{"id":6405,"date":"2013-10-29T06:03:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T10:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6405"},"modified":"2013-10-30T12:20:19","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T16:20:19","slug":"u-s-broadband-among-most-expensive-worldwide-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/u-s-broadband-among-most-expensive-worldwide-why.html","title":{"rendered":"U.S. broadband among most expensive worldwide: why?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We don’t have to continue letting the duopoly gouge us for\r\nslow and expensive Internet access.\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nWe don’t have to wait for Washington\r\n\r\nor Atlanta<\/a>, either.\r\nWe do need our local leaders to stop defining away the issue\r\nand get on with doing something about.\r\n

\r\nTom Geoghegan wrote for BBC News 27 October 2013,\r\n\r\nWhy is broadband more expensive in the US?<\/a>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nHome broadband in the US costs twice as much as it does in Europe\r\nand three times as much as it does in South Korea, according to a\r\nnew report. Why?\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nBecause we let the duopoly get away with it,\r\nas\r\n\r\nSusan Crawford has been reminding us for a while now<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe 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<\/a>…. <\/p>\r\n

\r\nThis research echoes the findings of another report earlier in the\r\nsummer by the OECD, which compared countries in terms of their\r\nbroadband-only prices. Across all 10 download speeds and capacities,\r\nit consistently ranked the US near the bottom.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFor instance, at high speeds of 45 Mbps and over, the OECD report\r\nhas the US ranked 30th out of 33 countries, with an average price of\r\n$90 a month. With phone and TV thrown in, plus some premium\r\nchannels, these packages often cost $200.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\nAs Susan Crawford puts it:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n“We deregulated high-speed internet access 10 years ago and since\r\nthen we’ve seen enormous consolidation and monopolies, so left to\r\ntheir own devices, companies that supply internet access will charge\r\nhigh prices, because they face neither competition nor oversight.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nTwo-thirds get their broadband via their television cables, she\r\nsays, because the DSL (digital subscriber line) service provided by\r\nphone companies over copper lines can’t compete with cable speeds,\r\nwhile wireless and satellite services are subject to low usage caps.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThere are things local communities can do.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nIn Kansas City, Kansas, residents are enjoying a high-speed fibre\r\nnetwork, supplied by Google, at a price of $70 a month for a gigabit\r\n(1,000 Mbps) internet-only service. And there’s a slower 5 Mbps\r\ndownload speed for free for seven years to those who pay $300 up\r\nfront. Google now has Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, in its sights,\r\ntoo. Verizon also has a super fast fibre network, Fios, available to\r\n10% of US households.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAbout 150 cities across the US have internet access supplied by\r\npublic utility companies. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, electricity\r\ncompany EPB became an internet service provider four years ago.\r\nAfter expanding its existing fibre network which it used to control\r\nthe grid, it now offers a one gigabit service for $70 a month.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe mere suggestion that we might want to do one of those things\r\ncan be enough to get the duopoly to deploy something faster and\r\nless expensive.\r\nOr we could take up Susan Crawford’s suggestion of\r\nloan guarantees or wholesale requirements<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nAs Crawford previously reminded us all:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nNot surprisingly, cost is the most commonly cited reason people in\r\nAmerica do not subscribe to high-speed Internet access, and\r\nnonadoption is closely tied to economic status; lack of data access\r\nreinforces other inequalities. Meanwhile, the future of start-up\r\nbusinesses, independent programmers, the computing industry, the\r\nquality of life of many Americans, and free expression online are\r\nall in jeopardy; neither businesses nor people can count on fast,\r\nopen access to new markets, new ways of getting an education, new\r\nways of obtaining health care, and new ways of making a living.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThere is now \r\nrigorous scientific research that shows that<\/a>\r\nfast affordable Internet access has a causal relationship with income,\r\njobs, and creative workers.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSo our local leaders can either\r\n\r\ncontinue to define away the problem<\/a>\r\nor stop hiding their heads in the sand and do something about it.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We don’t have to continue letting the duopoly gouge us for slow and expensive Internet access. We don’t have to wait for Washington or Atlanta, either. We do need our local leaders to stop defining away the issue and get on with doing something about. Tom Geoghegan wrote for BBC News 27 October 2013, Why […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,132,289],"tags":[506,8704,8701,507,8741,8702,12,7,8758,7001,877,6],"class_list":["post-6405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-internet-access-speed","category-science","tag-broadband","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-internet","tag-internet-access-speed","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-science","tag-sharon-strover","tag-susan-crawford","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1Fj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6405"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6435,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6405\/revisions\/6435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}