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Did I miss it, or did that article not explain how it somehow cost $600 more per American home to upgrade here than in Japan? They touched on competition, but i

Did I miss it, or did that article not explain how it somehow cost $600 more per American home to upgrade here than in Japan? They touched on competition, but it seemed like that was only for the final service, not necessarily for the supplies. I thought maybe homes were more compacted so it was easier to upgrade multiple homes.

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
I would assume that the combination of denser residentials and fewer suburbs in Japan has everything to do with the cost difference. When you can upgrade 10 homes in Japan with the same space of 1 home in the US, and there are no sprawling suburbs to lay long runs of cable, it's easy to grasp that per-person price gap. That's still no excuse for the floundering broadband speeds in this country. I live in Rochester, NY, where Time Warner announced that on top of the "10Mbps" that I never get as it is, they'll be introducing capped plans, with a maximum cap of only 40GB! And I can't just take my money elsewhere, because the city granted them a monopoly; my only other options are horrible DSL that has a 25GB cap, ClearWire broadband at 1/10 the speed I have now, or dial-up. There's absolutely no competition! It's no wonder Time Warner chose my town for second-round "evaluations"; nobody can leave Time Warner because of this policy, so of course they'll "find" that people are "happy" with the caps. It disgusts me!
- anamax 18y ago
  > And I can't just take my money elsewhere, because the city granted them a monopoly Did the city grant the monopoly to help you or because they got paid off? Someone mentioned torches and pitchforks. Tar and feathers are also useful.
- jrockway 18y ago
  my only other options are horrible DSL that has a 25GB cap I don't think this is true. If you can get a loop to your house, you can get some sort of business DSL plan, which definitely won't have a cap. I use Speakeasy for this. Expensive, but worth it because I have an unlimited pipe that I can use for whatever I want, and they have actual people (who are native speakers of English) that I can call when something goes wrong. Anyway, you aren't looking hard enough, or you aren't willing to pay for more than 40G a month.
  - nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
    I live in an apartment. I have no other options...
- shiranaihito 18y ago
  When you can upgrade 10 homes in Japan with the same space of 1 home in the US, and there are no sprawling suburbs to lay long runs of cable, it's easy to grasp that per-person price gap. Actually, I've seen a sprawling suburb of Tokyo, and the one resident I visited there was able to get a 100M connection. With the first six months free or something.
cookiecaper 18y ago
The $800-whatever prices quoted in the article are the prices for Verizon's FiOS service. The $20/home is to upgrade Japanese equipment to DOCSIS 3 over existing cable lines. It's different! The article then continues to state that it'd take at the most $100/home to upgrade to DOCSIS 3 in the United States. The section on competition refers to the slothfulness to roll this technology out in the United States at affordable prices.

nuclear_eclipse 18y ago

I would assume that the combination of denser residentials and fewer suburbs in Japan has everything to do with the cost difference. When you can upgrade 10 homes in Japan with the same space of 1 home in the US, and there are no sprawling suburbs to lay long runs of cable, it's easy to grasp that per-person price gap. That's still no excuse for the floundering broadband speeds in this country. I live in Rochester, NY, where Time Warner announced that on top of the "10Mbps" that I never get as it is, they'll be introducing capped plans, with a maximum cap of only 40GB! And I can't just take my money elsewhere, because the city granted them a monopoly; my only other options are horrible DSL that has a 25GB cap, ClearWire broadband at 1/10 the speed I have now, or dial-up. There's absolutely no competition! It's no wonder Time Warner chose my town for second-round "evaluations"; nobody can leave Time Warner because of this policy, so of course they'll "find" that people are "happy" with the caps. It disgusts me!

anamax 18y ago
> And I can't just take my money elsewhere, because the city granted them a monopoly Did the city grant the monopoly to help you or because they got paid off? Someone mentioned torches and pitchforks. Tar and feathers are also useful.
jrockway 18y ago
my only other options are horrible DSL that has a 25GB cap I don't think this is true. If you can get a loop to your house, you can get some sort of business DSL plan, which definitely won't have a cap. I use Speakeasy for this. Expensive, but worth it because I have an unlimited pipe that I can use for whatever I want, and they have actual people (who are native speakers of English) that I can call when something goes wrong. Anyway, you aren't looking hard enough, or you aren't willing to pay for more than 40G a month.
- nuclear_eclipse 18y ago
  I live in an apartment. I have no other options...
shiranaihito 18y ago
When you can upgrade 10 homes in Japan with the same space of 1 home in the US, and there are no sprawling suburbs to lay long runs of cable, it's easy to grasp that per-person price gap. Actually, I've seen a sprawling suburb of Tokyo, and the one resident I visited there was able to get a 100M connection. With the first six months free or something.

cookiecaper 18y ago

The $800-whatever prices quoted in the article are the prices for Verizon's FiOS service. The $20/home is to upgrade Japanese equipment to DOCSIS 3 over existing cable lines. It's different! The article then continues to state that it'd take at the most $100/home to upgrade to DOCSIS 3 in the United States. The section on competition refers to the slothfulness to roll this technology out in the United States at affordable prices.