Lack of Competition Holds Back U.S. Broadband
Linked by Howard Fosdick on Thu 24th Jan 2013 10:12 UTC
Internet & Networking In the past, OS News has discussed how U.S. broadband access lags many other countries in terms of cost, speed, and availability. Now, this detailed report from the New America Foundation tells why. It all comes down to a lack of competition among the carriers, which can be traced back to the days when cable companies were granted local monopolies. The report argues that "...data caps... are hardly a necessity. Rather, they are motivated by a desire to further increase revenues from existing subscribers and protect legacy services such as cable television from competing Internet services." The report's conclusion: don't expect improvements without legislative action.
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RE[2]: Well....
by henderson101 on Thu 24th Jan 2013 15:00 UTC in reply to "RE: Well...."
henderson101
Member since:
2006-05-30

Cable (Virgin Media): 110Mbs (advertised as 100Mb)
BT Infinity: 76Mbs

Both of those are just downstream speeds (I *think* VM offer 10Mb upstream. BT offer 19Mbs).


I *think* VM does have better up speeds, but they are not standard and the user ends up paying a lot more. They might only be for business use (though then you get in to the wonderful world of Cable and Wireless.)

BT Infinity is fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) - so the street and door are all copper. VM are -IIRC- fibre to the street, so from the street to the door is copper.


I think it depends. Some areas VM are fibre to cabinet, copper to the door, but their cabling is (IMO) better, as the cables are designed for high capacity broadcast TV, rather than phone traffic (saying that, do BT Fibre installs come over the standard phone line up to the door, or do they cable like VM do?)

It's also worth mentioning that BT have been rolling out ADSL2+ to a number of towns. Which sees speeds increased from theoretical max of 8Mb to 24Mb. These speeds theoretical maximums aren't fully achievable though: line noise, other subscribers, etc. But you can still get fairly decent performance if you're lucky.


The problem with BT is that it's all very random still. VM, you either get close to the best quoted speed or you don't get anything because they aren't in that area. Unless your local loop is saturated, the speeds are very consistent. With BT, you will hardly ever come close to the advertised speed, and ADSL up speeds are fairly dismal compared to either fibre offering.

The other thing: this new site being advertised in the UK, Broadbandchoices.co.uk, show you something important about BT infinity: the speed may be quoted the same, the price may be similar or cheaper, but the data is capped. VM isn't, and like I mentioned - you might well have your data shaped at peak, but I can still stream Netflix all day without hitting any buffering on my Wii or iPad/Nexus 7. BT Infinity is also still very niche, and we certainly don't get it yet in my area.

Edited 2013-01-24 15:02 UTC

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