other hand you still see above-ground phone lines in US cities, maybe that's not so good for DSL... And in the future we'll see more wireless broadband.
So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not.
I wonder how they figure population density... Is it just a matter of land area divided by the number of residents, or something more complex.
It's land area divided by number of residents, and as people have noted, the US is unusual both in being large and spread out. Canada, for example, has a gargantuan area, but just about everyone lives in the 100 mile wide strip along the southern border and everyone else lives in a few cities like Calgary.
I've considered running my own conduit/fiber loop on the street with my other neighbors and providing that as a carrot to lower the cost for their network builds.
If you're going to do that, how about building your own system and then sign up with Comcast as a wholesale customer? If they said no, it'd be an interesting argument in front of the state PUC for them to say that they're not going to wire up individual houses, and they won't serve your system either. R's, John
On Thu, Aug 25, 2005 at 09:51:37PM -0000, John Levine wrote:
So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not.
I wonder how they figure population density... Is it just a matter of land area divided by the number of residents, or something more complex.
It's land area divided by number of residents, and as people have noted, the US is unusual both in being large and spread out. Canada, for example, has a gargantuan area, but just about everyone lives in the 100 mile wide strip along the southern border and everyone else lives in a few cities like Calgary.
I've considered running my own conduit/fiber loop on the street with my other neighbors and providing that as a carrot to lower the cost for their network builds.
If you're going to do that, how about building your own system and then sign up with Comcast as a wholesale customer? If they said no, it'd be an interesting argument in front of the state PUC for them to say that they're not going to wire up individual houses, and they won't serve your system either.
Well, likely what we'd do is have a 100m FE (just because it's cheaper, we could always use do GE, etc.. later) ring on the street with sufficent pairs to do whatever we wanted between the homes. This way there would be local networking/media possible. Take the cost of a T1 divide it 11 (or 13) ways and it's not that bad.. - jared -- Jared Mauch | pgp key available via finger from jared@puck.nether.net clue++; | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/ My statements are only mine.
On 25-aug-2005, at 23:51, John Levine wrote:
and as people have noted, the US is unusual both in being large and spread out. Canada, for example, has a gargantuan area, but just about everyone lives in the 100 mile wide strip along the southern border and everyone else lives in a few cities like Calgary.
Not exactly. If you look at the US population density charts you see that the density goes down almost as a direct function of how far west you are. West of Dallas the country is pretty much empty. (There are a few high density pockets on the west coast, but even most of California is largely uninhabited.) The north-east is just as densely populated as countries such as Germany and Italy, the mid-west is similar to France and Spain. But what matters much more than the average number of people per square (insert your favorite unit of length measurement) per region/ province/state/country is how close people live together. If there are 400 people in a 3218x3218 meter area (hey, that's four square miles!) it makes a big difference whether they all sit in a big apartment building right in the middle, or they all have their own house in the middle of a 150x150m (500x500ft) property.
On 8/24/05 7:38 PM, "Joe Abley" <jabley@isc.org> wrote:
On 24-Aug-2005, at 19:16, Lewis Butler wrote:
And what does every country ahead of the US have in common? Tiny populations.
And waht does every country but one have in common? Very small area. The US has states taht are larger than 10 of the 11 countries ahed of use, COMBINED.
(populations; population densities in people per square km, pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_countries_by_population_density>)
South Korea 48M; 491 Netherlands 16M; 395 Denmark 5M; 126 Iceland 0.3M; 2 Canada 33M; 3 Switzerland 7M; 181 Belgium 10M; 339 Japan 128M; 337 Finland 5M; 15 Norway 5M; 14 Sweden 9M; 20 United States 296M; 30
So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not.
Joe, I suggest you take another look at these numbers. Those countries with overall population densities lower than the US's all have something in common - they are really cold. Iceland, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Folks in those countries are densely packed into relatively small regions of their overall land area (near oceans or in cities). Sure, some folks live out in Nunavut, but a relatively small number. Contrast that with the US where the population is far more spread out. This is an issue of both distribution and density, not just density.
Not that this necessarily means anything, but I thought your sentiments above could do with some numbers. I don't see a strong correlation between broadband penetration and population density here.
Joe
-- Daniel Golding
On 24-Aug-2005, at 22:43, Dan Golding wrote:
I suggest you take another look at these numbers. Those countries with overall population densities lower than the US's all have something in common - they are really cold. Iceland, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Folks in those countries are densely packed into relatively small regions of their overall land area (near oceans or in cities). Sure, some folks live out in Nunavut, but a relatively small number. Contrast that with the US where the population is far more spread out.
This is an issue of both distribution and density, not just density.
It's an issue of far more than either of those, and that is my point. By way of example, New Zealand has a population density of 15 people per square km, vs. 30 for the US. It's a much smaller country by size. The population is much smaller. The population is also sufficiently centralised around few major urban centres that you can reach almost a third of the whole country's population if you decide to serve just Auckland. The US is number 11 on the OECD list, with 13 broadband subscribers per 100 people. New Zealand is number 22 with 4.7. If it was just down to population distribution and population density, New Zealand would be awash with broadband Internet. It isn't. (New Zealand provides a useful model of what happens when you privatise the incumbent telco and provide almost no regulatory assistance to competitors at all.) While it certainly doesn't hurt to have highly concentrated, urban population centres when you want to build an access network, there are many more differences between the different economies on the OECD list than just geography. Joe
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Daniel Golding wrote:
I suggest you take another look at these numbers. Those countries with overall population densities lower than the US's all have something in common - they are really cold. Iceland, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Folks in those countries are densely packed into relatively small regions of their overall land area (near oceans or in cities). Sure, some folks live out in Nunavut, but a relatively small number. Contrast that with the US where the population is far more spread out.
This is an issue of both distribution and density, not just density.
So you're saying the US is screwed because of unique geography? Or is that something poltical will can overcome?
Not that this necessarily means anything, but I thought your sentiments above could do with some numbers. I don't see a strong correlation between broadband penetration and population density here.
Joe
-- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli Unix Consulting joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu GPG Key Fingerprint: 5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2
On Thursday 25 Aug 2005 5:27 am, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Daniel Golding wrote:
This is an issue of both distribution and density, not just density.
So you're saying the US is screwed because of unique geography? Or is that something poltical will can overcome?
Simple economics, most of the countries above the US it is simply a lot cheaper and easier to provide broadband options to the majority of the population. South Korea demonstrates political will can overcome most objections. But I wouldn't think broadband coverage is a political priority. Besides satellite coverage is available to those who think it is worth the money, which I'd have thought was more in keeping with the American way, buy it if you want it, don't expect the government to subsidise it (Perhaps a gross simplification of the American way, but this is nanog, not alt.politics.mumble).
On 24 Aug 2005, at 18:38 , Joe Abley wrote:
On 24-Aug-2005, at 19:16, Lewis Butler wrote:
And what does every country ahead of the US have in common? Tiny populations.
And waht does every country but one have in common? Very small area. The US has states taht are larger than 10 of the 11 countries ahed of use, COMBINED.
(populations; population densities in people per square km, pasted from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_countries_by_population_density>)
South Korea 48M; 491 Netherlands 16M; 395 Denmark 5M; 126 Iceland 0.3M; 2 Canada 33M; 3 Switzerland 7M; 181 Belgium 10M; 339 Japan 128M; 337 Finland 5M; 15 Norway 5M; 14 Sweden 9M; 20 United States 296M; 30
So, of the 11 countries that the OECD thinks have greater broadband penetration than the USA, 6 are more densely-populated than the USA and 5 are not.
Not that this necessarily means anything, but I thought your sentiments above could do with some numbers. I don't see a strong correlation between broadband penetration and population density here.
I didn't say anything about population density. I said the countries are all very very small (in terms of area) with the exception of Canada, but even with Canada something like 90% of the population lives within 150 miles (or is it 200? 200 seems more reasonable, but 150 sticks in my mind) of the US border or something silly like that. The fact is it is easier for a country like South Korea or The Netherlands to string fiber all over the entire country because they don't need to lay a few millions of miles of fiber to do so. And even with Canada, the population is mostly in a relatively narrow band along the US border. How much broadband penetration is there in the Yukon, for example? Echo Lake? US area: 9.5 million km sq, with the large population centers at all four extremes and ~25 cities with more than 2 million GMSA populations. South Korea: 100 Thousand km sq. nearly half the population lives in ONE city (20 million in Seoul Metro Area) and there are only 2 other cities over 2 million in population (three, but one is part of Seoul's Metro Area) Holland: 41 Thousand km sq, (and 7K of that is water), so call it 34K. Sure, the population is pretty evenly spread, but the area is a postage stamp compared to the US. Iceland: 100 km sq, population of nearly 300,000. But 2 out of 3 people live in Reykjavik Metro Area. Provide broadband to Reykjavik and you have 66% penetration. -- Lewis Butler, Owner Covisp.net 240 S Broadway #203, 80209 mobile: 303.564.2512 fx: 303.282.1515 AIM/ichat: covisp xdi: http://public.xdi.org/=lewisbutler
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Lewis Butler wrote:
And what does every country ahead of the US have in common? Tiny populations.
And what does every country but one have in common? Very small area. The US has states that are larger than 10 of the 11 countries ahead of use, COMBINED.
I didn't say anything about population density. I said the countries are all very very small (in terms of area) with the exception of Canada, but even with Canada something like 90% of the population lives within 150 miles (or is it 200? 200 seems more reasonable, but 150 sticks in my mind) of the US border or something silly like that. The fact is it is easier for a country like South Korea or The Netherlands to string fiber all over the entire country because they don't need to lay a few millions of miles of fiber to do so. And even with Canada, the population is mostly in a relatively narrow band along the US border. How much broadband penetration is there in the Yukon, for example? Echo Lake?
I suspect getting hung up on the relevance of population statistics misses the point. We know that population density makes a difference to the level of infrastructure development. To take some extreme US cases, there's a lot more infrastructure in San Francisco, Manhattan, or the Chicago Loop than in unpopulated areas of the middle of the US. If you wanted to do a country by country comparison, you'd probably be better off looking at similar parts of the countries being compared than those countries as a whole. There are also lots of economic factors aside from population density that influence infrastructure development. If population density were all it took to get infrastructure built, the US would be getting thoroughly trounced by some of the poorest areas of the world. So, if you're trying to make an argument for or against some specific changes to the regulatory structure of the US telecommunications industry, the thing to do would be to find similar places with different regulatory structures, and look at what effects the specific regulatory structures are having. Or, it might even be valid to look at how telecommunications advanced in previous eras, in the same places. You might look at the levels of innovation in the American telecom industry during the 45 or so years before the 1996 telecommunications act and the nine years after that. You might find that the most significant changes in how people used telephones between direct dialed long distance in the 1950s(?) and the advent of line sharing and forced interconnections with competitors in 1996 were touch tone and call waiting, but that they gave us relatively cheap DSL and too cheap to meter domestic long distance when forced into it to keep from being left behind by those who were sharing their lines. And this might, I suppose, fill you with regret when you ponder what the companies that brought you touch tone and call waiting might have been able to produce, had they not had to expend their resources on frivolous projects like DSL. Is the US being left behind by Korea in ways that aren't simply a matter of population density? Maybe. Would some regulatory changes in the US being to reduce that? Maybe. Would going back to a regulatory structure that looks like what the US had before 1996 achieve that result? I suppose that depends largely on how our remonopolized telcos would behave once they no longer had to worry about competitors. Would they welcome it as an opportunity to innovate, or get lazy because it no longer mattered? -Steve
On 26-aug-2005, at 2:56, Lewis Butler wrote:
I didn't say anything about population density. I said the countries are all very very small (in terms of area) with the exception of Canada,
The fact is it is easier for a country like South Korea or The Netherlands to string fiber all over the entire country because they don't need to lay a few millions of miles of fiber to do so.
That argument removes one variable from the equation: the number of customers. Sure, it's much cheapter to lay down 50 km of fiber than 500, but if you get 10 times the number of customers (all things being equal, including population density, then obviously your number of customers would be 10 times higher for a 10 times bigger area) and because of economies of scale it's even cheaper. And you also assume that you need fiber for broadband but not for smallband. While I'm sure there are still a few places that use telephony trunks that are unsuitable for broadband, the majority of those trunks have been over fiber for a long time, so the fiber is already there in most cases.
Holland: 41 Thousand km sq, (and 7K of that is water), so call it 34K. Sure, the population is pretty evenly spread, but the area is a postage stamp compared to the US.
It seems that way when you look at the map, but if you're digging trenches to put in fiber it suddenly doesn't seem quite as small. The main difference between the Netherlands and most other countries is that it doesn't have very large cities (although the four major ones are close together so you could consider them a single big ~3M one). And unlike bigger countries, it doesn't have large open spaces. There are open spaces, but you can't walk for more than a few hours or drive for more than 15 minutes before you reach a small town.
participants (17)
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Chris Boyd -
Daniel Golding -
Daniel Senie -
Fergie (Paul Ferguson) -
Gary E. Miller -
Iljitsch van Beijnum -
Jared Mauch -
Joe Abley -
Joel Jaeggli -
John Levine -
Lewis Butler -
Michael Painter -
Randy Bush -
Richard Z -
Sean Figgins -
Simon Waters -
Steve Gibbard