Dear Friend,
Right now we’re at a turning point for America’s broadband future.
As you might have heard, AT&T has agreed to purchase T-Mobile USA. This deal is a tremendous opportunity to bring our country into the digital age by expanding our broadband networks and improving their connection speed.
As part of the purchase agreement, AT&T committed to building out its high-speed broadband network to nearly every part of the United States within six years.
That means the millions of Americans currently on the wrong side of the digital divide will soon gain access to the wide range of benefits offered by broadband — from remote doctor visits for folks in rural areas to the endless opportunities for small businesses to reach new customers in the global marketplace.
Learn more about how AT&T and T-Mobile will be better together:
http://www.speedmatters.org/tmobileatt
AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile USA doesn’t just benefit broadband customers, though. It also benefits T-Mobile’s workers in the United States.
AT&T has a long history of respecting workers’ right to organize, so this deal will mean better job security and a fairer chance to organize for better pay and working conditions. This is an opportunity for a fresh start — one that thousands of T-Mobile’s workers have been seeking for many years.
Of course, any large deal like this one must undergo careful oversight, to make sure that consumers are protected and competition among wireless carriers remains robust. We’re hopeful this can be done as efficiently as possible so American consumers can start enjoying the expanded access and faster speeds of our nation’s broadband future.
Sincerely,
Beth Allen
Online Mobilization Coordinator
Speed Matters
So now, Beth, we know how the unions destroyed the telecommunications industry just as they destroyed American “education”?
“We Invented the Internet”
Which Part Did We Invent: speed, or censorship?
US now ranks 28th in internet speed, with Latvia and Moldova ahead of us.
Sigbritt Löthberg of Sweden has 40 gigabits per second and 200 mbps is available to most Swedes.
Japan has 1 gigabit per second for $56 per month.
France has 50 megabits per second at 29 Euros per month.
China has 100 megabits per second for $5 per month.
Russia has 80-100 megabits per second as part of their infrastructure.
India has 1 terabit per second for $25 per month.
Korea now has Wibrow at 38 megabits per second for $20 per month, an average of 45 mbps, and will have a nationwide network at 1 gigabit per second next year.
Rather than improve your current 1.1 mbps internet speed, AT&T will terminate your service if they deem material on your hard drive “imposes” your views on others.
Many ISPs and government officials claim that the cable currently referred to as “dark cable” is high speed internet cable capable of meeting or exceeding the 100 mbps available to 80% of Japanese households.
While AT&T spends all its time and effort trying to find novel ways to sneak into your hard drive, locate material they term “racially offensive”, and CENSOR you, Japanese citizens are simply surfing the net at 100 times the speed available to many AT&T customers, free of all and any excuses for outright censorship of precisely the political speech our Founding Fathers SPILT BLOOD to protect. We can’t even hold a simple discussion about the availability of 1 GIGABIT speeds in Japan without resorting to name calling which ends any meaningful discussions about this key issue of censorship, both by a company like AT&T who thinks free speech applies only to them, and by government who keeps internet speeds slow and inaccessible in the US.
Instead, we hear stories about how we “invented the internet”, when this author noticed while living in Sweden that the internet was much more readily available and was about ten times faster than back home in the US, and when one third of American households still have no internet access, compared to one fifth in Sweden.
I also noticed that while using an HP IPAQ on a recent trip all over Russia, Wifi hotspots were more available and much faster than back in the US. DSL Reports shows that internet speeds in excess of 60 MBPS are available in Moscow, and in excess of 70 MBPS in St. Petersberg, which might explain why.
http://pressesc.com/01179677598_us_internet_slow
US high-speed Internet is slow
Submitted by Canada IFP on Sun, 2007-05-20 16:14.
The average broadband download speed in the US is only 1.9 megabits per second, compared to 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, 17 Mpbs in France, and 7 Mbps in Canada, according to the Communication Workers of America.
CWA President Larry Cohen testified before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, in support of a discussion draft of the Broadband Census of America Act.
“Good data is the foundation of good policy,” Cohen said. “We desperately need a national Internet policy to reverse the fact that our nation – the country that invented the Internet – has fallen to 16th in the world in broadband adoption.”
“Equally disturbing, Americans pay more for slower connection speeds than people in many other countries,” he added.
According to statistics provided by CWA 80 percent of households in Japan can connect to a fiber network at a speed of 100 megabits per second. This is 30 times the average speed of a US cable modem or DSL connection, at roughly the same cost.
Cohen pointed out that the average upload speed was in the US was only 371 kilobits per second, not nearly enough to send quality medical information over the Internet.
“Speed Matters on the Internet”, Cohen emphasized. “It determines what is possible; whether we will have the 21st century networks we need to grow jobs and our economy, and whether we will be able to support innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and public services to improve our lives and communities. High speed Internet could even help address the global warming crisis by allowing people to get things done without getting into their car.”
Japan Internet speed 1 gpbs
chronoss2009
join:2008-09-23
And we all get ripped off still
japan – 56USD/month 1GBPS
permalink · 2008-10-16 13:45:57 · 
cornelius785
join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA
Re: And we all get ripped off still
oh geez here we go on comparing country X’s broadband to country Y.
would you rather ATT not deploy fiber at all in any form? they have to start somewhere.
permalink · 2008-10-16 13:54:11 ·
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
japan – live stacked on another 100 people.
japan – taxed through the nose so is it really 56USD
japan – a totally different life style that the U.S.
japan – the TOTAL land of opportunity!!
japan – it’s about a $600 airline ticket now that the fuel surcharges are getting smaller these days.. there’s a flight leaving soon!
… because we ALL know that life revolves around the internet. 
permalink · 2008-10-16 14:09:46 ·
PSPcrazy1
@rr.com
from:
DataRiker 
Re: And we all get ripped off still
You forgot to mention they have universal healthcare, lower collective taxes for the middle class, and they have tatami mats vs carpet lol. 
permalink · 2008-10-16 18:01:53 ·
digitalfreak
join:2005-12-09
49533
Re: And we all get ripped off still
said by PSPcrazy1 :
You forgot to mention they have universal healthcare, lower collective taxes for the middle class, and they have tatami mats vs carpet lol.
He tends to ignore the facts when they are inconvenient.
permalink · 2008-10-16 21:58:18 ·
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
Re: And we all get ripped off still
Ok, yea, totally, I agree with you. NOT!
Words alone mean nothing to me.
You want to go toe to toe with Japan, I’d love to have it out with you or anyone that wants. However, this is BBR.
I can throw out ‘words’ but they don’t mean anything, and neither do so-called “facts” when they aren’t necessarily true either.
“I have ‘benefits’ at work..” does that mean anything? Is that supposed to be a good thing? are they good if I’m paying 75% of the cost? .. or that there is a $5,000 deductible that has to be met first before my coverage kicks in? Does that mean having benefits is good? So I guess universal health care is a good thing no matter what?
And I’m sure they have all the same freedoms we has as well.. anyway, yea, the grass is always greener on the other side. Again, I suggest North West Airlines. They have most of the orient routes.
permalink · 2008-10-16 23:38:15 · Print ·
DataRiker
Premium
join:2002-05-19
Metairie, LA
clubs:
said by fiberguy :
japan – live stacked on another 100 people.
japan – taxed through the nose so is it really 56USD
japan – a totally different life style that the U.S.
japan – the TOTAL land of opportunity!!
japan – it’s about a $600 airline ticket now that the fuel surcharges are getting smaller these days.. there’s a flight leaving soon!
… because we ALL know that life revolves around the internet.
I’m assuming you have never been anywhere near Asia before. What an ignorant post. Now I know why America is in so much trouble. People, you need to travel, or if you can’t afford it read a book.
permalink · 2008-10-16 23:20:55 · Print ·
fiberguy
My views are my own.
Premium
join:2005-05-20
Re: And we all get ripped off still
Oh wow.. no, I’ve been to Japan many times.. have you? Want to compare passports? I’d be careful what you say because I’d bury you with my passport I bet.
Remember, around here everything says I’m some republican spoiled rich brat who is like those who should have their fortunes raped by liberals..
I’m far from ignorant.. America is in trouble, if anything, because of ass hats like you who make personal attacks against other people directly, even though they know it’s against the TOS. Oh, wait.. a TOS.. that’s one of those things that most people here on BBR don’t’ believe in.. even on BBR.
permalink · 2008-10-16 23:47:59 · Print ·
DataRiker
Premium
join:2002-05-19
Metairie, LA
clubs:
edit:
October 17th, @10:47AM
Re: And we all get ripped off still
said by fiberguy :
Oh wow.. no, I’ve been to Japan many times.. have you? Want to compare passports? I’d be careful what you say because I’d bury you with my passport I bet.
Remember, around here everything says I’m some republican spoiled rich brat who is like those who should have their fortunes raped by liberals..
I’m far from ignorant.. America is in trouble, if anything, because of ass hats like you who make personal attacks against other people directly, even though they know it’s against the TOS. Oh, wait.. a TOS.. that’s one of those things that most people here on BBR don’t’ believe in.. even on BBR.
Don’t make ignorant posts about other countries, and then you might not have this problem. Just a suggestion.
You post was completely ignorant, and condescending to a whole country of people, while at the same time suggesting another poster “move” by buying a plane ticket, and I’m making personal attacks? Wow!
Eat Me
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ
·VOIPo
·Future Nine Corpor..
·Vonage
·PenTeleData
reply to iansltx
Re: Perfect example of why FTTH does not matter
said by iansltx :
Again, 38 Mbps per channel is THE LIMIT on cable. FTTH is 2.4/1.2 gbps on the last mile with GPON.
Wrong, clownshoes.
DOCSIS3 can do up to around 300Mbps with 8 channels bonded, up to 107Mbps upload.
Even if cable keeps 6MHz channels instead of going true wideband they can theoretically achieve gigabit speeds over coax.
In japan they are already offering 160Mbps over D3.
Coax isn’t done yet by a long shot.
to forum · permalink · · hey mods · 
· 2009-04-10 21:06:31 · · 
· Print
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Fredericksburg, TX
·Comcast
·Qwest.net
·magicjack.com
·BeeCreek Communica..
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
japan is also offering 1gbps through fiber. Which goes to prove my point
As to the 38 Mbps, note that I very clearly said PER CHANNEL. Channel bonding can be done, but that takes away spectrum for cable channels, and/or requires plant upgrades (read: expenses) to “clean up” the network to support these higher frequencies.
Heck, let’s run Ethernet everywhere. It can go up to a gigabit over copper with no problem…except distance. You start having signal issues at 300 feet. Back to the drawing board. Same thing with coax, but since we’re talking about RF channels and 38 Mbps per channel the distance limitation doesn’t come into play as readily. After all, just amp the signal up, right?
Again, I’m not a telco fanboy. DSL is lame back home and here, because the telcos are lousy. ADSL is lame except for rural systems where the phone lines are somehow in god condition and you want a cheap-ish way to cover people who already have telephone service. In your case cable > DSL.
However cable requires relatively significant (but not terribly costly…it’s ust that cablecos don’t like doing them) upgrades to keep up with the Joneses. The Joneses being fiber, which IS the upgrade.
Put another way, if coax was so great, our national backbones would be running on it, right 
When 1 GBPS is available in Japan for $56 per month, and when people in India have access at 1 TBPS, our national “policy” clearly is flawed, to say the least.
We keep bragging about how we “invented the internet”, but I had T1-type internet speeds in Sweden before I even heard of it here, and found Wifi speeds on a recent trip to Russia to be much faster on an HP IPAQ than it is here.
It seems like we can’t even discuss such things because so many people are “offended” when the subject is brought up. The classic is the one about the Japanese living in rabbit hutches, a very serious misperception of how the Japanese live.
World Speedtest.net Results
Top Countries by Download Speed
- 1.17.83 Mb/s Korea, Republic of
- 2.16.07 Mb/s Japan
- 3.11.55 Mb/s Sweden
- 4.11.28 Mb/s Lithuania
- 5.10.33 Mb/s Romania
- 6.10.11 Mb/s Latvia
- 7.9.40 Mb/s Bulgaria
- 8.8.97 Mb/s Netherlands
- 9.7.59 Mb/s Germany
- 10.7.39 Mb/s Russian Federation
- 11.7.26 Mb/s Moldova, Republic of
- 12.7.23 Mb/s Slovakia
- 13.7.15 Mb/s Switzerland
- 14.7.04 Mb/s Finland
- 22.6.22 Mb/s United States
Top Countries by Upload Speed
- 1.8.08 Mb/s Lithuania
- 2.7.49 Mb/s Japan
- 3.4.43 Mb/s Bulgaria
- 4.4.32 Mb/s Romania
- 5.4.28 Mb/s Russian Federation
- 6.4.10 Mb/s Sweden
- 7.3.86 Mb/s Slovenia
- 8.3.86 Mb/s Latvia
- 9.3.35 Mb/s Moldova, Republic of
- 10.3.32 Mb/s Andorra
- 11.2.95 Mb/s Korea, Republic of
- 12.2.79 Mb/s Asia/Pacific Region
- 13.2.77 Mb/sHong Kong
- 14.2.72 Mb/s Netherlands
- 27.1.34 Mb/s United States
Global Broadband Data
With over twenty million tests taken every month, we provide our select clients unparalleled global broadband statistics. We collect download and upload speeds, round-trip latency, IP address, ISP, and geographic location. Join other governments, universities, and corporate organizations in receiving detailed raw data or specialized reports on either a one-time or subscription basis.
Ten phones you’ll never see in the US.
Many ISPs and government officials claim that the cable currently referred to as “dark cable” is high speed internet cable capable of meeting or exceeding the 100 mbps available to 80% of Japanese households.
While AT&T spends all its time and effort trying to find novel ways to sneak into your hard drive, locate material they term “racially offensive”, and CENSOR you, Japanese citizens are simply surfing the net at 100 times the speed available to many AT&T customers.
http://pressesc.com/01179677598_us_internet_slow
US high-speed Internet is slow
Submitted by Canada IFP on Sun, 2007-05-20 16:14.
The average broadband download speed in the US is only 1.9 megabits per second, compared to 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, 17 Mpbs in France, and 7 Mbps in Canada, according to the Communication Workers of America.
CWA President Larry Cohen testified before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, in support of a discussion draft of the Broadband Census of America Act.
“Good data is the foundation of good policy,” Cohen said. “We desperately need a national Internet policy to reverse the fact that our nation – the country that invented the Internet – has fallen to 16th in the world in broadband adoption.”
“Equally disturbing, Americans pay more for slower connection speeds than people in many other countries,” he added.
According to statistics provided by CWA 80 percent of households in Japan can connect to a fiber network at a speed of 100 megabits per second. This is 30 times the average speed of a US cable modem or DSL connection, at roughly the same cost.
Cohen pointed out that the average upload speed was in the US was only 371 kilobits per second, not nearly enough to send quality medical information over the Internet.
“Speed Matters on the Internet”, Cohen emphasized. “It determines what is possible; whether we will have the 21st century networks we need to grow jobs and our economy, and whether we will be able to support innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and public services to improve our lives and communities. High speed Internet could even help address the global warming crisis by allowing people to get things done without getting into their car.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10434930-94.html
More cities and countries are enjoying faster Internet speeds, according to the latest State of the Internet report released Wednesday by Akamai.
Looking at the third quarter of 2009, the report found that most countries in the top-10 list for Internet performance saw an average 18 percent increase in speed from the second quarter. South Korea topped the list, with a 29 percent jump in speed to 14.6 megabits per second, while Ireland came in second for most improved, with a 26 percent rise to 5.3Mbps.
The United States failed to make the top-10 list again, coming in 18th, with a 1.8 percent increase to reach an average connection speed of 3.9Mbps. But some countries, such as Romania, Sweden, and the Czech Republic, saw their speeds drop in the third quarter from the second quarter.
The world’s top countries for Internet speed
(Credit: Akamai)
On a year-to-year basis, however, all the countries in the top 10 saw a boost in speed, with Ireland topping the list, with a 73 percent gain, followed by the Czech Republic, with a 23 percent improvement. On the same yearly basis, though, the United States was hit by a 2.4 percent decline in speed.
Overall, 103 of the 226 countries tracked by Akamai saw average connect speeds below 1Mbps, an improvement from the 125 countries found with such low performance in the second quarter. Only seven countries saw speeds below 100Kbps, down from 14 in the prior quarter. The lowest speed found among all countries was on the island of Mayotte, nestled in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mozambique.
In the United States, changes in speed from the second quarter were mostly positive across the 10 areas with the best Internet performance. Massachusetts enjoyed the highest gain, rising 20 percent to achieve an average speed of 5.9Mbps. Washington, D.C., and Utah both saw their speeds grow 16 percent. But New Hampshire’s average speed dropped 7.4 percent, while New York’s fell by 2.2 percent.
Analyzing cities for the first time, Akamai discovered that a number of cities around the world now enjoy high-speed Internet access. Throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States, even the slowest-average cities saw speeds higher than 10Mbps. However, cities in more emerging areas, such as Africa and South America, are witnessing slower speeds, typically no greater than 4Mbps.
Noting the dramatic rise in Internet access from portable devices, Akamai also analyzed the mobile market in its latest report. The company found that average mobile connect speeds with Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint all settled in between 700Kbps and 800Kbps.
Finally, to no surprise, cyberattacks remained an ongoing problem in the third quarter, with attacks discovered from 207 different countries, slightly more than those observed from 201 nations in the second quarter. Russia and Brazil surpassed the U.S. and China as the two top countries for originating cyberattacks, accounting for almost 22 percent of all attacks worldwide.
The world’s top countries for Internet attacks
(Credit: Akamai)
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats–journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He’s a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.
