looks like Americans are not the only ones facing bandwidth caps

[potato28]

Originally posted by: Deadtrees

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: destrekor
do people not realize the extreme difference in land size between the US and most of the world. Russia, even if it were in a similar position of wealth as the US, would be on the same level as the US for broadband. Japan is tiny, the European countries are also small in comparison to the US. It's tough stringing expensive communication systems across the US to deliver that kind of bandwidth, and is partly why bandwidth is expensive at the moment, because those profits help fund the cost of communications upgrades to increase speeds.

+

Land size is not a factor in fiber rollout. Verizon has been doing it and it hasn't bankrupted the company like lame corporate propagandist were squawking it would. There is no reason Chicago, New York, Los Angeles or any big city can't be wired up with fiber.

It's just greedy cable and telephony companies want to keep milking their cash cow as long as they can.

Fiberoptic is very very and very expensive compared to copper wire. Given that, saying "Land size is not a factor in fiber rollout" is very, very, very, and very stupid.

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: Scouzer
Canada has had bandwidth caps for years. Standard cable service is usually 60GB download, and the premium cable internet services are 100GB.

Whatchu talkin bout willis?

When I was with TekSavvy I had no bandwidth cap.

Now that I'm with shaw I probably download in the area of 150-200gb a month, never had a problem.

Speak for yourself guys but Canadian internet service providers seem to be lightyears ahead of American ISPs in terms of offered speeds and comparative costs and bandwidth caps despite our sparse and very spread out population.

Most of Canadian ISPs do have bandwidth caps. The range is usually 60gb - 100 gb per month. However, for some reasons, they don't really care if you go over the limit. In 3 years of going way over the limit, I've had mine suspended only once.

Most of the cable Canadian ISP's have limits. Bell, Teksavvy and from what I can tell Telus don't have limits, but they're DSL... which is kinda slow and shitty.

Edit: note to self dont post late at night again...

 

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: destrekor
do people not realize the extreme difference in land size between the US and most of the world. Russia, even if it were in a similar position of wealth as the US, would be on the same level as the US for broadband. Japan is tiny, the European countries are also small in comparison to the US. It's tough stringing expensive communication systems across the US to deliver that kind of bandwidth, and is partly why bandwidth is expensive at the moment, because those profits help fund the cost of communications upgrades to increase speeds.

+

This is an useless excuse. Our country is too big let's just give up on having good broadband connections. While we're at it, let's just keep saying mass transit is impossible because the country is too big. In fact let's not do anything that might push us to be competitive with other nations that doesn't relate to our military power. If only our country were smaller then everything would magically be perfect! lol

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Japan is small with a recent communications network- meaning it's modern and can handle speeds like that. The US, Canada, Europe, etc have older communications systems and a lot more area to cover- meaning it is cost prohibitive to roll out a new giant highspeed network. We'll probably have one in a decade or two, but the transition is going to be slow.

That always seems to be the excuse, doesn't it? Why don't regions with high density have better network speeds? You just need to implement higher speeds in high-density population centers (Chicago, New York, etc.)

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Regs
Even though I agree with all your sentiments.....I do have to agree that some people out there have been spoiling it for everyone. Like download 2-3 movies ( at 4-10gigs a pop) at a time or treating their lines like its a international trading organization with 4 different p2p programs open and bittorrent.

Obviously you've never downloaded a movie before in your life, or else you'd realize that most movies are 0.7-1.5 gigs a pop. 10 gigs for a movie? Even the largest dual-layer DVD is only 8.5 gigs, and downloading entire DVDs is a waste (you gain very little as far as quality goes, 700-1500 MB looks almost as good for a huge size reduction, especially when you've removed the foreign audio and commentary tracks, DVD extras, etc.). At least get your numbers straight if you're going to sling bullshit around on a tech forum.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: destrekor
do people not realize the extreme difference in land size between the US and most of the world. Russia, even if it were in a similar position of wealth as the US, would be on the same level as the US for broadband. Japan is tiny, the European countries are also small in comparison to the US. It's tough stringing expensive communication systems across the US to deliver that kind of bandwidth, and is partly why bandwidth is expensive at the moment, because those profits help fund the cost of communications upgrades to increase speeds.

+

"Japan is small!"

That's a great excuse if you're serving broadband to people in Kansas. What about LA? We're talking about cities with much less land area than Japan that get around 6 Mbps broadband, tops.

 

[SSSnail]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Since population density appears to be such a big issue, I thought I would point out a few facts:

Snip

So ya...can we please get fiber and FIOS now at a reasonable price in at least all of these densely populated areas? Obviously there is money to be made when you compare Japan's density.

Why do you even bother with things such as FACTS when dealing with corporate shills?

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Fiberoptic is very very and very expensive compared to copper wire. Given that, saying "Land size is not a factor in fiber rollout" is very, very, very, and very stupid.

Yes it is but it's a long term investment that will pay back for decades. Other companies are doing it and it is being done in other countries as well. Telcoms are just making excuses and it's going to take forever for them to catch up when others are cruising at 200mbps and the US is struggling at 10mbps. Only Verizon will be ready with their glimmer of hope called FiOS.

There are many other companies doing passive optical networks in the US that verizon calls "fios".

It's the cable companies that are going to offer the 100 meg service because guess what? They have the cables already in the ground. Can we please stick to facts instead of the old misinformed "but, but, those evil corporations are being corporationy!"

How is that opinion misinformed? Explain to me why telecomm immunity and government-guaranteed monopolization is a good thing. Go on, tell us how a monopoly established by the government is beneficial to anyone.

Why is it that the people complaining about misinformation are often misinformed?

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: Xavier434
Since population density appears to be such a big issue, I thought I would point out a few facts:

Japan's average population density:

Density 337/km² or 872.8/sq mi



A long list of select US cities and their population densities. I am sure a full list can be found elsewhere.

Union City, New Jersey 20,454/km² 52,978/mi²
West New York, New Jersey 17,124/km² 44,352/mi²
Hoboken, New Jersey 11,675/km² 30,239/mi²
New York, New York 10,173/km² 26,348/mi² Manhattan (25,550/km² or 66,173/mi²)
{snipped}


So ya...can we please get fiber and FIOS now at a reasonable price in at least all of these densely populated areas? Obviously there is money to be made when you compare Japan's density.

Thank You and proves the point that American cities are ripe for fiber. Go FiOS!!!

the reason its not in more cities in the US is because all the lines are underground and it costs a shit ton to pull all that fiber from scratch

And you stand to make a huge return on that investment if you're not lazy and actually do it. If telecomms were forced to compete with each other, we'd see lower prices and higher broadband speeds throughout the country. Instead, they're allowed to slice up the country and monopolize, thus eliminating competition. Without competition, the telecomms have no incentive to upgrade or reduce prices.

Very few regions offer more than one or two broadband options, and when two are offered one is often significantly inferior. How is it that I could live in the heart of Phoenix and only have one option for cable broadband? I'm living in Orange County now and the same thing has happened, I have one so-so broadband cable company and one DSL option that charges the same for much less speed.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Fiberoptic is very very and very expensive compared to copper wire. Given that, saying "Land size is not a factor in fiber rollout" is very, very, very, and very stupid.

Yes it is but it's a long term investment that will pay back for decades. Other companies are doing it and it is being done in other countries as well. Telcoms are just making excuses and it's going to take forever for them to catch up when others are cruising at 200mbps and the US is struggling at 10mbps. Only Verizon will be ready with their glimmer of hope called FiOS.

There are many other companies doing passive optical networks in the US that verizon calls "fios".

It's the cable companies that are going to offer the 100 meg service because guess what? They have the cables already in the ground. Can we please stick to facts instead of the old misinformed "but, but, those evil corporations are being corporationy!"

It's not misinformed, telcom is a monopoly in America that is only interested in making billion's of dollars with little or no competition. That's not good for consumers.

bwahahahhahahahah!

Monopoly? I can have 5 quotes from 5 different telcos for just about anywhere in the US. There is no monopoly.

No competition? What do you call the battle between cable providers and telcos? The fact remains that the majority of broadband customers have a choice in providers.

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons

Fiberoptic is very very and very expensive compared to copper wire. Given that, saying "Land size is not a factor in fiber rollout" is very, very, very, and very stupid.

Yes it is but it's a long term investment that will pay back for decades. Other companies are doing it and it is being done in other countries as well. Telcoms are just making excuses and it's going to take forever for them to catch up when others are cruising at 200mbps and the US is struggling at 10mbps. Only Verizon will be ready with their glimmer of hope called FiOS.

There are many other companies doing passive optical networks in the US that verizon calls "fios".

It's the cable companies that are going to offer the 100 meg service because guess what? They have the cables already in the ground. Can we please stick to facts instead of the old misinformed "but, but, those evil corporations are being corporationy!"

It's not misinformed, telcom is a monopoly in America that is only interested in making billion's of dollars with little or no competition. That's not good for consumers.

bwahahahhahahahah!

Monopoly? I can have 5 quotes from 5 different telcos for just about anywhere in the US. There is no monopoly.

No competition? What do you call the battle between cable providers and telcos? The fact remains that the majority of broadband customers have a choice in providers.

Yes but who provides the last mile ?

It's either the phone company or cable. Most people only have two lines that come to their house which means that phone and cable control the price.

Now if you had 5 fiber optic lines coming to your house then I could take those "quotes" seriously.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: destrekor
do people not realize the extreme difference in land size between the US and most of the world. Russia, even if it were in a similar position of wealth as the US, would be on the same level as the US for broadband. Japan is tiny, the European countries are also small in comparison to the US. It's tough stringing expensive communication systems across the US to deliver that kind of bandwidth, and is partly why bandwidth is expensive at the moment, because those profits help fund the cost of communications upgrades to increase speeds.

+

most people live in urban areas which shoudn't be more expensive than cities in japan to wire.