Remember This Post in 25 Years, When We’re All Speaking South Korean
Posted by Goldy on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 8:32 AM [via slog]
South Korea, whose citizens already enjoy the fastest average broadband speeds in the world, is about to get much, much faster:
By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second. That would be a tenfold increase from the already blazing national standard and more than 200 times as fast as the average household setup in the United States.
And the cost to consumers of this blazing fast Internet? A pilot project is currently charging less than $27 a month.
But don’t worry, I have faith that Comcast, Verizon, Qwest, et al will soon offer even faster service at an even lower cost, because American-style capitalism is always the most efficient and productive way of doing everything. (It’s in the Bible, or something.)
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Remember This Post in 25 Years, When We’re All Speaking Hong Konganese
Posted by Goldy on Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 3:03 PM [via slog]
A couple weeks back, when I made fun of American-style capitalism for failing to give US consumers the option of affordable, gigabit Internet like South Koreans will soon enjoy, my musings generated a fairly hostile comment thread.
South Korea can support affordable, fast broadband because they have a much higher population density, I was lectured, and a much lower cost of living. Besides, they’ll only use it for playing Starcraft 2… a line of argument that other commenters expanded upon to insist that no one now, nor would ever need one gigabit per second throughput.
Oh… and by the way Goldy… you’re a “commie.”
Which of course is just the kinda discourse that encourages me to revisit the topic:
HONG KONG residents can enjoy astoundingly fast broadband at an astoundingly low price. It became available last year, when a scrappy company called Hong Kong Broadband Network introduced a new option for its fiber-to-the-home service: a speed of 1,000 megabits a second — known as a “gig” — for less than $26 a month.
In the United States, we don’t have anything close to that. But we could. And we should.
That’s right, gigabit Internet—which nobody needs—is now widely available in Hong Kong for an unsubsidized $26 a month, a buck less then the $27 a month the service goes for in South Korea. Meanwhile the closest we can manage here is one twentieth the speed at almost six times the price. U S A !
Of course, population density is an issue, and thus the cost-benefit analysis wouldn't necessarily make sense everywhere, but there are plenty of cities in the US where something in the range of gigabit Internet would make sense if only our cable and telco monopolies were forced to open up to a little competition.
Dane Jasper, the chief executive of Sonic.net, an Internet provider based in Santa Rosa, Calif., says that most broadband markets in the United States today are dominated by one phone company and one cable company.
“Why doesn’t Verizon offer gigabit service?” Mr. Jasper asks. “Because it doesn’t have to.”
But, you know, this is America, goddammit, so if Verizon and Comcast say we don't need gigabit Internet, then I guess we don't need it. And God bless America.
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