USA On 56k - No Changes Planned

[GhostShip]

There is a nice word for this "disgraceful", whilst many enjoy the benefits of broadband, others in less profitable areas are left to struggle on dial up speeds, and the US is dropping many places in wordwide figures for its "online" access coverage.. 

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=299844&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1

While many telecommunications carriers are posting record profits this year, millions of U.S. homes and businesses still have no access to broadband — and that's no coincidence.
The return on equity that Wall Street demands from players in today's largely unregulated telecommunications business all but requires carriers to abandon rural America.

As population density drops outside of metropolitan areas, it's impossible for telecommunications companies or cable service providers to justify the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per mile it can cost to bring fiber to every rural community, let alone every home. The result: Today, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service, according to the Government Accountability Office. And a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the U.S. dropped from fourth in the world in broadband penetration in 2001 to 15th place in 2006.

Communications infrastructure is widely seen as the biggest driver of economic growth, yet 21% of Americans — the nearly 60 million people who live in rural areas — are often underserved.

Without some sort of legal requirement or incentive to provide "online" access for folks who don't live in the cities, the US is making a significant step backwards from being the "hot shot" broadband deployment country it once was, it seems fat cat telecommunications executives would rather they got 5/6 digit profit cheques from their internal share investments rather than investing in their country's future or their own.

[ñòóKýçrÕôK]

There's something else to factor in also Quicks. With all the US's attempts to stall or stop piracy. What better way than to keep users on slower connections till they think they've got a better grip on it? It's pretty much a fact that this country has some of the most ass-backwards thinking when it comes to computers and computing in general. The only hope I've got to getting broadband is to get it through sattelite. 2 miles up the road from me is bnroadband and it's been like that for 2 years now. And if you call them and ask, "Be about 6 more months sir.". And they've been sayin that for 2 years.

[White Stripes]

...why am i not surprised...

ive been on dialup for 10 years (no im not kidding) and apparently ill be on it for 10+ more.... tho after a while you get used to it (or go insane)...

@nooky
your theory is a damn good one but im not quite sure that - that really is a serious driving force... i say this cos even the telephone lines themselves are often left to rot/corrode/malfunction... they dont even really care about voice quality...

one time out here our phone line messed up so bad that tone dial wasnt possible due to distortion... pulse had to be used (!) ... one would think that the phone company would want its customers to make calls wouldnt they? ... well.. it took 3 days to get them out here to fix it... and even now a 'big green' phone box up the road is being held together with duct tape...

or put bluntly ... if keeping voice service up to par isnt even on their minds -updating- (fiber or even simple DSL) the system is far from it...

...as far as the cable companies goes... well... just look at that wonderfull fuzzy picture and monopolistic pricing...


as an aside... dont get satellite... its way overpriced and horridly laggy (has to travel to space and back after all)... the lag alone defeats any speed gain...

[Mick832]

Was similar Down Under till the Government stepped in and said everybody anywhere must have equal access.   Did not quiet work out equal, but broadband spread a lot further and alternatives to broadband were made to be the same price as what you would pay for broadband in a major city.

Some country areas now have satellite at the same cost as a basic broadband service in a city.   Cities still are better, with ADSL2 and cable with speeds up to 28 meg, but the minimum standard was set at an equivalent of 256/64 DSL.

I already had broadband access, but my ISP prices dropped a lot.