[Info-vax] US Broadband

[Dirk Munk]

Alan Frisbie wrote:
> On 03/02/2015 08:11 AM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
>> On 2015-03-02 14:45:08 +0000, Jan-Erik Soderholm said:
>>
>>> I just looked up Sweden and all but a few *very* low populated
>  >> areas in the far north has 10 Mb/s or better to over 90% of
>  >> households.
>>>
>>> The governements goal is that at least 90% of all households
>  >> and business will have 100 Mb/s via fiber at year 2020.
>>
>> In my experience, United States broadband speeds and coverage are
>  > not particularly comparable to that of countries that consider
>  > broadband to be a competitive advantage or to be a regional or
>  > national priority...
>
> Yeah, tell me about it.   I live within sight of Los Angeles City Hall,
> yet all I can get is 768 Kbps U-Verse from AT&T, unless I want to pay
> $440/month for a T1 line.
>
> Alan Frisbie

I'm glad I live in communist Europe where governments set up rules on 
these matters :-).

All phone cables in The Netherlands are owned by KPN, the former Royal 
Mail. KPN has to allow other service providers on their cables, so if I 
wanted an ADSL/VDSL connection I can choose from dozens of ISPs.

KPN is also improving this old copper cable infrastructure by switching 
to FTTN. They did that in my neighborhood too, and one of my neighbors 
took the slowest ADSL/VDSL connection he could get, 20Mb/sec up and 
downspeed. And guess what, that is what he measures as well.

Only in the countryside connections are slower due to the long telephone 
lines.

As I wrote before there is a kind of national FTTH project, however 
since KPN is no longer a state owned company they don't have to provide 
fiber connections ro rural areas. So in some cases provinces are taking 
the initiative to get fiber connections to these areas. It is in *their* 
interest to have a good working economy in the countryside, and a good 
working economy relies on good working and fast internet connections 
these days.

By the way, there is a new ADSL/VDSL system in development. I don't know 
how it is in the US, but over here a telephone cable has four or five 
wires. Up till now only two of them were used for ADSL/VDSL. But now 
there is a new standard where all four wires are used, in effect 
doubling the speed.