4 ms·

I would actually really like to see a lengthy investigative journalism piece that looks at all the factors that go into the costs of internet access around the

by JunkDNA 13y ago

I would actually really like to see a lengthy investigative journalism piece that looks at all the factors that go into the costs of internet access around the world. I hear lots of hand-wavey stuff all the time about how Japan or Singapore have low population density so it's cheaper there relative to the US. But that can't be the total picture. Major US cities also have high population densities and that doesn't seem to be enough. Different countries have also spent public funds to build out infrastructure which likely never goes into the quoted prices of access. Japan's price for 2 gigabit (quoted here: http://valme.io/c/technology/vkqqs/the-cost-to-connect-internet-prices-around-the-world/ http://valme.io/c/technology/vkqqs/the-cost-to-connect-inter...) is a good example. What's the hidden cost? How much do taxpayers pay to maintain the parts of that infrastructure that are government owned? There are lots of countries that have higher tax rates than the US to subsidize public services. In some places, people are probably paying a lot for this stuff, just parts of it are hidden because they are indirect through taxation. However, I bet that's not totally the case in all areas (perhaps in a place like Romania, given the comments elsewhere in this thread). Are there any places that have vibrant commercial competition for broadband in the absence of significant government intervention? Are there places where because of government ownership of infrastructure in part of the market (e.g. fiber backhaul) there is increased consumer choice in providers, such that the fully-loaded costs are cheaper that the current US situation? We know from numerous markets that lots of competition drives down prices and drives up quality. The problem with broadband is it feels like a situation where you have a natural monopoly, so what is the right policy mix to enable competition? Or isn't there one?

kansface 13y ago
I don't think any in depth analysis is really needed for the US. Lack of density is certainly a problem, but not the main one. In nearly every major market, broadband is dominated wholly by a single company through municipally granted monopolies. Cities do this because they get kickbacks from the ISPs and other concessions like internet for unprofitable (poor) neighborhoods. In our system, ISPs offer an palatable municipal tax (by any other name) whereby the ISP becomes the hated party. Fortunately for them, ISPs aren't elected. If you want faster internet in the US, start with your local government.
anon4 13y ago
Eastern Europe, Bulgaria in particular. I've always attributed it to lax copyright laws (or at least lax application of said laws) and low average income, but not so low that you can't afford to buy a PC and pay it off over a few months, resulting in rampant file sharing driving high demand for fast, unmetered internet access. For a while in the early 00s each ISP ran their own file sharing site even. It also helps that you can just string cables between buildings tying them to lampposts and trees. "Can" meaning that it's against all regulations and kind of unsafe in a thunderstorm (one friend had his NIC fried once, fun times), but people don't complain - you can either have internet that you have to unplug when it rains or no internet at all because running cables and obeying the building code gets too pricey for lean ISP startups. Today of course most cables are underground and smaller ISPs have merged or were bought by larger telecommunications operators. Also if you want internet access on your mobile phone, be prepared to get robbed in plain sight - GSM operators here operate just like everywhere else. In the end, the actual pushing of bits around doesn't really cost anything. Just some small amount of electricity. The actual costs to an ISP are all infrastructure and maintenance of the infrastructure. It's not hard to get some money to buy routers and enough bandwidth to service a neighbourhood, then work your ass off as a sysadmin keeping everything running. The hard part is the cables. You have to run your own Ethernet and optics and anything that gets in the way of you running it drives cost up and makes it ever so harder to get into business. In conclusion, lax building code laws and high consumer demand allowed our ISPs to start out with a minimal investment and upgrade their infrastructure as they went along to make it more and more reliable and safe. Today I'd say the price for access is as low as it can go, the service is pretty solid, with 8-10megabit speeds at the lowest and everybody gets given a static non-NAT IPv4 address for something like 15$/month.
- xur17 13y ago
  I've always wondered why some of the larger apartment complexes don't buy a fat pipe to the internet, and provide internet service to their residents (either as a perk, or a competitively priced service to make money). For example, the current complex I am in has hundreds of apartments - it seems like the perfect place for them to do so. Is it prohibitively difficult for them to find a fast enough pipe to the internet, or is there something else stopping them that I am missing?

by JunkDNA 13y ago

kansface 13y ago

I don't think any in depth analysis is really needed for the US. Lack of density is certainly a problem, but not the main one. In nearly every major market, broadband is dominated wholly by a single company through municipally granted monopolies. Cities do this because they get kickbacks from the ISPs and other concessions like internet for unprofitable (poor) neighborhoods. In our system, ISPs offer an palatable municipal tax (by any other name) whereby the ISP becomes the hated party. Fortunately for them, ISPs aren't elected. If you want faster internet in the US, start with your local government.

anon4 13y ago

Eastern Europe, Bulgaria in particular. I've always attributed it to lax copyright laws (or at least lax application of said laws) and low average income, but not so low that you can't afford to buy a PC and pay it off over a few months, resulting in rampant file sharing driving high demand for fast, unmetered internet access. For a while in the early 00s each ISP ran their own file sharing site even. It also helps that you can just string cables between buildings tying them to lampposts and trees. "Can" meaning that it's against all regulations and kind of unsafe in a thunderstorm (one friend had his NIC fried once, fun times), but people don't complain - you can either have internet that you have to unplug when it rains or no internet at all because running cables and obeying the building code gets too pricey for lean ISP startups. Today of course most cables are underground and smaller ISPs have merged or were bought by larger telecommunications operators. Also if you want internet access on your mobile phone, be prepared to get robbed in plain sight - GSM operators here operate just like everywhere else. In the end, the actual pushing of bits around doesn't really cost anything. Just some small amount of electricity. The actual costs to an ISP are all infrastructure and maintenance of the infrastructure. It's not hard to get some money to buy routers and enough bandwidth to service a neighbourhood, then work your ass off as a sysadmin keeping everything running. The hard part is the cables. You have to run your own Ethernet and optics and anything that gets in the way of you running it drives cost up and makes it ever so harder to get into business. In conclusion, lax building code laws and high consumer demand allowed our ISPs to start out with a minimal investment and upgrade their infrastructure as they went along to make it more and more reliable and safe. Today I'd say the price for access is as low as it can go, the service is pretty solid, with 8-10megabit speeds at the lowest and everybody gets given a static non-NAT IPv4 address for something like 15$/month.

xur17 13y ago
I've always wondered why some of the larger apartment complexes don't buy a fat pipe to the internet, and provide internet service to their residents (either as a perk, or a competitively priced service to make money). For example, the current complex I am in has hundreds of apartments - it seems like the perfect place for them to do so. Is it prohibitively difficult for them to find a fast enough pipe to the internet, or is there something else stopping them that I am missing?