Internet Slow? Move to South Korea!

[3113]

A report on Internet speed in the United States says the country isn’t likely to catch world leader South Korea for 15 years. Or for much longer — at current growth rates, the United States will only reach South Korea’s speed today in 15 years.

The report, by the Communications Workers of America, details Internet download and upload speeds all over the United States and some of its affiliated territories. In the last year, the average upload speed in the United States “barely changed,” the report said, and download speed only grew a little, from 4.2 megabits per second in 2008 to 5.1 megabits per second in 2009. In South Korea, average download speed is four times faster — 20.4 megabits per second. The United States also lags Japan (15.8 mbps), Sweden (12.8 mbps), the Netherlands (11 mbps) and 24 other countries.

...The report said U.S. speeds aren’t sufficient for the needs of in-home medical monitoring, distance learning programs, or to run a modern business from home. “People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours” at the average U.S. speed, the report said.

Full article here.

And now we know why Liar has a squirrel for an avatar. Little did we know how much faster he was than all the rest of us. Not so fast as South Korea, but damn!

 

[freshface]

Full article here.

And now we know why Liar has a squirrel for an avatar. Little did we know how much faster he was than all the rest of us. Not so fast as South Korea, but damn!

Not meaning to brag, but €38.00 buys me unlimited internet at 16 mbps and unlimited calling to fifteen other countries, including the US. Fast enough to watch television.

 

[3113]

Not meaning to brag, but €38.00 buys me unlimited internet at 16 mbps and unlimited calling to fifteen other countries, including the US. Fast enough to watch television.

Damn Europeans!

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Where I live, we have FIOS. Fiberoptics are great. I can download movies in damned near realtime. And the phone companies are stringing fiber as fast they can. However, might I point out one little omission in the article? All those countries would fit into the American landmass with room to spare! They have more people in less space so wiring them together takes less 'wire' and less time.

 

[ishtat]

. However, might I point out one little omission in the article? All those countries would fit into the American landmass with room to spare! They have more people in less space so wiring them together takes less 'wire' and less time.

Living in a country which is 32 square miles smaller than the contiguous USA gives us a similar problem exacerbated by the fact that we have a population about the same as New York State to pay for it. In Sydney we are averaging about 9.3. Try this test below. Then ask yourself, is emigration to Uzbekistan worth it?

http://www.zdnet.com.au/broadband/speedtest.htm

 

[Liar]

Full article here.

And now we know why Liar has a squirrel for an avatar. Little did we know how much faster he was than all the rest of us. Not so fast as South Korea, but damn!

The secret: Public fiberoptic city nets and state financed broadband backbones.

Yep, that pesky socialism again. And because of it, net service and high bandwidth content business is booming. The government investments in IT infrastructure in the early 00's paid for itself in increased VAT revenue in no time.

 

[ishtat]

The secret: Public fiberoptic city nets and state financed broadband backbones.

Yep, that pesky socialism again. And because of it, net service and high bandwidth content business is booming. The government investments in IT infrastructure in the early 00's paid for itself in increased VAT revenue in no time.

Sort of Liar but if South Korea is an example of anything it illustrates how State Capitalism can work.

I sometimes wonder whether in western thinking we are so entrenched in the left /right, socialist/freemarket system of debate that we ignore other highly successful societies. South Korea for example is a very conservative society with Confucian values respecting elders and hard work with all the capital in their economy substantially directed by the government, not individuals. But it has worked spectacularly well.

 

[Liar]

Sort of Liar but if South Korea is an example of anything it illustrates how State Capitalism can work.

I sometimes wonder whether in western thinking we are so entrenched in the left /right, socialist/freemarket system of debate that we ignore other highly successful societies. South Korea for example is a very conservative society with Confucian values respecting elders and hard work with all the capital in their economy substantially directed by the government, not individuals. But it has worked spectacularly well.

That's because they're fiercely pragmatic. It's not a Soviet style plan economy, where capital is a means to facilitate politics, and not a Western free-for-all where politics is a means to facilitate capital. Or actually, it's both. They cherry pick the Bits That Work out of everything, on a case-to-case basis. The Country is run like a mega corporation. If it's good business to build a railroad or a fibre network, they do it, and are not concerned about the ideology of it. If it's better business to leave it to private initiative, the'll do that instead.

In Sweden's case the Internet intitiative was more of a lucky shot. We had a left wing government at the time who was very hot on Building Society. The investment spree was ideologic, not pragmatic. Some of it was bad business and should have been left the hell alone. There were for instance some spectacular fail-projects in tourism and housing that lead to nothing except a big bill. But the IT infrastructure project turned out to be an excellent investment. Created loads of jobs, a new peak industry for online media, a springboard for banking and credit innovation, cut costs in public buerocracy and management, and much more.

 

[TE999]

Where I live, we have FIOS. Fiberoptics are great. I can download movies in damned near realtime. And the phone companies are stringing fiber as fast they can. However, might I point out one little omission in the article? All those countries would fit into the American landmass with room to spare! They have more people in less space so wiring them together takes less 'wire' and less time.

We have FIOS here too...I was running about 9,100 kbps on that CNet test up there...most downloads are 20-30 seconds, tops.

Another thing, lots of places in the US are too sparsely populated for anything except dial-up to be commercially viable. Even cell phone service is sporadic.