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4G around the globe: Spain has the fastest LTE speeds, the U.S. has among the slowest


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Once again the US lags behind in LTE speeds. The countries that are faster are also cheaper for their county's telecommunications. If their ISPs and other communications providers cried foul or they can't because it is too expensive quickly lost their markets to companies who didn't care about reasons they can't, they just did it.

 

Regardless of the reasons/excuses/press releases of US telecommunications providers, the simple fact is that countries like Spain, S.Korea, and Canada are much faster in LTE speeds, cheaper, and have more of their country connected than the US, we take for granted. But we get beat by Poland, Hungary, Colombia, Malaysia, and the Philippines?

 

Put in simple terms, every country mentioned had the same or worse challenges to overcome.

 

Remember this is about LTE cell services only. But you will find almost the same rankings in ground based fiber and copper broadband and municipal Internet networks.

 

Perhaps now they can threaten us again with taking their ball and bat and go home.

 

And we can get them replaced by our own communities getting together to build our own utilities, or have other businesses in each area offering cable competitively.

 

Excerpt:

 

"OpenSignal has published its second The State of LTE report, looking at aspects such as speed and coverage of 4G on a country-by-country basis.

The London-based company gathers a lot of useful data from its giant, crowdsourced sensor network, enabled through millions of people downloading its app to their smartphones. Indeed, it offers one of the biggest resources for independent data on the speed and network coverage of mobile networks, tracking coverage across the board, while presenting this data back to its users through its mobile apps.

 

Using data gathered from six million of its LTE users over a three-month period (November to January), OpenSignal found that Spain has the fastest average LTE with 18Mbps, and fastest overall network with Vodafone ES (25.5Mbps) — though its coverage wasn’t great. Speaking of coverage, LG U+ in South Korea offered the most extensive LTE with 99 percent coverage across the nation, while South Korea also boasted the most LTE “time on,” with 95 percent.

 

In its first such report last year, the company found that the U.S. had the second-slowest 4G mobile Internet speeds, while Australia generally had the fastest (24.5Mbps). Brazil, however, had the overall fastest network, with Claro Brazil serving up speeds of 27.8Mbps, but the country performed poorly overall in terms of “time on.” As with this year, South Korea laid claim to the best LTE coverage in the 2014 report, with 91 percent.

 

The overarching takeaway last year was that the quality of LTE varies considerably depending on where you are in the world. In its 2015 report, not much has changed.

 

The report says: We found that not all LTE networks are created equal, with big differences between countries and networks.

 

But it’s difficult to compare last year’s speed numbers with 2015, because the company has changed its methodology for measuring it. However, its “time on” methodology remains largely the same.

 

As with last year, the U.S. didn’t perform well on the LTE front in 2015 in terms of speeds, with Cricket USA offering the slowest of all eligible networks around the world. However, the States was only fourth slowest overall, up from second slowest last year."

 

That report with simple bar charts showing download speeds of 29 countries with the US, and showing the US charted and ranked by speed is here: http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/12/4g-around-the-world-spain-has-the-fastest-lte-south-korea-has-the-best-coverage/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_board

 

My goodness, we only beat Mexico, the recently destroyed Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia??? And we had the slowest LTE in the world to boot?

 

It's about time we do something about the US companies providing inferior services to what the countries on that list do. This is critical national infrastructure today. Don't believe it, ask any of your local successful companies to disconnect from the Internet. Or disconnect yourself if it isn't important to you. I won't. No one is stopping anyone from offering movies and entertainment, but my phone and that of millions is a VoIP Internet phone by Magic Jack. It will be renewed in a few months for five years. $99.99 I am happy that my cable Internet monopoly provider now is being prohibited from slowing down my phone at $19.99 a year with free long distance etc. If they could continue to throttle they could force me to pay $120.99 a year for their Internet phone service, which are six times higher than my Magic Jack!

 

Lots of folks will give up the cable TV part because unknown to many, the cable HD is compressed, the Over The Air HD (OTA) is better because it isn't compressed. And I am buying my own antenna whenever it dries up enough for my new place foundation and concrete to be poured. I have the distribution amplifier, and will order the Channel Master antenna/rotor/controller and no fee DVR. I'll get 22 or so channels and we both decided w could live with that. HBO and Showtime will both be available online real time direct. I would rather pay for one premium channel rather than a hundred I never watch. We do not watch any football, basketball, baseball or any other sport. We do watch winter Olympics as skiers. 22 real HD channels OTA, Netflix, and Amazon Prime are more than we can watch anyway. We did fine for seven years of full timing back in the analog days with a CRT 25" TV, and three to six channels, sometimes none. We have lots of movies we bought that came with digital and BluRay disks, and a new 25kw water cooled propane Guardian auto switching whole house genset.

 

Lots of folks are cutting the cord for TV. And it looks like very soon we won't be forced to choose from only one broadband provider with fiber, Lonny balloons, and satellite Internet just over the horizon. Exciting times!

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Trying not to be politico, but our US companies have to deal with Government regulations, like depreciation curves, and not getting Government subsidies. It is not a level playing field to compare the results of US companies and other countries.

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Mark & Dale
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"but our US companies have to deal with Government regulations"....this is a valid point, but personally, I don't see how US Government Regulations could be that bad (and we don't know what regulations are imposed in other countries), given most are written by industry lobbyists...To place so far down on the list ...IMO is caused by greed, the decision to limit capital expenses in order to put more $$$ at the bottom line in the almighty quest to maximize shareholder return.

There is no good reason that the country that put men on the moon should rank so poorly when it comes to something simple....like connectivity.

 

Regards

Gemstone

'06 Elite Suites, '08 Softail Classic, '06 Softail Deuce.

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Mark why say you are trying not to, then . . . . BUT? :rolleyes: Then don't.

 

 

 

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Pat and Pete,

Satellite TV is much further away in GEO orbit. The proposed LEO sats are much closer and are on different bands and newer frequency algorithms. Here is a page that explains it and why a small omni directional antennas like our cell phones use can work.

 

http://www.durofy.com/leo-meo-geo-satellite-systems/

 

That help clear it up?

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Ok Mark,

Which specific countries are you saying have it easier than here?

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Come on, on what lines?

Government subsidy?

Government corporate taxes on non-government utilities?

Tax laws like 20 year depreciation tables for capital investments?

The amount of geography covered? (Like we have some low covered territories that are larger than most of the countries mentioned.)

 

Take an example, when the Czech Republic split away from old Russia, the telephone infrastructure they had was so meager then they had to build a totally new structure. So they started with fiber. This was is a time when DSL was a problem in many areas of the US because the wire infrastructure was substandard and yet and over half of the depreciation life of the structure.

 

Of course we will get the snide remarks that the companies should just spend the money and improve the infrastructure, and of course keep the cost to the consumer the same. Screw that part of profits for the investors, who today are Mutual Funds that are the body of retirement plans.

 

Crappy articles fail to context their comparisons.

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Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
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I'm sorry Mark but snide crappy? I hope you feel better after your vent. So instead of politico venting Mark what is your solution to state lobbied regulation bought by the cable companies? I don't shake from a bunch of escalation. Please outline your initial premise. That the other countries on the list have inherent advantages over ours in fact not using your political dissatisfaction, but instead let's talk about your premise that the other 29 countries have advantages.

 

Please show me your research, or as you put it facts. Just the facts about any two would be fine. You see I don't know the rules in the other countries, but you claim to know them so do share the country and we can all then jump in an discuss them one at a time. Along the way we might all learn some tips to try to get implemented here. I was an ISP in Germany in 1995 just as Deutsche Bundespost was being partially privatized but the Government still holds 32% of it.

 

"Deutsche Telekom AG (abbreviated DT, English: German Telecom) is a German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn. Deutsche Telekom was formed in 1996 as the former state-owned monopoly Deutsche Bundespost was privatized. As of June 2008, the German government still holds a 15% stake in company stock directly, and another 17% through the government bank KfW."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Telekom

 

Government subsidies overseas often mean government ownership. Notice my discussion above about Germany and what was reality then is different today. I used no slurs or politics on this topic. Care to show me which specific other countries you say have big advantages, and those details that led you to that objection?. That was your premise and your complaint. The ball is in your court to prove your premise. Let's talk about how they succeeded. No need to do politics or even discuss our country. Please go on with some facts at least.

 

You questioned that list. The Czech Republic is not on that list nor qualified for it. Did you read the linked report you are objecting to?

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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So we went from LTE to ISPs. Well lets try The Broadband Gap: Why Do they Have More Fiber

 

 

BTW: there are other commenters in this thread, so it isn't all about you

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Mark & Dale
Joey - 2016 Bounder 33C Tige - 2006 40' Travel Supreme
Sparky III - 2021 Mustang Mach-e, off the the Road since 2019
Useful HDT Truck, Trailer, and Full-timing Info at
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Excellent article Mark. Same things I see. All fixable. We also have the slowest measured LTE in the world with cricket. One big factor the article mentions is National Pride. If we lose the politics and do those same things we can lead the world, as we should be doing with our head start over those others. There is another aspect I'd be happy to discuss offline in email with anyone. It does not belong here as it would be taken as political.

Thanks!

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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I think there are a number of important factors that were not addressed in the OpenSignal report -- a country's Area, GDP, and Population. I think all three of these would affect building a 4G infrastructure.

 

Here's another way to look at worldwide 4G . . .

 

South Korea, for example, has the 2nd smallest area (about 39000 sq mi) of the countries listed, but it has the 3rd highest GDP (about $1.3 trillion), and its population of 51 million ranks somewhere in the middle.

 

On the other hand, the US has the 2nd largest area and the largest population (by almost a factor of 3) even though we have the biggest GDP ($16.7 trillion).

 

4geconomies.jpg

 

 

Finally, though Spain may have the fastest LTE speeds, the US is near the top in the percentage of our population with Internet access.

 

There's much more to this than just politics.

SKP #79313 / Full-Timing / 2001 National RV Sea View / 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon
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Biker,

I hear ya! Now if only they can do that even for the less profitable areas like the countries in Mark's article.

 

GEO orbit communications with only a few birds and transponders are all shared for consumer pricing. VSAT transponders have to amplify what comes in, in order to have a strong enough signal down here. My thoughts are that Geosynchronous large satellites are about to be rendered obsolete so that a series of LEO satellites can perform duty with no perceptible handoff times between satellites, and the ground perceived ping. I believe we will find out within the year as in January Google and Fidelity invested a billion dollars with Musk's SpaceX to start launching a LEO fleet of mini satellites. How soon is ASAP for Musk's plans.

 

But bent pipe transponders and compander technology has led us to this threshold. A virtual cash cow for a company that designs its own launch vehicles, and can return them to Earth in one piece for reuse. R&D on the first minisats is already in the bidding stage for engineering.

 

Hey bud, I had an old-timer's moment and had to look up one of my last century daily used terms! I found a great glossary page for techies that have gotten away from the Sat arena beyond TV, and non techies that wonder about it: http://www.groundcontrol.com/Glossary_Of_Satellite_Internet_Terms.htm

 

In was shocked when I found that article. I thought we were doing great until now considering that Google will likely be getting into the high speed cell biz in the foreseeable future. I give it two years to start and announce their proposals, and less than or five years to being the leading player as the wholesaler or retailer. "If a company snoozes they loses" never was more true.

 

But remember that content is king. The cable companies are finding that out as their content providers are going to direct Internet streaming for a price. Since the Telcos gave up on competing on the ground with fiber in the middle 90s, they have themselves discouraged home phones on copper, and actual pay phones are all but extinct. Mark my words on this. Wireless can never compete with fiber or good copper as the cable companies use for the last mile. It can be done in cities with near backbones via WiFi, the Republic Wireless future gamble with Sprint for their away from WiFi service.

 

Lots of folks look at why things can't be done. It only takes one man and his team or backers.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Who pays for it?

 

WDR

 

In most cases, we do. It's a matter of prioritizing the use of our tax dollars. National Telecommunications and Information Administration. As in life, a positive outcome or change requires some effort. We, as citizens need to become educated, motivated and vocal. A good example of what can be done by "the people" is the Net Neutrality issue. Passionate people like our own Derek (aka RV) can take a bow for taking up that cause to bring it into the light of day, which sparked further investigation/discussion....and pressure.

 

I've mentioned before that our little town of 400 folks is served by a fiber network that crisscrosses SOVA. This backbone enables us to have 4-5 bars signal strength of 4G cell service at our home...how many of us have that quality of service in much larger/denser population centers we visit ? The fact that we do here is a testament to a vision of better service for rural America and taking advantage of grants available to everyone. If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere. The fact that it is not being done elsewhere should not be acceptable.

 

Mentioned in one of the previous links is the matter of community based/owned fiber networks....for the most part they offer faster and cheaper service than incumbent ISP's, perhaps because they already have the rights of way in place for other utilities, perhaps because they don't require the same ROI as a for profit company...who knows for sure, but one thing is certain, the citizens of those cities like the service. This might cause someone to wonder why such community based services are opposed, and by whom....

 

Regards

Gemstone

'06 Elite Suites, '08 Softail Classic, '06 Softail Deuce.

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Thanks Gemstone.

 

Folks I can tell you that it is easier to ask for and get one word or sentence answers. If there were competitors for the cable companies in most towns, they would have to charge less for Internet. Their cable business is about to end by and large. The young folks not only have no copper landlines by and large, they also are getting most of their TV and movies online. Content providers like HBO are now offering their channels directly to the public starting with Apple iTunes I believe.

 

But the fact of the matter is that if a community wants to do a wireless Wi-Fi network or their own fiber they will have to pay for it in that community only. I can't say enough that while it seems like a technical subject, just go here to this map of the US municipal networks and state prohibitions. The states in red have already been lobbied by the Telcos and Cable giants to prohibit any town from voting to pay for their own. Click on the red states and the explanation of their lobbied prohibitions pop up. Then click on any of the municipal network pins on the map and you get two results; one to read more about it, and the other is a link to that network's website. There you can see the speeds and rates folks are paying on their own networks. And a few are in places like the one in Lafayette LA and Austin Texas that got exceptions, or existed before the people who scream, when they get regulated, hypocritically paid monies to get state regulations passed to regulate our freedoms as communities. The " We are just protecting you from costing you money elsewhere, or that we will surely go bankrupt and cost our taxpayers money is proven just BS by clicking on red states and the city pins on the map here: http://muninetworks.org/communitymap

 

The cable companies can stay and compete or not. Now if a town and all its citizens except for the ones who work for the Cable company want a municipal network, with all the bugaboo about government mucking up everything and that it will cost the taxpayers of that town or city, I have to ask whose business is that? Theirs? Of course. The FCC is already taking action to allow local municipalities to have the freedom to start their own utility or contract to have it done at their expense. If anyone points to government incentives and claiming that you are paying for that they are right. Except the monies have been given to the big cable companies and Telcos who did not use it to fill in their gaps of the last mile. You bet they want you to believe that the grants went to communities when in fact they pocketed it and did not do anything with it but just pocket it. And I have those links but let's save that for another discussion. If the municipal networks are faster and cheaper then why didn't the cable folks do it? Can't or won't? I go by the saying to fish, cut bait, or get out of the way. That applies

 

I have posted that map two or three times here and some folks don't want facts. Just hearsay. As travelers all of us can stop by any of the city municipal systems now that we have a map and see if it is really as great as posted or just propaganda. See this is not about politics just whether we are going to let commercial companies tell us what to do in our communities and retain their false protections against local competitors springing up to take some of the grants they have been hogging and actually connect the rural areas they were intended to help connect. Here in my area we have blocks of unconnected people that are surrounded by cable and DSL. But no service there and their phone lines are so ancient they go out when it rains too much or fire ants crawl into them nesting. That is the Telco who would not be needed if the cable company, Suddenlink in this case, connected them. But they do not want to spend money ANYMORE to connect every customer they can and enjoy the profits down the road. If they really can't connect them economically why put laws in pace the prevents anyone else from connecting them? That is where the pretend claims to protect us are proven to be just BS from the Cable companies directly. If they won't, then they will keep anyone else from connecting them too?

 

That is the reality.

 

How does this affect RVrs? Many of those Municipal networks are also Wi-Fi. And for those municipal networks with "just" cable and fiber, their RV parks have access to that as a backhaul to have really great RV Park WiFi or even fiber or copper to each RV spot. And if Verizon fiber and/or the local cable company are forced to have competition or to do it themselves with no excuses then everyone will be happy.

 

Free the Internet by allowing competition, just like before, I had to compete with other ISPs just for the Internet before it became a major telecommunications provider too. If I want a phone in a new area the phone companies used to have to connect me for a standard connection fee. If we go the way the cable companies and Telcos have had to for the last couple of years as they tie up their monopolies the free press and Internet will cease to exist. This isn't a political side. This is us the US citizens asking for our telecommunications to be accessible by all. Lots of us middle income folks are moving to the rural areas and finding satellite our only option.

 

Today there is no excuse for dead zones in the our United States for voice, Internet, or if chosen, competitive cable. Our farmers need them, our travelers need them. Internet is a necessity for most of us today. Cable TV is the luxury. I'm cutting mine as soon as the new place is ready to move in. OTA digital is not compressed first like Cable HD and Satellite. OTA is actually better HD with decent equipment investment, and in cities with an amplified indoor antenna. I think it is a tax for me to have to pay for dozens of channels I do not watch and the cable companies are about to lose their exclusive right to carry them. Stay tuned. It will be interesting in the next year. The cable lobby is gearing up and while they will fool most folks, I doubt they will fool any of our folks here. Let them compete and let the market determine the price for connecting America. But most of all, let's make sure the telecommunications providers, now called for what they are, are not allowed to play fast and loose with America's only communications networks, the phones cell and copper and VoIP like mine, and our Internet for business and personal use that now has replaced the US MAIL for all but packages and even they have competition with UPS, FedEx, and several others like DHL. How would it be if UPS had a monopoly here in Haughton, and FedEx had the monopoly for Bossier and neither would intrude on the other's turf? That is what we have now for our Internet based telecommunications.

 

Please don't make this political. That is between you and your representatives. But we can clear up any scare tactics being used by the current cable and cell Internet providers with facts. Remember when everyone thought that the digital TV revolution would break us and force us all to buy new TVs? Then we found we could get converter boxes for little to nothing compared to the price of our CRT TVs. I had three converters. But for me, the first time I saw an HD broadcast on a 1080p LCD I was hooked and had to have one.

 

But do click on those municipal networks and imagine how every RV park could benefit from those kinds of backhaul. Bandwidth is sustainable. Don't believe that there are bandwidth hogs and they are the fault. Excessive users even here on cable systems get charged for over 250GB per month. If they lower that then have a competitor that doesn't, we have free enterprise at its best.

 

No doom and gloom in those stories. The many ways the Munis (Municipal networks) have differently set theirs up is terrific reading on that link and their websites across most of the nation. But there are big blank spaces in our nation where Munis are not allowed. But you already saw those when you went to the map.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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First of all, I have learned over the years to distrust anyone who tells me what the "reality" is.

 

Secondly, RV is not just an early adopter... RV is an obsessive adopter.

 

Thirdly, there is a word for when an entity supported entirely by tax payers drives free market suppliers out of business. I've been there. And it was not fun.

 

And finally... I've heard all those promises before. The same entity that drove my company from the service provider business has now decided to stop building out fiber after discovering that once they gobbled up all the low-hanging-fruit (the customers in cities and towns) they can't afford to go hook up the rural folks. Those were the ones they claimed back in 2003 that they would bring into the fold first. "Oh, no!" they told us, "we're not after YOUR customers. We're after the ones you can't get to."

 

I have no doubt that RV firmly believes that everything he says is the honest truth. Those are the scariest ones.

 

It's all political.

 

WDR

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

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WDR,

 

You distrust anyone who tells you what the reality is. I distrust anyone who tells me what the unreality is.

 

Obsessive adopter? Hmm I think I'll take that as a compliment. ;) Thanks!

 

Did you read any of those Muni stories from the mouths of those who are doing it? Which one? Here is the home page of the Muni in Lafayette LA. Just named the fastest in the world. http://lusfiber.com/ I that reality or a figment of an overactive imagination? Do you think that is a real, or a fake website?

 

I do sincerely believe it exists, and only because of the poor husbandry of our national telecommunications infrastructure by the commercial broadband providers.

 

Here is a letter from Lafayette Louisiana's mayor to the mayor of Wilson about their recent overturning of the restrictions against doing what their citizens voted for and desire.

http://www.muninetworks.org/tags-108 and lots of other true stories. This isn't up to us to allow or not, it's a done deal.

 

Many of the arguments you and others use are not new. In fact the rhetoric about the Lafayette network was eerily familiar to the angry retorts put forth about them and answered by the people who did it themselves. Here they blow away those fallacies: http://ilsr.org/fiber-fallacies-lusfiber/

 

That is one muni of the many on that map. Apparently I'm not alone at all. Let's talk about those real things instead of questioning the credibility of each other with faint praise.

 

Everyone keeps saying they don't like what is going on or do the equivalent of squeezing their eyes shut, sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling Na na Na Na Na.

 

But no one is giving their opinion of how they would like to see the current lack of connectivity across the US fixed.

 

So what is your solution to get cell and WiFi at speeds at least as good as a backwater country like Hungary? What is your solution to what is going on in the above articles? How would you propose the rural Americans and unprofitable last milers get connected? What is your plan or idea you back? I profess the existence of munis, and the desires of many communities to join in the fruits of ultra high speed LTE and fiber is unquestionable. NYC and San Francisco have built, or are building their own networks using commercial companies for the contracts last I checked.

 

You can't put the genie back in the bottle. All over the world we are past the tipping point. On broadband everywhere, EVs, smartphones, renewable energy, and a zillion other things we turn our minds to. When Elon Musk said his goal was to go to Mars ten years ago the same kind of reaction. Now the ULA (Boeing and Lockheed Martin) is giving big press of their preparations to build the spacecraft to go to Mars now.

 

So how do you propose to cover the underserved today and moving forward, even to expect fiber and LTE to be equivalent or better than the rest of the world, let alone the Philippines?

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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I'm not convinced that we don't have competition between Internet providers. Sure, there are people in the country without fiber or dsl but there is satellite. Everyone in town may only have one choice of cable operator but there are two satellite providers of television. And looking at Verizon's maps and listening to the comments right here, we seem to be well covered with LTE, too. Usually with at least two competitors and, if you don't travel a lot, the number of competitors jumps to 5 or 6.

 

And I'm also not convinced that government - and your "munis" ARE government - is the solution. We all have cars and we all (well, most of us) have hair. Does that mean that we need the government (at any level) setting up mechanic shops and barbershops? You seem to think government is the solution but I'd like to point out to you that Elon Musk is NOT the government.

 

Then there is the data security issue. What's to stop the local police chief from walking into the muni's hq and demanding that they get access to the data stream? After all, it's a safety issue. They're going to need that access to protect the community. And who's to stop them? Right now local police are far less fettered from snooping at your cell phone data than NSA is; and NSA can't come arrest you.

 

I am far from convinced that having the government step into this will be the answer. I've lived in countries where the government ran the phone systems and it was a shambles compared to the US.

 

Besides, I've read your posts about all the bandwidth you have now... do you need more? Or do you just want it all for free?

 

WDR

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

1999 Jeep Wrangler, 4" lift and 33" tires

Raspberry Pi Coach Computer

Ham Radio

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"Statistics are what you make of them.". I read through the PDF and while the different carriers are mentioned, actual cross-deck checking was not.

 

What I mean is, the carriers in the U.S. have yet to decide on exactly what sort of network handling standard should be used (this is an internal, market driven thing, not government or industry mandated). Sprint has their WiMax, T-Mobile has theirs but I believe is heading down the Sprint path, AT&T is blundering around and of course, the gorilla in the room, Verizon does not work or play well with others. All this can bring overall average speeds down as each carrier is converting from their internal standard to land carrier and back (don't get me started on the Frontier or Qwest fiascos). So, 4 big cell networks that then mesh with just how many land carrier's all with varying infrastructure (thank you Sherman Act.) Most of Europe does not have this problem once the standards were set by the EU.

 

I still remain of the opinion these statistics which by the way were generated using crowd source data will favor those countries with the least number of different carriers coupled with a larger number of tower and cell phone density areas.

 

Data speeds are bound to continue to increase with advances in technology and coverage so with the aforementioned bias, I'm not too concerned. What does concern me is how we stack up on cost per megabyte. Not just the raw data cost but actual impact of the cost to consumer for phone, plan and available coverage.

 

Want to see skewed data? Using Verizon, Samsung Galaxy S4, 4G LTE with solid 4 bars connecting to a local server for Speedtest. Ping: 55ms, Upload: 21.31mbps, Download: 56.76mbps, time is as of this posting. 5 miles in any direction: back to 3G.

Berkshire XL 40QL

Camphosting and touring


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"Sure, there are people in the country without fiber or dsl"

 

Satellite internet may be an option for some casual users, but it is not conducive for data consuming business applications, nor (the last time I checked), could you successfully run a VoIP line due to the latency issue..

 

Interesting stats on who has what type of internet service ...and why.

 

Regards

Gemstone

'06 Elite Suites, '08 Softail Classic, '06 Softail Deuce.

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Thanks Nada,

Good input. And a concise analysis of the carriers "eccentricities." Makes me get a mental image of AT&T as Robbie the robot spinning in circles waving his arms around saying "Danger Will Robinson! Danger!"

 

The elephant in this room is that regardless of stats, or gorillas and robots chasing each other in a circle, our commercial carriers are not making the same progress in actual services delivered as they are in other countries.

 

I have always been a proponent of WiMax because of its mixture of tried and true old school microwave, for moving the large data streams to rural customers, and then each tower can do point to point to the next tower on its horizon, while doing point to multipoint large cell tech that can cover an entire city in each community along the way.

 

WDR,

What do you propose we do to get parity with other developed countries and bang for their customer's buck? You can search and come up with more than personal attacks too. What exactly are you defending? The topic is LTE speeds, and how to get them out there. Some of that is cheap access to backbone and backhaul.

 

Municipal electricity, water supplies, natural gas supplies, and other utilities are locally approved and negotiated too. What tremendous speeds do you think I have? The key to cell towers in the boonies is the availability of trunk lines to the backbones. You do know that your electrical utility and the others are supplied by for profit companies, not government employees. I have no idea where you're getting the government conspiracy to arrest us if a community wants to build a muni because their current contractor isn't covering them.

 

So let me straighten you out on how utilities are done. Entire regions, not villages or cities but multi states, get their power from AEP or American Electric Power. They are a publicly traded utility company that bought out our local Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) and supplies my power. Here is their page : https://www.aep.com/ You'll see that they are publicly traded. If you check into the munis many are by and large set up the same way. And if you check most of them are making a profit providing gigabit connections that the Cable and Telcos say is too expensive to run. And those munis are connecting the folks that the "other" providers said were too unprofitable to hook up. All of that is in the above links. Pages of testimony from users who are very glad that they finally SR connected.

 

But I'm curious, why are you battling so hard, yet so vaguely, referring to unnamed assertions and unsourced premises? And why do you keep referring to for profit utilities as government? That's like claiming the ULA (United Launch Alliance) is the government because they were the primary contractors for NASA. No they are Boeing and Lockheed Martin primarily. Not government.

 

AEP- not government.

 

If the cable companies are so underfunded that they can't afford to connect all of us and make a profit, then why have they caused regulations to be written to make any competition illegal? If it can't be done they need no protective regulations to have government keep out competition.

 

Now can we move past the politics and get back to discussing how to, not why it can't, get done?

 

I'm trying to fix the problem here, not the blame.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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