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Broadband Connection Getting Slower? Part IIc
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06-Jan-2009
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Subsection II, in summation...
So we have two, clearly defined camps. On one side, there are the business-suit e-Bureaucrats who feel that innovation verses investment is perfectly reasonable, and worth the extra cost. On the other side, we have a bunch of e-cookie granola-crunchers who want what they want, when they want it, and on the terms they've had it and prefer to keep it – without increasing cost...to them.
Where The Providers Are Wrong
Let us reduce, for a moment, the entirety of the Internet to the microcosm of the computer. Modern computing can basically be broken down into two parts; software and hardware. You can't make the argument that one is more important than the other, as without either the system cannot function at all. Though improvements to each are not necessarily handled in step, progress is continually made in each aspect of both. There have been literally dozens of popular operating systems, software platforms, and various applications over the past two decades, and likewise as many innovations with single and multi-core processing, spinning and fixed hard disk drives, removable media technology is an ever changing technology, and let us not forget the innovations in data exchange in both the wired and wireless fields.
What the providers are trying to claim is that their “network management” (software) justifies an increased cost, despite not really making proportional investment in their “backbone” (hardware). As innovative as network management can get, try running Windows 7 on a Commodore 64...tell me how well it works (here's a hint, it won't). And believe it or not, that's almost an accurate comparison of just how much the providers are trying to oversell their 'management' as opposed to genuinely investing in backbone infrastructure. Frankly, it just doesn't work that way.
Where The Users Are Wrong
Although, as indicated, providers are not living up to their side of the argument, we live in a capitalistic society. As such, we have various economic factors such as inflation, research and development costs, et cetera. This basically equates to newer things coming out at or above an older unit's price (although the computer market has shifted all over the map on this point), and newer versions of the older unit at a discounted price. Hence the cost of dial-up Internet starting at around $30.00/month and now can easily be found for under $10.00/month (which I, in my own small way, can say helped usher in...).
Broadband, which once cost hundreds of dollars a month for a simple 384 Kbps DSL connection, now is under $50.00 a month for more than ten times that speed. Or, you can get that same connection for around $15.00 a month. So, it genuinely is not valid to say that price has not fluctuated with the advancement of technology.
The Real Solution
Ultimately, what it boils down to is that providers are heavily overselling their backbones. You can get a FiOS connection that can transmit at upwards of 50 Mbps, however, if you sell a hundred thousand of those off a common OC-48 line (which is 2.4 Gbps), let us do a little math:
- Assume 10,000 simultaneous transactions at peak times (should be higher than this, but we'll be very generous to the providers and underestimate);
- Factor in extended length for these transactions with all the streaming media (in HiDef now...);
We arrive at an equation of 2,400 Mbps divided by 10,000 DOES NOT equal 50 Mbps; instead, it DOES equal 240 Kbps (.24 Mbps) – which is essentially what broadband was being advertised at almost ten years ago. You can have a FiOS connection, but that does not mean you will get a FiOS connection.
The only solution here is to drastically increase the size of provider backbones. This of course means a drastic increase in subscriber price. Just as broadband was hundreds of dollars when it was innovated about ten years ago, you should realistically being paying at least a hundred dollars now for the current level of state-of-the-art speed. In other words, both sides have to give a little and do something to actually move the situation forward; frankly, I don't see that happening anytime soon (oh, to run an ISP again, if only, if only...) |
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