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Engineers are lead users for internet usage, they predict what others will want in several years. And even average users would become upset if they found out ho

Engineers are lead users for internet usage, they predict what others will want in several years. And even average users would become upset if they found out how much more they are paying than Swedes.

rayiner 13y ago
The U.S. beats Sweden in Akamai's study, so are we paying more to get more?
- foobarqux 13y ago
  The US allegedly beats Sweden in average broadband speed which is a poor measure for most purposes. I don't think you will find any Swedes telling you that the US has better broadband. From the FCC: "The United States is 26th out of 32 countries in the 15-25 Mbps speed tier (advertised) with an average stand-alone broadband plan price of $56.50. The lowest advertised price for stand-alone services is in Slovakia at $18, while the highest charges are found in Switzerland at $180" Although they don't summarize the findings above 25 Mbps the story looks much worse.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Why do you rely on a study that uses advertised speed instead of actual speed like Akamai's? Akamai also has a category for 10 Mbps+ availability, and the U.S. ranks very well there too.
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      Because there aren't many international broadband studies that incorporate cost and I don't see any Mbps/cost breakdown in the Akamai study. The FCC report incorporates Ookla data (Speedtest.net) which uses actual broadband speed and costs submitted by users. It corroborates the conclusions of the FCC study. With respect to availability: There is a world of difference between 1Gps@$1000/mth and 1Gps@$50/mth though both qualify as 1Gbps availability. Finally >10Mbps is pretty broad bin today and fails to meaningfully differentiate "very" high speed services.
- fulafel 13y ago
  Us and Sweden are in the same ballpark, users everywhere are missing an order of magnitude or three. Gigabit is old and cheap, and after 10 gig last mile tech development stalled due to lack of interest. We should be running 10 gig on the fiber to apartments and 100 gig on the uplinks from buildings by now. Instead, wired net connectivity has been overtaken by puny LTE...

rayiner 13y ago

The U.S. beats Sweden in Akamai's study, so are we paying more to get more?

foobarqux 13y ago
The US allegedly beats Sweden in average broadband speed which is a poor measure for most purposes. I don't think you will find any Swedes telling you that the US has better broadband. From the FCC: "The United States is 26th out of 32 countries in the 15-25 Mbps speed tier (advertised) with an average stand-alone broadband plan price of $56.50. The lowest advertised price for stand-alone services is in Slovakia at $18, while the highest charges are found in Switzerland at $180" Although they don't summarize the findings above 25 Mbps the story looks much worse.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Why do you rely on a study that uses advertised speed instead of actual speed like Akamai's? Akamai also has a category for 10 Mbps+ availability, and the U.S. ranks very well there too.
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    Because there aren't many international broadband studies that incorporate cost and I don't see any Mbps/cost breakdown in the Akamai study. The FCC report incorporates Ookla data (Speedtest.net) which uses actual broadband speed and costs submitted by users. It corroborates the conclusions of the FCC study. With respect to availability: There is a world of difference between 1Gps@$1000/mth and 1Gps@$50/mth though both qualify as 1Gbps availability. Finally >10Mbps is pretty broad bin today and fails to meaningfully differentiate "very" high speed services.
fulafel 13y ago
Us and Sweden are in the same ballpark, users everywhere are missing an order of magnitude or three. Gigabit is old and cheap, and after 10 gig last mile tech development stalled due to lack of interest. We should be running 10 gig on the fiber to apartments and 100 gig on the uplinks from buildings by now. Instead, wired net connectivity has been overtaken by puny LTE...