Why is broadband more expensive in the US ?

[dipsydoodle]

Home broadband in the US costs far more than elsewhere. At high speeds, it costs nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and more than five times as much as in South Korea. Why?

Men's haircuts, loaves of bread... it is surprising how much more expensive some things are in the US than the UK. Now home broadband can be added to that list.

The price of basic broadband, TV and phone packages - or bundles as they are known - is much higher in American cities than elsewhere, suggests the New America Foundation think tank, which compared hundreds of available packages worldwide.

Looking at some of the cheaper ones available in certain cities, at lower to mid download speeds, San Francisco ($99/£61), New York ($70) and Washington DC ($68) dwarf London ($38), Paris ($35) and Seoul ($15).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24528383

Broadband, TV and phone of my own package here in the UK is about £15.50 / month . That excludes the phone line rental which is another £14.50 and another £3.50 which covers unlimited international calls up to 59 minutes - you just redial after that. TV refers to the set top box and the all freeview channels.

[marble falls]

1. Because we're sheople when it comes to communications.

[marmar]

2. Because the corporations that write the laws made it so.

[Cryptoad]

31. Yep ,,,,same reason drugs

cost more here than anywhere else.......you know 50 years ago title loan companies were considered Loan Sharks........ but now most are legally owned by politicians! Funny how that works!

[spanone]

3. we have monopolies...

[brooklynite]

5. No we don't.....

There are dozens of broadband choices, but most people don't look past their phone company and their cable company.

http://www.dslreports.com/

[reddread]

7. political monopolies

and cut rate whores for political representation.

[spanone]

8. oh yes we do...

http://247wallst.com/investing/2011/03/22/the-new-generation-of-american-monopolies/2/

[steve2470]

9. good point, local search here

http://www.dslreports.com/psearch?f=Search+for+a+local+ISP+by+US+ZIP

[progressoid]

28. If by dozens, you mean two.

Well, three if I include my mobile service provider. But that's worse service at a higher price.

[jeff47]

43. Uh, no.

My options for broadband Internet:

1) Time Warner Cable.
2) AT&T DSL
3) Other companies re-selling AT&T DSL

Don't have 4G cell service here. Even if we did, the really low caps would make it an unappealing solution. And I really have a hard time calling satellite service "broadband".

Don't have FIOS/U-Verse or other replacements for DSL. And with the relatively low speed of the DSL service, that means we get to pay Time Warner.

[Art_from_Ark]

49. In Arkansas, at least, if you don't have a landline

it severely limits your broadband choices. I looked into 9 or 10 broadband companies for my mom, and only one of those did not require a landline telephone.

[ehrnst]

12. You need to differentiate wired and wireless

There are many people who only have access to dial up - at very, very slow speeds. You can't run a business with that kind of slow access.

We are still in the pre-Tennessee Valley authority period when it comes to wired access to the internet, infrastructurewise.

[sammytko]

23. Yep, developing countries never went through a wired phase

We still have all that infrastructure to maintain.

[JHB]

4. Answered three years ago, hasn't really changed...

Why Broadband Service in the U.S. Is So Awful
Scientific American, Oct. 4, 2010

The average U.S. household has to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an Internet connection that the rest of the industrial world would find mediocre. According to a recent report by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, broadband Internet service in the U.S. is not just slower and more expensive than it is in tech-savvy nations such as South Korea and Japan; the U.S. has fallen behind infrastructure-challenged countries such as Portugal and Italy as well.

***

It was not always like this. A decade ago the U.S. ranked at or near the top of most studies of broadband price and performance. But that was before the FCC made a terrible mistake. In 2002 it reclassified broadband Internet service as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service.” In theory, this step implied that broadband was equivalent to a content provider (such as AOL or Yahoo!) and was not a means to communicate, such as a telephone line. In practice, it has stifled competition.

Phone companies have to compete for your business. Even though there may be just one telephone jack in your home, you can purchase service from any one of a number of different long-distance providers. Not so for broadband Internet. Here consumers generally have just two choices: the cable company, which sends data through the same lines used to deliver television signals, and the phone company, which uses older telephone lines and hence can only offer slower service.

The same is not true in Japan, Britain and the rest of the rich world. In such countries, the company that owns the physical infrastructure must sell access to independent providers on a wholesale market. Want high-speed Internet? You can choose from multiple companies, each of which has to compete on price and service. The only exceptions to this policy in the whole of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are the U.S., Mexico and the Slovak Republic, although the Slovaks have recently begun to open up their lines.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=competition-and-the-internet

[BumRushDaShow]

15. "the phone company, which uses older telephone lines"

FiOS - that uses fiber optic lines end to end (replacing the copper), including fiber from the street to a home's wall jack, is "older telephone lines"? Really?



(I have Comcast but one would think that something published in "Scientific American" would be umm... "scientific"?)

Monopolies aside, I think that to compare a country that has done it the "hard way" - slowly evolving the technology since the 1800s (to cross a landmass many many times the size of the countries listed) to countries that went from "nothing" to "cell towers everywhere", is a bit disingenuous.

We "Marshall Planned" so many of those same fricking countries after WWII and have spent so much of our money providing for their military during that time (while ironically, that same "military" was the source of ARPANET, the original "internet&quot , while they took the surplus and strung up tech that we developed, within their tiny borders - and then they laugh at us.

And of course now, you have Crudze holding up the FCC Chairman position. Just can't win.

[reddread]

16. they will replace aged infrastructure cabling with wireless

and so they will not be investing in expensive repairs that they should have done long ago.

[Dash87]

21. Fiber optic cables aren't widespread except for cities.

They're a rarity in the US at this point, and the telecom companies have no plans to change that. A majority of Americans still think that their Internet is "fast," mostly because the cable company tells them it's fast.

Fiber optics hasn't caught on in the US, and there's no incentive for it to catch on. Prepare for many more years of an inferior infrastructure, and certainly not fiber optic cables (unless if you're lucky enough to be the exception).

Compared to the rest of the world, Comcast's "fast" Internet is laughably slow.

[Niceguy1]

46. ??????

Where I live fiber optic is everywhere, and all new subdividions have it. Andd I live in an area yhat many here consider a redneck wasteland.

[BumRushDaShow]

50. 80.7% of the U.S. population lives in cities (and metro areas)

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010_census/cb12-50.html

And as a note, much of Comcast's network infrastructure IS fiber. They did that some time ago. What currently isn't fiber from them is from the street into the home. As it is, my worksite put fiber in 20 years ago, so it's not a new technology at all. The compression algorithms and switch gear are what might be the current limiting factors and as is often the case, there is the odd competition between telecomm providers regarding what should be considered "standard". And many of these countries have state-owned infrastructure, so they set the standard and that's it.

If anything, the bigger issue here is net neutrality and how bandwidth control is managed, and that is where corporatocracy comes barreling in.

[Dash87]

55. Interesting. Does Comcast also update the connection to houses?

[AtheistCrusader]

42. FiOS isn't widely available even today.

"Verizon announced in March 2010 they were winding down their FiOS expansion, concentrating on completing their network in areas that already had FiOS franchises but were not deploying to new areas, which included the cities of Baltimore and Boston, who had not yet secured municipal franchise agreements.[12] This may violate Verizon's agreements with some municipalities and states, since Verizon has collected revenue to deploy infrastructure upgrades that never occurred.[13]"

When that SA article was written, FiOS was available to less than 18 million Americans, and in-use by less than 4 million subscribers.

That's not even 2% of all Americans.

[BumRushDaShow]

53. I live in a hi-rise and literally just got a notice on my door today

regarding Verizon coming into each apartment this week "to check for possible FIOS hookup options".

I never expected anything from Verizon for FIOS in here. AT. ALL. (although there is conduit and comm closets where Comcast lines and telecomm bundles are run, so there's no reason why they can't do it, although it would be a bit labor intensive if they need to do it to each unit). It seems the main focus for Verizon outside of the FIOS was to replace the copper voice landlines with fiber and they have done this routinely as part of their FiOS installs. In fact, they have been pushing hard in my sister's suburban community to have residences dump the copper landlines and replace them with their fiber lines in the residence for VoIP (or whatever their equivalent is) so they can tear down the old poles and lines (that go down constantly in storms because the lines were strung along and under treelines).

However, IMHO, as an earlier poster noted, they may end up going more for wireless as a cheaper route, although they would probably still need to feed the data to a fiber infrastructure for now.

[jsr]

22. +1

[Mass]

6. Because private companies are allowed to make their own rules.

MY MIL pays 140 for TV + broadband. (we moved her to magic Jack for phone). There are all sorts of gimmicks on the bills, including taxes and equipment rentals that re simply ridiculous and make it impossible to check the bill. She is 93, so we cant mover her easily to online television, but we would if we could, frankly, because the cost is ridiculous, but there is no other choice in broadband.

We only have broadband. For the first year, we only paid $29. After one year, the discount disappears and we have to pay $49 (yikes). We have a Aereo contract at $8 a month for TV. When we called our broadband provider for TV contracts, the least expensive was $30 for a year moving to the same $49.99 after that. We said thanks but no thanks. We use magicJack for telephone as well.

[DebJ]

26. How is Magic Jack working these days?

I had a cousin and a sister who tried it maybe 5 years ago.
I could only hear every other word; conversation was impossible.

[Mass]

27. It works well for us. I use it to call both the States and Europe, and we have no problems and it

is considerably less expensive than Comcast or Charter.

[DebJ]

29. thanks

[jeff47]

44. I've run into problems when calling another VoIP service.

When my MagicJack-using sister calls me on my Vonage phone, there's a lengthy delay in the conversation. Kinda like calling very, very long distance back-in-the-day.

If either one of us is using a normal phone service (ex. cell phone), then it's fine.

[xmas74]

51. I use Basic Talk

http://www.basictalk.com/?CMP=OBR-FLS-Exact-KNC-GOO-Brand-PDSRCH-2013-BASICTALK-VER1

It works quite well-enough that I use it for my part time job doing outbound sales from home. No one would ever know the difference.

[xfundy]

10. I wish we the people could come up with a way to get free, or minimal-cost

broadband/wireless. I think it's possible, we could share accounts and pay a tiny amount. But some would complain that "others" aren't paying their share, like those with little income.

[sammytko]

24. Would the employees paychecks decrease also?

[liberal N proud]

11. That great republican theme "PRIVATIZATION"

Oh, and DEREGULATION!

[freshwest]

17. Part and parcel of Saint Ronnie's divestiture to escape the socialist dangers of universal access.

And the insidious nature of unions, cheap gas by jumping in bed with the Saudis... Rot in Hell, Ronnie!

[fadedrose]

19. ++++++

[seabeckind]

13. All of the above.

The same question can be asked about cell service.

Or health insurance.

Or health care.

Or energy.

Or transportation.

Or banking.

Or, most importantly, political choice and representation.

It is a systemic problem in our society caused by the laissez faire trend which enabled the breaking up of all those anti-trust regulations that were fought so hard for long ago.

I don't have the actual executive order on this pc (using the wife's) but there were 2 orders signed by Reagan which basically gutted the anti-trust oversight and yanked the teeth out of the gov't's competitive oversight.

Those were the straws.

After that it was just a matter of time before the cable companies could define their "competition" by dividing up the herd. Ie, each company bid on a corral. And after they got the corral they got to make the rules inside it.

Communications infrastructure would work well as a public utility. But we don't have those any more.

[seabeckind]

14. Addendum

Having the FCC head chosen by industry doesn't help much.

Kinda the same as having the treasury secretary blessed by the bankers.

Mind that prod...

[Egalitarian Thug]

45. +1

If we don't address this we're just going to keep sliding downhill like we have for the last 30 years.

[OLDMDDEM]

18. The free market ain't free

The RWs will tell you that this is the best way to make something work in the marketplace. Well, the free market isn't free and will cost you an arm and a leg if you let it.

[Dash87]

20. It's also much slower.

In a lot of places there's at most two carriers, and they're not in direct competition.

[spinbaby]

30. Tell me about it

We pay $100 a month for satellite Internet that's theoretically up to 10 Mbps but often doesn't break 1 Mbps.

[dembotoz]

25. this past week were some interesting hearings carried on cspan

hearing on wired communications---if you think things are shitty now just you wait.
Att and the other incumbent carriers want all their marbles back the the republicans are more than happy to help them.

part of the problem with broadband is just the fact that the us is just a large county.
dsl and cable and fiber require new infrastructure and to wire small towns and farms is not cheap.

think wireless is the solution--is it because att is so kind and generous.....

pay attention
If the likes of ATT gets fcc approval to abandon their wired switches (were lots of the competition co locates) it will be pre 1996 all over again. And we will be royally fucked

[davekriss]

32. Why is medical care so expensive compared to peer nations?

Unregulated, neo-monopoly capitalism capable of imposing high rents on all kinds of goods and services.

[JHB]

33. Related Sam Sam Seder Majority Report podcast from February...

Last edited Mon Oct 28, 2013, 10:35 AM - Edit history (1)

...on telecom monopolies. Relevant interview starts at the 13:20 mark.

http://majority.fm/2013/02/26/226-susan-crawford-the-fight-against-telecom-monopolies/

[NCTraveler]

34. While I would love for my broadband Internet to be less expensive,

I can't think of anything in my life that has the same ROI as my broadband connection and access to the internet. It also provides great educational resources and joy in life. It does need to be made available to all. It has provided so much for me over the years, I would like for those with less means to be able to use the same service that I am. I do understand that libraries can be used, but that is different than a single mother being able to use it to help look for a job after she has put her children to bed at night.

[JCMach1]

35. 3g and 4g access also

hella expensive

[beerandjesus]

36. Because we're more free.

[bobclark86]

37. Because it's not government subsidized and our taxes are lower...

Same reason gas is like $10 a gallon in England, while it's about 2 cents a gallon in Venezuela. It ain't rocket science. They also pay a 20-percent sales tax (sorry, VAT... but the same basic idea) on everything. Rocket science it ain't.

Now, try buying high-end audio electronics and other goodies in England. A good guideline is both have the same numbers, but in the UK it's in pounds and the US it's in dollars (or half price).

[One_Life_To_Give]

38. Density?

Some of it is because we have slightly fewer people than Europe. But we are spread across many more hectares. So many more hotspots and cables/fibre's to service the same headcount.

[truebluegreen]

39. Corruption.

[lumberjack_jeff]

40. Because "Maximizing Shareholder Value", that's why. nt

[mwooldri]

41. Similar thing for outside urban areas.

Feel free to check this out:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker?address=true enter Post Code of RH14 0QD, and house number 8.

BT is proud to offer you voice and dialup to this small village on the West Sussex/Surrey border. The population is fairly small but usually very well off, but still considered unprofitable . There is a wireless ISP - Kijoma - you can get "up to" 30 Mbit/sec down, and various up speeds - a "home standard" plan costs £18/mo - about $29/mo. Bandwidth is metered between 8pm and 11pm (10Gb a month) otherwise un-metered at other times.

For TV in the UK, there is a cost of £12.13 a month (about $19.40) for the TV licence. Every household needs to pay this fee to watch TV legally - so to compare a "bundle", the licence fee needs to be taken into consideration.

[Lex]

47. Because . . . Freedom!

[lpbk2713]

48. Because the lawyers and the lobbyists working for ...

the telcos and the cablecos don't come cheap. And then you have to figure in the junkets and
"fact finding trips" at 5A resorts and golf courses that pols attend as guests of the ISP's.

[Rex]

52. Who do you think pays the salary of the M$M kings and queens?

Someone has to pay for Wolfees 'stash.

[adirondacker]

54. Because we are a Corporate welfare state. nt