6 ms·

I am always stunned of how USA are both forerunners of new technologies, and very backward as well... for credit cards with chip, digital television, gsm diffus

by kome 11y ago

I am always stunned of how USA are both forerunners of new technologies, and very backward as well... for credit cards with chip, digital television, gsm diffusion, etc etc... Also, in most of United States you can not get an european level ADSL.

wil421 11y ago
I dont think ADSL can compare to what you can get in most metro areas in the US. I have basic internet and get 18mbps but most of the time its more than 20. Google fiber will be coming to my area soon so I can expect this to go way up even if I dont switch. As far as CC chips almost all of my cards have a chip in them with the exception of a credit union debit card. Larger retailers that had security breaches are now using this tech such as Home Depot and Target. It will take a very long time to get smaller retailers or even gas pumps to update their card swipers.
- timthorn 11y ago
  G.fast can offer ~1Gbps of bandwidth over a standard copper pair and BT OpenReach is currently trialing services at 330Mbps down with the expectation of rolling out nationally within the next few years. You can do quite a bit with a copper pair, though the distances involved are quite short.
douche 11y ago
The US is very, very big, and very, very empty compared to Europe. Outside of the I-95 corridor on the East Coast, some islands of density in the midwest, and the coastal zone of California, Oregon, Washington, it's overwhelmingly rural or uninhabited.
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  This is the correct answer. Old, but still relevant density map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File:World_population_density_1994.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File...
  - lorenzhs 11y ago
    Norway and Sweden have excellent Fiber-to-the-Home and very low population density. You can get 1GBit/s symmetrical quite cheaply (I don't remember how much, one Swedish offer I found just now is $120/month).
    - scott_s 11y ago
      Area of Norway: 148,718 mi² Area of Sweden: 173,732 mi² Area of USA: 3.806 million mi² Even if the densities are similar, infrastructure is harder at scale. It's also true that the places in the US with less density tend to have less economic engines.
      - lorenzhs 11y ago
        Population density of Norway: 14 people per km². Population density of the USA: 35 people per km². Sure it's hard to do this at scale, but nobody is asking for it to be deployed everywhere at the same time. You could start in populous areas, where it would be cheap to do so, and gradually supply less populated areas.
        douche 11y ago
        That's sort of the way it already works... It's never going to make economic sense to put gigabit fiber out to rural areas, unless it is heavily subsidized. If there were some business location that required high speed, people lucky enough to live along the trunk line to that location might get service - that's the only reason I had cable TV as a child.
    - dangerlibrary 11y ago
      1. I suspect that offer isn't available in northern Norway. 2. They are only a couple hundred miles from the big internet exchanges in the Netherlands and Germany. Most of those miles can be covered with undersea cables, so you don't need to dig, which is expensive. 3. The U.S. regulatory environment for internet providers is horrible and everyone knows it.
- Retric 11y ago
  That's more an issue if your looking at land vs where people actually live. More people live in DC than Wyoming. The population of Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Alaska , North and South Dakota put together is significantly less than the number of people living in New York City.
  - dangerlibrary 11y ago
    Agreed. But the people living in those states have 14 senators representing them, to NY's 2 and DC's 0. Also, 23 electoral votes to NY's 32.
    - chiph 11y ago
      That's not a good comparison - when Congress was set up the massive debate between the founders was over how to do representation. Which is why we have a bicameral legislature. When doing population comparisons, you should use the numbers from the House of Representatives (population based, which is why we have a 10 year census) instead of the Senate (2 per state, regardless of size).
      - dangerlibrary 11y ago
        Huh? I was pointing out that population is not necessarily correlated with decision making authority. The thing you think I overlooked is exactly the point I was making.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  If low population density is the reason the USA overall doesn't have fast, cheap broadband and is behind in mobile technology, then why aren't very dense areas within the USA (or dense states like New Jersey) up to the standards of Europe and East Asia?
  - rhino369 11y ago
    They are up to European standards. In fact US has more people over 10 Mpbs than the big European countries like France, UK and Germany. Only 34% of people in Sweden do better than 15 Mpbs. I get 75/75Mpbs in DC. Comcast offers 105Mpbs. We pay more, but that's probably because competition lowers install rates. https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-state-of-the-internet-report.pdf https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-st... Several East Asian countries--namely Japan and Korea--have placed great important on ISP speed. It's heavily subsided. America could do that, but it's a policy priority.
joezydeco 11y ago
IIRC the DVB-T standard took a very long time (multiple decades) to adopt and deploy.
pkaye 11y ago
Its when corporations get into the business and extra every cent from a technology. Expensive cable subscriptions, expensive cell subscriptions, etc... They all add up quickly.
notwhereyouare 11y ago
and our chip based credit cards aren't really any more secure then they were 3 months ago

by kome 11y ago

wil421 11y ago

I dont think ADSL can compare to what you can get in most metro areas in the US. I have basic internet and get 18mbps but most of the time its more than 20. Google fiber will be coming to my area soon so I can expect this to go way up even if I dont switch. As far as CC chips almost all of my cards have a chip in them with the exception of a credit union debit card. Larger retailers that had security breaches are now using this tech such as Home Depot and Target. It will take a very long time to get smaller retailers or even gas pumps to update their card swipers.

timthorn 11y ago
G.fast can offer ~1Gbps of bandwidth over a standard copper pair and BT OpenReach is currently trialing services at 330Mbps down with the expectation of rolling out nationally within the next few years. You can do quite a bit with a copper pair, though the distances involved are quite short.

douche 11y ago

The US is very, very big, and very, very empty compared to Europe. Outside of the I-95 corridor on the East Coast, some islands of density in the midwest, and the coastal zone of California, Oregon, Washington, it's overwhelmingly rural or uninhabited.

dangerlibrary 11y ago
This is the correct answer. Old, but still relevant density map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File:World_population_density_1994.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File...
- lorenzhs 11y ago
  Norway and Sweden have excellent Fiber-to-the-Home and very low population density. You can get 1GBit/s symmetrical quite cheaply (I don't remember how much, one Swedish offer I found just now is $120/month).
  - scott_s 11y ago
    Area of Norway: 148,718 mi² Area of Sweden: 173,732 mi² Area of USA: 3.806 million mi² Even if the densities are similar, infrastructure is harder at scale. It's also true that the places in the US with less density tend to have less economic engines.
    - lorenzhs 11y ago
      Population density of Norway: 14 people per km². Population density of the USA: 35 people per km². Sure it's hard to do this at scale, but nobody is asking for it to be deployed everywhere at the same time. You could start in populous areas, where it would be cheap to do so, and gradually supply less populated areas.
      - douche 11y ago
        That's sort of the way it already works... It's never going to make economic sense to put gigabit fiber out to rural areas, unless it is heavily subsidized. If there were some business location that required high speed, people lucky enough to live along the trunk line to that location might get service - that's the only reason I had cable TV as a child.
  - dangerlibrary 11y ago
    1. I suspect that offer isn't available in northern Norway. 2. They are only a couple hundred miles from the big internet exchanges in the Netherlands and Germany. Most of those miles can be covered with undersea cables, so you don't need to dig, which is expensive. 3. The U.S. regulatory environment for internet providers is horrible and everyone knows it.
Retric 11y ago
That's more an issue if your looking at land vs where people actually live. More people live in DC than Wyoming. The population of Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Alaska , North and South Dakota put together is significantly less than the number of people living in New York City.
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  Agreed. But the people living in those states have 14 senators representing them, to NY's 2 and DC's 0. Also, 23 electoral votes to NY's 32.
  - chiph 11y ago
    That's not a good comparison - when Congress was set up the massive debate between the founders was over how to do representation. Which is why we have a bicameral legislature. When doing population comparisons, you should use the numbers from the House of Representatives (population based, which is why we have a 10 year census) instead of the Senate (2 per state, regardless of size).
    - dangerlibrary 11y ago
      Huh? I was pointing out that population is not necessarily correlated with decision making authority. The thing you think I overlooked is exactly the point I was making.
ryandrake 11y ago
If low population density is the reason the USA overall doesn't have fast, cheap broadband and is behind in mobile technology, then why aren't very dense areas within the USA (or dense states like New Jersey) up to the standards of Europe and East Asia?
- rhino369 11y ago
  They are up to European standards. In fact US has more people over 10 Mpbs than the big European countries like France, UK and Germany. Only 34% of people in Sweden do better than 15 Mpbs. I get 75/75Mpbs in DC. Comcast offers 105Mpbs. We pay more, but that's probably because competition lowers install rates. https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-state-of-the-internet-report.pdf https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q2-st... Several East Asian countries--namely Japan and Korea--have placed great important on ISP speed. It's heavily subsided. America could do that, but it's a policy priority.

joezydeco 11y ago

IIRC the DVB-T standard took a very long time (multiple decades) to adopt and deploy.

pkaye 11y ago

Its when corporations get into the business and extra every cent from a technology. Expensive cable subscriptions, expensive cell subscriptions, etc... They all add up quickly.

notwhereyouare 11y ago

and our chip based credit cards aren't really any more secure then they were 3 months ago