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by charwalker
2220 days ago
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That's lovely. Now please explain to so many of my friends and family why their only broadband option with remotely decent pricing (if they have an alternative) is Xfinity, and why many of them had to pay hundreds to get a line run to their house to use that service. The market will not solve access issues, regional monopolies by ISPs, or similar matters without intense regulation. Even then they will use tax subsidies to fight those regulations tooth and nail. I'm running 100/10 on a dsl type line right now because it's my only other option than Xfinity and it is literally as fast as I can get outside of Xfinity as they own the infrastructure here for anything better. At least I don't have a data cap and can skate by at these speeds, though my upload hurts quite often. |
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While anecdotes are important, the data just doesn't corroborate the notion that American broadband internet is worse, on average, than that of its peer countries. You're right that the experience of some individuals does not match up to the aggregate statistics, but you can't draw broad conclusions from those data points.
The aggregate data captures the experiences of your friends, just like the aggregate data for other nations captures adverse experiences of their citizens. And what the data does say is 1) investment in broadband infrastructure is higher in the US (per capita) than most other peer nations, and 2) average broadband speed in the US is higher than most other peer nations. That's not really a matter of opinion, it's strictly an observation.