[ NNSquad ] Broadband speeds and coverage

[Kriss Andsten <kriss@proceranetworks.com>]

On Aug 27, 2009, at 12:47 AM, John S. Quarterman wrote:

> So why is it that many other countries (Korea, Japan, Sweden, ...)
> manage to provide fast Internet everywhere, while the U.S. lags way
> behind in Internet speeds and uptake?

Since Lauren actually encouraged this particular thread:

Speaking for Sweden (which I happen to live in) rather than east Asia,  
I'd say that you'd need to look back in time for the answer: 40 years  
and then ten. This is anecdotal as anything, and I wholeheartedly  
invite other swedes to shoot me down here.

We've had, compared with many (most?) other countries a top-notch  
analogue phone network for quite a long while. Televerket, our  
governmental monopoly for phone utilities - privatized in 1993 - seem  
to have done something right back when. In the early 90's, ISDN was  
heralded as The Thing for the future, so the phone utility already had  
digital utilities in mind pre-Internet.

Once duplex CATV communications became a viable way of selling  
Internet access and other services, our CATV operators whole-heartedly  
ripped out quite a bit of the noisier cabling, replaced it and was  
good to go.

So in the mid-to-late 1990's, the prerequisites for the two prevalent  
last-mile-access technologies - DSL and CATV were well filled. One down.

Late 1990's, one entrepreneur set out to get the government to  
subsidize a massive broadband rollout. Failing to do so, he raised  
funds and founded a company - Bredbandsbolaget (the broadband company)  
around the same idea - good connectivity for cheap. The original plan  
was a massive fiber rollout - fiber to the premises, copper to the  
home. Somewhere down the line they settled for Fiber/copper where they  
already had it deployed, ADSL elsewhere.

The competitors answered the call. Municipalities as well, with  
municipal broadband becoming quite the rage. Many condo associations  
also got their own connectivity at this point. Broadband onnectivity  
in Sweden is, and has been, overall quite good and decently cheap.  
Seeing the many options, no single dominant provider could keep a  
stranglehold and speeds have been increasing while the price point has  
been roughly the same.

We have had some governmental input in how a good fiber grid ought to  
be built. Summarily ignored by any provider I know of, since the  
governmental idea of a fiber rollout doesn't really jive well with  
what's good for business. This does, however, assume that 'business'  
also does what's good for customers in the first place.


Key points, if translated to some sort of american conditions:

* Local loop unbundling + hit the incumbent over the head until they  
stop being obtrusive.
* Don't let companies sue municipalities when they want to sort their  
own broadband arrangements.


In all haste,

Kriss