Why is European broadband faster and cheaper?

[velik_m]

Why is European broadband faster and cheaper?
...
Our reporting suggests a one-word answer: Government.

Not government spending. The UK's administration hasn't invested a penny in broadband infrastructure, and most of the network in the Netherlands has been built with private capital. (The city government in Amsterdam took a minority stake in the fiber network there, but that's an investment that will pay dividends if the network is profitable -- and the private investors who own the majority share of the system plan to make sure that it will be.)

More... (http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-is-european-broadband-faster-and-cheaper-blame-the-governme/)

[TDMVPDPOY]

its fkn simple man, tax payer funded as long the original monopoly is not involve and better competition

then again whats the point of having faster speeds, if on the other end of the line they can throttle you, limit what u can access, hosted oversea servers are slow....

[baseline bum]

The level of competition in some American cities is unreal. I couldn't believe having to pay $50 a month in San Antonio when I was used to getting service as fast for $15 in Los Angeles where there were many more choices than AT&T vs. Time Warner.

[TDMVPDPOY]

The level of competition in some American cities is unreal. I couldn't believe having to pay $50 a month in San Antonio when I was used to getting service as fast for $15 in Los Angeles where there were many more choices than AT&T vs. Time Warner.

this is why i hate having a monopoly when the stupid govt didnt do any thinkn b4 selling/privatising its copper wire infrastructure...govt or new competition cant get access to certain nodes and shit or dont have the capacity to rollout such equipment thats already in the ground and working, they must invite back the monopoly to have a share in the new scheme to help rollout the infrastructure faster...pretty much pathetic to me anyway...

[ElNono]

The 'competition' here is Verizon vs Comcast, and no less than $60 for anything respectable, unless you get a bundled phone line, which 'reduces' it to $55 + phone taxes and fees. It's gone up $20 in 5 years... Wish my paycheck would be indexed like that...

[Cuckolded Sissy]

The 'competition' here is Verizon vs Comcast, and no less than $60 for anything respectable, unless you get a bundled phone line, which 'reduces' it to $55 + phone taxes and fees. It's gone up $20 in 5 years... Wish my paycheck would be indexed like that...


Verizon fiber is the fastest residential internet available so you're lucky if you can get that

[ElNono]

Verizon fiber is the fastest residential internet available so you're lucky if you can get that

Yeah, I have fiber coming to the apt. I just don't use the net enough while at home to justify the $70 cost. We have business FIOS at the office though.

[IronMaxipad]

The level of competition in some American cities is unreal. I couldn't believe having to pay $50 a month in San Antonio when I was used to getting service as fast for $15 in Los Angeles where there were many more choices than AT&T vs. Time Warner.

$15 in los angeles? wtf. What company was this? Shit i need to make the switch asap. :lol

[baseline bum]

$15 in los angeles? wtf. What company was this? Shit i need to make the switch asap. :lol

I was getting it through yahoo. The next tier was like $25, but this was 3 years ago.

[IronMaxipad]

I was getting it through yahoo. The next tier was like $25, but this was 3 years ago.

Oh yeah that's what i had. but it was only good for the first year then it ballooned to something like $38 a month.

[baseline bum]

Oh yeah that's what i had. but it was only good for the first year then it ballooned to something like $38 a month.

Oh, I dropped it before the year was up when I moved into a new apartment that gave me a better deal on broadband service.

[Winehole23]

all ISPs except for one had customer satisfaction go down last year:


the American Customer Satisfaction Index has released their latest analysis of customer satisfaction (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4487066/ACSI-Telecommunications-Report-2018.pdf) with the broadband industry. And what they found isn't pretty. In short, every single major ISP but one saw a decline in customer satisfaction over the last year:
https://i.imgur.com/Sqq3wsu.jpg (https://imgur.com/Sqq3wsu)
Note that these scores are worse than every other industry the ACSI tracks, including the airline, insurance, and banking sectors. And these scores are even well below consumer satisfaction with many government agencies, including the IRS (http://www.theacsi.org/acsi-benchmarks-for-u-s-federal-government-2016).
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180525/11191339913/thanks-to-no-competition-broadband-satisfaction-scores-plummet.shtml

[Winehole23]

And while things like gigabit broadband get a lot of media hype, we've noted that the lack of competition driving this problem is only getting worse (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180314/09251639423/cable-industry-is-quietly-securing-massive-monopoly-over-american-broadband.shtml). Numerous telcos have all but given up on residential broadband to shift their focus toward video advertising and enterprise services. And as they refuse to upgrade (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170808/10281837957/nations-telcos-are-hemorrhaging-customers-because-they-refuse-to-upgrade-their-networks.shtml) millions of DSL subscribers they don't actually want, cable companies like Comcast and Charter are securing a greater monopoly over broadband than ever before.


Some like to claim new wireless technologies (like 5G) will emerge to magically provide competition to these providers. But while 5G wireless will provide faster, lower-latency and more resillient networks (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180516/11561139846/race-to-5g-is-largely-just-marketing-nonsense.shtml), it won't fix the business data service monopoly (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171010/14161138383/groups-battle-trump-fccs-claim-that-one-isp-market-means-theres-effective-competition.shtml) that drives high prices and many of the competition issues in the wireless sector. Nor will it address the industry's plan to keep putting ma bell back together (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180430/09585439745/sprint-t-mobile-try-to-sell-public-job-killing-competition-eroding-megamerger.shtml) via an endless array of competition-reducing megamergers. And however promising 5G is, it's not a substitute for uncapped, fixed broadband -- especially in more rural areas and less affluent cities.

[SpursforSix]

BigInternet pulling the wool over sheeples eyes in the good old USA forcing Human Americans to eat cheap BigAg prepared cancer meals if they want basic communication.

America is fucked and unfuckable.

[SpursforSix]

And get ready for the cancerous 5G towers coming to your neighborhood soon. You'll get your fast speeds so you can spend time researching Spinal Facil Blastoma.

[koriwhat]

And get ready for the cancerous 5G towers coming to your neighborhood soon. You'll get your fast speeds so you can spend time researching Spinal Facil Blastoma.

:tu :lol

[Pavlov]

Competition is making for a nice situation in Austin at least. 4x speed increase over the past couple years with no change in pricing or promo rate. Waiting for the other shoe to drop after net neutrality ends.

[DJR210]

Competition is making for a nice situation in Austin at least. 4x speed increase over the past couple years with no change in pricing or promo rate. Waiting for the other shoe to drop after net neutrality ends.

Sup Chump..

Same here in SA, Spectrum's starting at over 200 Mbps now. Same rate.

[leemajors]

Sup Chump..

Same here in SA, Spectrum's starting at over 200 Mbps now. Same rate.

I get ATT giga for $82 including fees/taxes here in Austin. Grande not in my neighborhood but they are cheaper.

[DJR210]

I get ATT giga for $82 including fees/taxes here in Austin. Grande not in my neighborhood but they are cheaper.

You experience any issues? All I see from AT&T people on the Nextdoor app is complaints about outages, but I'm not sure if it's people on fiber or the old shit DSL/u-verse stuff

[leemajors]

You experience any issues? All I see from AT&T people on the Nextdoor app is complaints about outages, but I'm not sure if it's people on fiber or the old shit DSL/u-verse stuff

Sometimes the routing to my favorite quake champions server is hosed for an evening - pinging 100 instead of 6 to Dallas, but that is about it. No major outages of any sort outside of thunderstorms knocking it off, had it almost a year.

[resistanze]

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7388746124.png

Come at me nigguh!

[Pavlov]

Sup Chump..

Same here in SA, Spectrum's starting at over 200 Mbps now. Same rate.Cool. Was wondering if the increase got down there too.

Really can't complain at this point. Only have a couple devices that can go that fast over wifi.