What is Digg?Sponsored by Guitar Center
When Heavy-handed Hints Fail--Guitar Center Wishlist Posters view!
guitarcenter.com - Cool personalized designs send a friendly reminder that a new Stratocaster would rock, thanks.
66 Comments
- rupaw, on 05/28/2008, -0/+32Austria is just a small country with 8 million people, but we have 5 different providers, all offering 3G networks. In June they start with DVB-H - Global Mobile TV. One provider offers more than 30 TV channels on your mobile phone. Rates are affordable with 10 - 25 EUR per month (including 10 GB downloads).
One of the reasons why the iphone didn't do too well in Europe is its missing support of 3G technology (UMTS or HSDPA). Apple is supposed to fix this over the next months...
As frequent traveller to the US, I'm always amazed how far behind America is when it comes to wireless technology. You guys invented these things ... how comes you have such a crappy infrastructure? - kahrn, on 05/28/2008, -3/+22The reason the iPhone didn't do well in europe (or the uk anyways) has nothing to do with 3G Networks -- 3G coverage in the UK is very good. It's the price. No other phone is nearly as expensive -- and people can pay less for much better phones here. For Apple to charge what it does, people just laugh.. they don't even consider it. You can get better phones for less than a quarter of the price -- not only that but apple have tried to change the way you buy it (pay for the headset AND contract -- that NEVER happens here afaik).
- Slade605, on 05/28/2008, -1/+17I mentally read infrastructure as president.
- chochazel, on 05/28/2008, -1/+16Britain's competition is partly through regulation e.g.
- forcing BT, owners of the physical phone infrastructure, to lease lines to broadband providers
- providing rules which make it much easier to transfer broadband contracts and phone contracts
In the US their is more of a tendency for large telecoms to lobby the government to get what they want, entrench their position and form oligopolies. This is sold to the electorate as:
Regulation = socialism = anti-capitalist = anti-freedom = bad (governments are bad m'kay?)
What large corporations want = capitalism = freedom = good
In fact European style regulation aims to encourage flexible movement and competition; it provides structures whereby free-market principles can better flourish for the benefit of consumers, rather than existing large corporations, who are by their nature slow to adapt to new technologies. They will always attempt to entrench their position at the expense of up-and-coming potential competitors and the choice of consumers. - ivosilva, on 05/28/2008, -1/+13I think you misunderstood. The Apple iPhone doesn't have 3G at all, that's why it didn't sell very well... It has nothing to do with the european countries 3G coverage.
- error2k2, on 05/28/2008, -0/+11One thing I love about London is the WiFi coverage, my university gave us all a free "Cloud" account. Whenever I'm in central London, I never have to use my 3G/HSDPA connection. It's pretty amazing.
Then when I'm in greater London, my Vodaphone 7mbit wireless connection is awesome ^^ Sometime I wonder why I even bother with home boradband... then I remember I have a 24mbit ADSL2+ connection~ Woo~ - Heiminator, on 05/28/2008, -0/+10i agree, apples pricing policy in europe was (and is) pure madness, i can get a nokia n95 for far les money,and thats a superioir phone imho
same goes for the europe launch of rockband,160 euros for that game????? - Ryan0617, on 05/28/2008, -0/+10I am surprised that the USA doesn't have much better competition in regards to isp. Britain has an abundance so they are always competitive and you always have a choice. I thought America would be at least competitive if not more, why isn't it?
- Murrabbit, on 05/28/2008, -1/+10Our infrastructure is in the state it is in mostly due to the laws and organization of old infrastructure here. We've got an ugly slightly-regulated system designed to offer more competition - when a big utility provider lays down cable they've got to make those lines available for the competition to lease time on to start their own services. Therefor laying new infrastructure is not particularly profitable and so no one wants to do it.
The result is that we have a nation full of ancient and frankly laughable communications infrastructure. There are many parts in the rural US where you simply CAN'T get broadband internet at any price - and those of us who can get it slower than even some 3rd world nations.
In decades (and centuries) past we used to solve problems with big government spending public works projects - things like the rural electrification act, which, had it not been passed would likely mean that many parts of the US still would not have electricity (simply because it isn't profitable to build infrastructure out to remote locations where few customers are located). With our current political climate however a large-scale public works project would be seen as akin to an onset of communism - we don't even allow the government to repair the roads highways and bridges which they are responsible for, let alone something like say the power grid, and certainly not a national communications structure upgrade.
The most likely solution to the US's infrastructure problem that we're likely to see is a complete de-regulation of telecoms regardless of how that will effect consumers. In 1996 the government tried another one of their modern anti-socialist tactics by giving the telecoms billions of dollars in tax-credits on the promise that they would upgrade our internet infrastructure, but all they did was laugh all the way to the back and spend the next decade coming up with their anti-net-neutrality tiered internet idea so that they can ***** over consumers even more and reap even larger profits at the expense of the very soul of the internet itself: the free flow of information.
In other words, Corporations will continue to look for the best way to screw over consumers, the government will take expensive and ineffective measures, and we, the general populous will all wring our hands and wonder why our infrastructure is laughable and falling down around us while thanking God that at least it's provided to us by entirely for-profit corporations which would never stoop so low as to take government money (unless it was, you know, offered to them with no strings attached). Meanwhile nothing at all gets done and level headed foreigners like yourself get terribly confused by this ridiculous political dance we do. - inactive, on 05/28/2008, -2/+11When half the people that bother to vote, end up voting for a dumbass like Bush (2 times too), you would expect them to be behind. America is the fat ass end of the world.
Yes!!!! we Australia are no longer the ass end of the world. - diggshane, on 05/28/2008, -0/+9well i guess now you have
- atgmac, on 05/28/2008, -0/+8Be broadband is 24mbps and they don't throttle your connection. Or virgin has fibre. I frequently get actual speeds of 16mbps from my connection.
- JAFFA, on 05/28/2008, -0/+7It should always be followed by the words: 'of pies'
- ukblacknight, on 05/28/2008, -0/+6I got my n95 as a free upgrade on my £20, 12 month contract. At the time, it was worth about £450. The iPhone required (at the time of my upgrade) a minimum £35 a month, 18 month contract, and the handset was around £350 I think. Usually, handsets on that kind of contract would be free, regardless of what it is.
So even before you even consider the lack of 3G, not many people can afford that contract AND pay for the handset, that's just not how it's done here. And once you look through the price, you realise the iPhone has far less functionality than the n95, so why pay stupid money for something that cheaper, more able phones can do?
That's why it didn't sell very well here. - stephendv, on 05/28/2008, -1/+7This is true for every European city, not just London.
- soupr, on 05/28/2008, -1/+6We have awesome personal freedoms in the UK. Big Brother doesnt scare me half as much as the state of religion outside of Europe.
- roodammy44, on 05/28/2008, -0/+5The east coast of america is at least as dense. You can't use these arguments ignoring large metropolitan areas like new york, which has an urban population of 18.5 million compared to london's 8.5 million urban area. The majority of US population is near the east coast.
New York City alone has a population of 1/4 of the UK and Northern Ireland..
The cities you mention in the UK are fairly small compared to some US cities which most of the population lives. If the US had as much choice as Britain only in its cities of over 400,000 people (manchester size) then there wouldn't be so many articles about the lack of competition.
And before people talk about laying cable over the country to connect dense patches of population: We have to run a cable under the atlantic ocean just to get google! - dudefather, on 05/28/2008, -2/+6you win a 'comment unrelated to the story of the day award' sjug, (commonly known as the '***** the RIAA' award)
- cbeach, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4Actually, I think 3G has a LOT to do with uptake in Europe. I'm a Londoner and a huge fan of Apple products. I have held off buying the iPhone because the bandwidth of EDGE is lamentable
- JAFFA, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4I use Be too! No capping or limits. Im over 2km from my nearest exchange and have never had less than 12mb.
- localzuk, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4Why would a company have to cover the entire USA? Or even an entire state? I'm pretty sure if a company came along and set up shop in NYC or LA or something like that, they'd pretty much be able to earn mega-money whilst actually only covering a relatively small geographical area.
There should be dozens of small companies offering these services, rather than just a handful of small companies that cover huge areas. - ep53, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3I didnt have enough time (aka lazy) to read you comment and digged you up anyway because you put alot of time into it...
- BaNZ, on 05/28/2008, -6/+9They don't know what they are talking about. UK is just like any other countries, our broadband is extremely slow and expensive. Traffic shaping during peak hours and most ISP lie about unlimited traffic. Most of the ISP doesn't provide the speed they advertise anyway.
We do have a huge choices of ISP to rip us off and provide crap services. I wouldn't call that better than any other countries.
Sure we got WiFi and 3G, with vodafone I'm charged £1 + vat (17.5% in UK) for the first 15mb and then £2 + vat per mb after that. Found that the hard way after downloading around ~200mb of my mailbox. All the other provider advertise unlimited download but then you see the little print that says unlimited = 1 gig per month. After that they charge you an insane amount. You might think 1 gig is a lot, but it isn't. Surfing / checking email for 5-10 mins racks up ~10mb. These days most websites contains lots of images and ads so it all adds up. - lukasmack, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3Virgin Media isn't all what its meant to be. There CEO has openly admitted that he disagrees with net neutrality.
With their 2mbit connection if you download 350mb between the peak hours (4pm-12am) your connection gets throttled to 1mbit while your actual speeds when throttled are about 512kbits.
I have upgraded to their 4mbit service as everybody on that is getting an free upgrade to 10mbit broadband due to the fiber they are laying down. http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/existingcusto ...
However they are taking a long time to implement it.
My main grudge with virgin though is their customer service. For about 8 months i had been experiencing frequent cut offs with my internet. Rang virgin multiple times which brought up huge costs which were never refunded. This was no use and then we finally managed to get a technician to come round.
First time the technician came round on the wrong day when I was not home and according to virgin that was my fault?
Second time the technician finally our fixed after months of trouble, you can only imagine the problem of frequent cut-offs while online gaming.
Since then I have not had any problems with them except I just find that my 10mbit upgrade is taking its time.
Also although I have only heard good things about BE broadband they are not available in many areas around the country yet. - piesforyou, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3Indeed!
- roodammy44, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3Just because you've chosen ***** deals, doesn't mean there's no decent competition:
Be broadband 24Mbs (I regularly get 14Mbits 2km from exchange) £18/mo with free really good router.
3 mobile 3G dongle 7GB £25/mo, £10 for further GB
There is also a pay-as-you-go option which will not allow you to go over your allowance.
As for email services when on 3G, you should probably use thunderbird which downloads only headers until you request more, and don't go on video sites. You can also use counters which tell you how much you've downloaded when 3G is activated. - Nayson, on 05/28/2008, -6/+9The UK is a very small country geographically. There are 15 or so States in the USA which are bigger geographically than mainland Britain. The bulk of the population of the mainland is also densely packed into half a dozen or so regions. South East (London) West Midlands (Birmingham) North West (Liverpool/Manchester) West Yorkshire (Sheffield/Leeds) North East (Newcastle) South Wales and South Scotland.
The point is that its probably a lot easier for companies to set up infrastructure covering significant percentages of the population here than it is in a country as big and spread out as the States. You dont have to lay the miles of ADSL lines, Cable lines or the number of 3G masts here to get a good effect. If that is the case then the reason why we have a lot of competition to chose from is just logistics as much as anything else. - bluesatin, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3May I suggest an entanet reseller like ADSL24, there's even a reseller than donates some profit towards open source projects in the UK.
Great service, and only 1 month contracts! - maninalift, on 05/28/2008, -1/+4Questionable use of the word as "surfeit" implies that the excess is a bad thing, exemplified by the most famous use of the word which is that Henry I died of a surfeit of lamprey.
- JAFFA, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3You're the same distance as me with the same ISP and I was getting the same speeds. The quick solution is to try your connection in your master socket. (its normally hidden behind the cover of the phone connection in the wall). When I did this my connection jumped to 10 or 11mbps. There are a few threads on the Be homepage forums about this so check it out :-)
- roodammy44, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2Next time you use Wikipedia, remember to check whether you're looking at *State* or *City* level.
A city that covers 54,556 square miles is only in earth's distant future.
Area
- City 468.9 sq mi (1,214.4 km²)
- Density 27,282/sq mi (10,533/km²) - Dev17, on 05/28/2008, -1/+3Hopefully the competition from London can spread to other European cities. This is why we need the EU. Increased trade, more efficiency. I would like to see stats on the Scandinavian countries. They were investing in the Internet long before most countries.
Surfeit - I think it means surplus. I've never heard it either. - giruzz, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2Lived in Sydney for 3.5years and Broadband prices were just insane, even worst than Italy (!!!) which is kind of 3rd world country if you look at Europe.
Now I'm in London and things are just brilliant! £7.5 for a 8/1mbit connection :-) - armo, on 05/28/2008, -1/+3Come on, there's cameras everywhere.
Britain is 'surveillance society'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
Telecoms already keep records of all our communications for a year and now with the reforms being planned that's going to be retained allowing pretty much all our habits to be analysed
http://www.commonsleader.gov.uk/output/Page2461.as ... - hoopy22, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2It's old. New infrastructure is expensive, and as stated above, the government regulations impede return on investment. However, Verizon is making a bold move with their FIOS (fiber to the home) project. It's quite a gamble, billions of dollars invested. AT&T U-Verse is similar, fiber to the neighborhood, coax to the home. I have U-verse and it rocks!
I think one of the things we in the US could do is fight the spammers more intently. I can't remember the latest stats on percentage of the Internet clogged with spam. The laws spam are not being spam enforced as spam vigorously as one would spam hope. spam spam spam spam - roodammy44, on 05/28/2008, -0/+23.5mbits?????
I'm 2km from my exchange and I get 14mbits easily.
Check the connections at your house, I bet they're crap. - localzuk, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2I live in a small town in somerset and get about 6.5Mbits at 2km from the exchange! - On normal ADSL, not ADSL2+
There's something wrong with your connection if you're getting such low connection speeds. - W1LS0N, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2surfeit - suffice - sufficient
- maninalift, on 05/28/2008, -2/+3Join the "characterise the US understanding of socialism using the equality-sign" club. ;-)
- ccaazz, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2sorry, i should add in actually that i am now with Be broadband, who are the best provider i am yet to come across, very few line disconnects compared to other isps i have been with, and the adsl2 technology literally triples your current line speed :) - however, what i said above is true for the vast majority of londoners (you still don't get 24 mbits with Be, i'm living within 2km of an exchange and get about 3.5 mbits right now, due to the crappy line quality)
- ep53, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1You got Be Broadband too huh? They are so great i download in excess of 5gb of movies and music per week and never had a complaint, they are also one of the only companies to use ADSL2+. "So fast we dont even know what to do with it"
FYI (Their Site): https://www.bethere.co.uk/
AOL also has a good deal on at the moment where they give you a free laptop too: http://shop.carphonewarehouse.com/aol_eligibility. ...
Its £10 a month for minimum of 12 months. - ccaazz, on 05/28/2008, -6/+7london broadband sucks, i should know, i live there - super low speeds, and unless you live next door to the telephone exchange, you shouldn't be expecting to get more than 1 - 2mbits, telephone lines are super poor quality resulting in an extremely high, speed dropping rate as you move further away from the exchange, someone actually once came to my area and had to fix our constantly disconnecting lines, by sealing up a drain which was allowing water to leak onto the telephone lines (if thats any indication of quality for you).
Also most UK isps throttle your internet connections, its now very hard to find one who doesn't, and just because there is a greater choice of isps doesnt mean that any of them can offer you faster speeds than their competitors can. - bkemper, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2You should get out more.
- GeauxLSU, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1Mobile competition (which is the main focus of the article) in the US is not the problem:
According to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA), there are over 180 facilities-based wireless providers in the United States. The six largest (in order of subscribers) are AT&T (71.4 million), Verizon Wireless (67.2 million), Sprint Nextel Corporation (53.8 million), T-Mobile USA (30.8 million), Alltel (13.17 million) and TracFone Wireless (9.895 million).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States ...
Size of the US is a major factor as well as lite demand for the 3G services. - Ninjao, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1It's like this in Hamburg, Germany as well. The competition is amazing.. just recently I saw an ISP offering 16mbit for 4.95 euro /month for 4 months and 16/month after that and you can cancel your contract any time.
- soupr, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1You're just with a bad company.
- kahrn, on 05/29/2008, -0/+1Regardless, everything I said still applies 3G or not.
- icheyne, on 05/29/2008, -0/+1You should read more books.
- flashmat, on 06/01/2008, -0/+1Or, alternatively, like me, he's stuck with crappy poor quality lines back to the exchange - 18 months ago my connection speed dropped to around 200 bits per second, due to the aluminium wiring coming into my flat - they replaced from the cabinet to my flat, but there is still al large section from the cabinet to the exchange which is aluminium. Even Be would struggle to give me more than 2megabit/s.
-
Show 51 - 67 of 67 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is