Comments on: Look Ma, Faster Broadband!

By: Luis

Luis — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:18:00 +0000

to elaborate on that education example, because I think it matters: at the time, the argument was that 'everyone who needs/wants education can get it privately, so why should we give provision to everyone?' It turns out that all kinds of things are possible when everyone is literate- for example, universal literacy creates economies of scale in the printing and magazine markets that were previously unattainable, allowing all kinds of growth and experimentation in that area in the mid-to-late 1800s. I think broadband is similar; there are things that are hypothetically possible now for anyone who happens to get FiOS that won't be commercialized and popularized until everyone has FiOS-like speeds- and that commercialization and popularization is what we really want/need for rapid progress and innovation.

By: Luis

Luis — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:10:26 +0000

Sorry, Tim, but you've missed the boat here. I'm sure lots of rural Americans in the 30s weren't too upset that Germany had autobahns while they were perfectly satisfied with just getting roads paved. But that investment in real, serious highways had massive impact on economic growth- albeit impact that was hard to foresee or quantify in the 20s and 30s. Ditto mandatory public education- in the 1800s, people were pleased enough when kids went to Sunday School; they couldn't foresee the benefit of a massively educated populace, and lots of them tried to stop full-time education for children on a variety of grounds- clearly those kids were better off working. I see no reason to think that bandwidth is any different- that 10x difference will have obvious positive impacts on things like telecommuting but we should also expect- and see as a benefit- the lots of other things it will enable that we can't even think of right now.

By: Tim Lee

Tim Lee — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:03:22 +0000

Fair enough, but I think it's important to look at the time scale here. Germany had about a 20-year head start on freeway construction, and you may very well be right that that had important economic consequences. In contrast, I don't think even the harshest critics of US broadband policy would argue that we're more than 5 years behind Japan and South Korea, and 2-3 years behind the leading European nations.

Moreover, given how rapidly these technologies are changing, it seems likely that there are diminishing returns from being on the bleeding edge. That is, the first guy with a 100 mbps broadband connection is going to have trouble fully exploiting it because few people will build applications designed for those kinds of users until there's a critical mass of them.

There's also the empirical point that the center of Internet applications development still seems to be Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley startups tend to develop English-language versions of their site before Japanese or Korean ones. Maybe Japan's Internet market is larger and more significant than I realize, or maybe Silicon Valley is on the way out, but it certainly looks to me like the US isn't being unduly hampered by its allegedly inferior broadband access. (For example, YouTube probably this decade's most bandwidth-hungry startup, was founded a month before France's DailyMotion. I don't know if there's an analogous Japanese video site).

Finally, just to re-iterate, I'm not claiming we should be completely unconcerned about broadband issues. We need more reliable data, and if those data confirm that the US is behind other nations we should study those other nations' policies and see if they can be adapted here. But I also think a sense of perspective is important. America's broadband infrastructure is improving rapidly, and we need to worry about bad policies impeding that growth at the same time we ponder ways to accelerate it.

By: Luis

Luis — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:18:00 +0000

By: Luis

Luis — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:10:26 +0000

By: jstrummer

jstrummer — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:21:40 +0000

simply because we can't yet envision all the applications that might be possible with truly broadband service, does that mean we should not want to get good broadband, and not the rinky-dinky crap we have now?

I would be annoyed at 2 gbps broadband if the Japanese had 20, just as I think our broadbrand today is horrible compared to some other developed countries.

By: Wes Felter

Wes Felter — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:19:11 +0000

Indeed. People won't buy "ultrabroadband" to run today's apps faster; it will enable new apps. But that will only happen when there is a critical mass of users so that these new apps are worth developing.

By: dm

dm — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:59:07 +0000

Admittedly a majority of Americans live within reach of cable and DSL, but a substantial minority do not, and are still limited to telephone dial-up. Those are the people we most want to bring within reach of telecommuting and e-commerce (and not necessarily for the people currently living in those areas, but for the people who would move to those areas if the communications infrastructure could support their economic activity).

Though when I hear about the "dismal state of America's broadband market" I also reflect on the fact that it's being compared to countries where 25-40% of the population live in a single, dense, metropolitan area, and I can't help but wonder if that doesn't have something to do with it.

By: MikeRT

MikeRT — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:53:23 +0000

Aside from streaming audio and video, what really cannot be done on a fast DSL or cable connection? Those connections provide plenty of bandwidth for business applications.

By: tim

tim — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:31:00 +0000

"dismal state of America’s broadband market"

I never understood this statement nor seen a good reason why having really really big pipes are a measurement of advancement. When I am in other countries that have higher bandwidth I am not seeing better applications. Matter of fact I am downright disappointed. When I actually see 20gbps bandwidth being utilized for something other then leeching porn I may start caring more.