State of Broadband: We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves

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We hear statements like this all the time regarding the state of broadband in the United States. We just don't usually hear it from a former FCC commissioner. :eek:

“But we haven’t given competition the chance it needs,” he continued, before referring to how poorly U.S. broadband compares on the global stage. “We have fallen so far short that we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be leading, and we’re not. We need to get serious about broadband, we need to get serious about competition, we need to get serious about our country.”
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Corporate greed
Corporate corruption
Corporate incompetence
Corporate ineptitude
 
The country is NOT geared anymore to leading in tech, and pushing boundaries. It is money for babies mama. Paying worthless people to do nothing.
 
More like when society respects and rewards greed and stupidity. What's the incentive to innovate when you can manipulate and prostitute.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
The country is NOT geared anymore to leading in tech, and pushing boundaries. It is money for babies mama. Paying worthless people to do nothing.
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So all of these private industries that make gobs of money, impose data caps, fight against net neutrality, etc. its not their fault that broadband in the US is in the state that it's in. It's these worthless people paid to do nothing. Wouldn't be surprised if Comcast started using that one.
 
Totally not the fault of the few large companies given billions in taxbreaks and grants to upgrade the infrastructure over 10 years ago.
Imported underaged male sex slaves don't buy themselves and they ain't cheap! Those CEOs NEED them in order to function. What are the companies to do? Hire competent people to run them?
 
Internet service in the nation is a mess because of welfare? Wow, talk about the silly peasants hanging themselves for the amusement of their lords.
 
This guy is 100% right. Broadband for the many that don't live in a city is terrible or nonexistent and it's a travesty. I'd even go so far as to say that it's down right embarrassing that we're so far behind the rest of the world. If we can run roads across America, I know we can run some broadband lines or set up towers. The solution is much too easy, but the chance to be greedy is even more tempting.

That's what is wrong with broadband access in America in a nutshell.
 
My expensive-as-fuck Internet connection has had me wondering lately if I should just cancel it altogether, and quit spending so much time online. Maybe the current state of broadband is a good thing?
 
There is a large push for faster, but I don't see reliability scaling with the current topology. 80 to 97 percentile calculations on bandwidth usage is going to end up with the same saturation issue that Southern California to Canada had after the initial widespread adoption of cable modem over DSL. Over-commit always seems to creep in when it comes to communication -- it has after all, necessitated the need for data caps on primary carriers to deal with users outside of their tiered bandwidth percentile calculations.

We shouldn't be worrying about any of this anyway, "as a great country". We should be addressing suffering, health, and homelessness before we worry about streaming Netflix at 4k in every home. On my walk this evening, I saw three foreclosed properties here that families could be living in, but instead a bank is just going to let the property go until it's a tear down -- that is what I am ashamed of, not my 50mbit Internet connection not being the standard.
 
Grab the GoT books, they're quite a bit better than the show thanks to the amount of depth they can get into. I love reading outside in the summer, especially a real hardcover book and not a poorly lit LED screen.

As for the state of the Internet, all I have to say is that my bill has gone up rather significantly over the last 8 years - my speed has gone up from 22Mbps to 28Mbps on average speed tests in the same time frame. Romania can't seem to pull itself out of poverty, yet their average upload speed is faster than my best download speed!*

*Before someone blows this out of proportion, yes, this is mostly a joke.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
The country is NOT geared anymore to leading in tech, and pushing boundaries. It is money for babies mama. Paying worthless people to do nothing.
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You evil poor people, stop being poor and go get those jobs that don't exist! The ones Corporate America and The Rich began shipping overseas decades ago! It's all your fault! :D
 
Americans, whether business or consumer, only cares about money. This is a purely empty gesture that will not bring any progress. Consumer wants lower prices instead of speed while business wants profits instead of additional expenditures. The cycle goes round and round.
 
america is a dying country
thats just truth
hell, we're being bought up by china
 
heatlesssun said:
So all of these private industries that make gobs of money, impose data caps, fight against net neutrality, etc. its not their fault that broadband in the US is in the state that it's in. It's these worthless people paid to do nothing. Wouldn't be surprised if Comcast started using that one.
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Corporations are people too!
Like Verizon, what a worthless person, he agreed to build a fiber network for NJ but instead then threw up some 4G hotspots and called it a day. Lazy sonofa...Wish I could pay my taxes with monopoly money and bullshit.
 
The statement is correct, breaking the ISP monopolies is the real solution.

Hyper-regulation may work for a year or two, otherwise but once the cameras are off, whatever the purpose was gets circumvented and the old behaviors are back. Hyper-regulated environments also block competition and stifle innovation. Cell phones almost never happened. The FCC couldn't get out of its own way. Reagan had to sign an executive order to cut through the bureaucracy stopping something that was otherwise suppose to be happening.
 
The problem is coax, you know, good ol' screw on cables. There's inherent bandwidth delivery challenges, even with the current DOCSIS standard.

If cable companies had fiber as their physical media, there would be less challenges and potentially more bandwidth flexibility.
 
First off, yeah the companies suck.

Second, you poor people apologist commenting on the guy who wrote about the baby mommas etc... Well it may not be directly correlated, but the apathy of this generation of people who only want instant gratification and are not willing to work, sacrifice, and WAIT is pathetic. So while single mom's on welfare are not directly related to crap broadband, it is symptomatic of the larger problem of society in which we live.

The whole issue that we are all riled up about; crap internet in the US; can be fixed, but probably won't be, because we will not have the patience, fortitude, and WILL to make the Gov, companies etc... change. Without OUR constant oversight and intervention/protestation, which in turn will make upgrading their networks a path of lesser resistance vs. maintaining status quo, we will continue to be screwed.
 
heatlesssun said:
So all of these private industries that make gobs of money, impose data caps, fight against net neutrality, etc. its not their fault that broadband in the US is in the state that it's in. It's these worthless people paid to do nothing. Wouldn't be surprised if Comcast started using that one.
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In the last century, by the latter half of it most everyone had telephone service available to them and it was not because private industry stepped up and paid the bill. Government subsidized the running of phone wire infrastructure for this. This is how towns in the middle of nowhere with a population of 100 got telephone service.
Not that I'm a great advocate of government subsidies but this is one way we lead the world. The same with bring electricity to everyone.
Private utilities would have lit the cities and left the rest of the country in the dark.

Lets take a look at todays times. The US LAGS much of the developed world in many areas.
Space program. Shelved.
Country wide data infrastructure. Way behind Europe.
Electrical infrastructure Outdated and failing. Europe has gone nuclear because it is the MOST EFFICIENT method to produce electricity. The USA has not.
Bridges and roads are crumbling and collapsing. Old transportation infrastructure isn't being maintained, repaired and replaced at the rate it is failing.

WHY IS THIS? Why is our country falling apart?
Because the number of people that are DEPENDANT on a government hand out in some form outnumber the people that WORK and pay for all this.
There are more TAKERS than givers.
This is because of socialist government policies that PUNISH motivated, productive people and REWARD slugs that want to be taken care of like babies.

THAT is the bottom line.......
 
And to the asshat who is crying about the homes sitting vacant/foreclosed.

Sure I'm sympathetic to the people losing the home, but there is something called personal responsibility that is sorely lacking with MOST people today. Don't buy something you cannot afford. If you do, and lose it; tough! I'm sick and tired of seeing people over mortgage their lives and crying about the big bad bank when the house of cards tumbles. I have NO love for banks and they are a dirty bunch ok, but if they loan you money, and you don't pay; we know what happens right?????
I'm more pissed about how they hosed us with predatory loans, and the high risk investments they got into with mortgage swap defaults etc... Of course we had to bail them our so the hypocrisy in bailing them out is glaring and I disagreed with it. In the end, people need to take more responsibility for their actions and not blame everyone else for their failings.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
WHY IS THIS? Why is our country falling apart?
Because the number of people that are DEPENDANT on a government hand out in some form outnumber the people that WORK and pay for all this.
There are more TAKERS than givers.
This is because of socialist government policies that PUNISH motivated, productive people and REWARD slugs that want to be taken care of like babies.

THAT is the bottom line.......
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In many parts of Europe they get free college education (or get paid to study), free healthcare, and sometimes even free housing. They also general pay double the taxes we do, yet they have great affordable internet service, dirt cheap phone plans and much more of the populace is college educated, higher happiness index, generally less crimes etc. So their "welfare" system does not appear to affect their cable and phone markets.

I think the problem lies elsewhere, maybe too much spent on wars and "defense" instead of education and infrastructure, maybe bad market regulation due to corruption and cronyism, or just rampant corruption in general making anything we do cost more than it should, work half as good and take twice as long to implement.

I vote we worry about bribes and favors running practically everything in our system instead. I think poor people abusing welfare is the least of our problems, but they sure are the easiest to pick on when things go bad.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
WHY IS THIS? Why is our country falling apart?
Because the number of people that are DEPENDANT on a government hand out in some form outnumber the people that WORK and pay for all this.
There are more TAKERS than givers.
This is because of socialist government policies that PUNISH motivated, productive people and REWARD slugs that want to be taken care of like babies.

THAT is the bottom line.......
Click to expand...

We just spent trillions on wars that were outright lies. Our total college loan debt is 1.7 trillion because college costs have risen 1000% percent in the last 30 years. Food prices doubling, and lower effective pay rate now for the middle/lower class. And you are crying about food stamps which are a drop in the bucket. Do you know why people need food stamps? Because corporations like McDonalds and Walmart pay such low wages that they qualify for them while they get massive profits. These corporations are free loading like you are whinging about on a much larger scale than the average person. But you don't care about that. You care about Fox News talking points who coincidentally are funded by these mega corps.
 
Wierdo said:
In many parts of Europe they get free college education (or get paid to study), free healthcare, and sometimes even free housing. They also general pay double the taxes we do, yet they have great affordable internet service, dirt cheap phone plans and much more of the populace is college educated, higher happiness index, generally less crimes etc. So their "welfare" system does not appear to affect their cable and phone markets.

I think the problem lies elsewhere, maybe too much spent on wars and "defense" instead of education and infrastructure, maybe bad market regulation due to corruption and cronyism, or just rampant corruption in general making anything we do cost more than it should, work half as good and take twice as long to implement.

I vote we worry about bribes and favors running practically everything in our system instead. I think poor people abusing welfare is the least of our problems, but they sure are the easiest to pick on when things go bad.
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I'm not saying that socialist Europe is the shining example, but this shows how far we have fallen if Europe is leaving us in the dust. Government has so crippled free enterprise it is just not worth the cost anymore.
Policies do not REWARD hard work, the opposite is true.
Big business is booming only because they have a team of lobbyist in Washington keeping the tax man off of them and paying off politicians to vote for bills that favor them.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Big business is booming only because they have a team of lobbyist in Washington keeping the tax man off of them and paying off politicians to vote for bills that favor them.
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I think we agree on this point, this is the biggest problem facing our nation imho. The difference, in my mind, between an industrial nation and a third world country is the level of corruption, and I fear we're closer to the third world than we should be considering we have the highest GDP on the planet, apparently allot of that money is getting burned in a cycle of rampant corruption.

Bad internet is just the tip of the iceberg, but until we treat the disease we have no choice but to complain about the symptoms, the hope is that at least they can be patched up relatively easier I suppose.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
WHY IS THIS? Why is our country falling apart?
Because the number of people that are DEPENDANT on a government hand out in some form outnumber the people that WORK and pay for all this.
There are more TAKERS than givers.
This is because of socialist government policies that PUNISH motivated, productive people and REWARD slugs that want to be taken care of like babies.

THAT is the bottom line.......
Click to expand...

It's a VAST oversimplification to talk about makers and takers. Who are these people that are supposedly dependent on government? Many of them work in such low wage jobs that they STILL qualify for food stamps and certain tax breaks. Indeed industries with lots of low wage labor count on the fact that many of their employees will get these benefits and it ends up being a type of wage support.

Then there are people like my 87 year old mother, and I'm sure there are plenty of people around here with parents and/or grandparents to old and/or too sick to work that receive Social Security and Medicare. And it's not like they were lounging around when they were younger. They worked, paid into these systems and were told that those systems would be there when they needed them. And then we have truly infirm people that through wars or unfortunate circumstances have crippled bodies that makes it difficult for them to work.

It's easy to vilify the stereotypical welfare queen. But when you start to dig into all that receive some type of government benefit through direct aid or tax breaks, it ends up being far more than just the scapegoats. Heck, if you own a home, you get the mortgage deduction. If you're a farmer, you can get government checks for price subsidies. If you're an oil company, you get a tax break for that. Many states these days are tripping all over themselves to give companies tax breaks to bring jobs into their states, often with the cost of those jobs being many times what babies momma will ever see in a year.
 
BOTA:49 said:
Grab the GoT books, they're quite a bit better than the show thanks to the amount of depth they can get into. I love reading outside in the summer, especially a real hardcover book and not a poorly lit LED screen.
Click to expand...

Get a kindle paper, they are awesome for outside (and inside) reading.
 
closers said:
More like when society respects and rewards greed and stupidity. What's the incentive to innovate when you can manipulate and prostitute.
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Society should respect and reward greed, but not stupidity, incompetence, dishonesty or corruption.
 
So you hate corporations? Who charters and protects corporations? Corporations only exist because of government. They wouldn't exist in a free market, because me, you, and everyone else hates them and realizes what a freaking scam they are.

Internet "service providers" are some of the worst offenders, due to... wait for it.... government granted monopolies.
 
SGA76 said:
Totally not the fault of the few large companies given billions in taxbreaks and grants to upgrade the infrastructure over 10 years ago.
Imported underaged male sex slaves don't buy themselves and they ain't cheap! Those CEOs NEED them in order to function. What are the companies to do? Hire competent people to run them?
Click to expand...

I am just playing devil's advocate here, I <3 them as much as you do. (to the tune of ~100GB of torrents/streaming/gaming/etc every month on my unlimited verizon plan tethered to my laptop hehe)

It sounds like they need a good old fashioned audit.

Look at how much they actually put into infrastructure, you can't tell me they didn't lay some new copper in areas, add distrobutiion centers, etc. They spent a % of the $, just what % went to infrastructure and what % went into their pockets?

If our federal auditors could figure that out, then they could also trace the rest of the money. So it's as easy as what they do to corporate embezzlers, Madoff, etc...

Freeze their bank accounts, corporate at first, but don't be afraid to go after private accounts that they embezzled/laundered it off to (real estate, antiquities, etc...)

Anyone remember the last time a telecom company had a monopoly? They got broken up, so we have precedent for something like this. After we get the $$$ back from the major players who took billions of $'s of tax payer money to upgrade our country's infrastructure and failed, we can try again.
This time, make it a public works project, turn communications into a commodity... free market turns it around and both the citizens and government win?
 
Farkle said:
We shouldn't be worrying about any of this anyway, "as a great country". We should be addressing suffering, health, and homelessness before we worry about streaming Netflix at 4k in every home. On my walk this evening, I saw three foreclosed properties here that families could be living in, but instead a bank is just going to let the property go until it's a tear down -- that is what I am ashamed of, not my 50mbit Internet connection not being the standard.
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Thank you
 
Kiznilian said:
We just spent trillions on wars that were outright lies. Our total college loan debt is 1.7 trillion because college costs have risen 1000% percent in the last 30 years. Food prices doubling, and lower effective pay rate now for the middle/lower class. And you are crying about food stamps which are a drop in the bucket. Do you know why people need food stamps? Because corporations like McDonalds and Walmart pay such low wages that they qualify for them while they get massive profits. These corporations are free loading like you are whinging about on a much larger scale than the average person. But you don't care about that. You care about Fox News talking points who coincidentally are funded by these mega corps.
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Ah yes... the old blame bush, walmart, and Mcdonalds.

You obviously have no knowledge of economics and buying power of the dollar. Walmart functions on a 3.5% profit margin. If they pay more labor they raise prices and guess what... the effective buying power of the people who shop at walmart is the same.

Raise taxes on the big bad corporations? Yep, they just pass it to the consumer. Blah Blah Warren Buffet is a Billionaire and says we need higher payroll taxes on the rich. Well, considering he doesn't pay income tax and plays people like fools. Start talking about taxing capital gains as income and his tune will change.

I have no love for corporations and especially internet companies who are fucking our economy and country over. Things are a house of cards in Europe even worse than it is here.

As for people saying that the jobs don't exsist. BULL SHIT. Head on up to North Dakota or South and West Texas. Walk about Chew gum... yep you can clear $75k a year and have little to no expenses. People just do not want to work.
 
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