From owner-nanog@merit.edu Wed Aug 24 23:28:58 2005 Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 21:27:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Joel Jaeggli <joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu> To: Daniel Golding <dgolding@burtongroup.com> Cc: Joe Abley <jabley@isc.org>, Lewis Butler <lbutler@covisp.net>, NANOG list <nanog@merit.edu> Subject: Re: ISP's In Uproar Over Verizon-MCI Merger

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?

political will cannot overcome the situation where it is further from the _property-line_ to the house than the reach of DSL or cable -- never mind the distance from the telco C.O., or the cable head-end. Delivering service in low-population density areas is _expensive_, no matter how you do it, when measured on a 'per user' basis. 'Wireless' is the most efficient way to serve low-density areas, but the cost-per-user is still orders of magnitude higher than wired service in a high-population-density locale. If you want to do 'meaningful' geographic comparasions, one needs to break down each geopolitical entity into sub-areas, by population density. and look at relative coverage within the areas of 'comparable' population density.