Why is broadband so expensive?

Edwards was on the television station in Winston-Salem and he said he wanted broadband to go to the rural areas for the purposes of encouraging the economy as those jobs could not go overseas and it would help economic development in rural areas.

But why is broadband so expensive. Take DSL. You already have a phone line that cost about $22 a month. Then if you get broadband it can be twice that.

A cable connection is more than basic cable itself and a person is going to use cable more than the Internet. It just seems to expensive.

Broadband is great, but it is hard to justify the cost when there is only one person in the house. Just what makes it so expensive?

You have to see it to believe it!!

What a world of difference from dial up, even a slow outdated computer flys on DSL! It's Grrrreeeaaat!

why is cable so expensive?
Cable could provide channels on a single/multiple/any number of stations you want, charged per station, but you have to pay for the packages they offer, maybe more stations than you want, none less if that's what you really want.

They can charge what the public is willing to pay. Nothing more, and never less.

dp

...how much does that cost you a month? Dial-up access plus the cost of a second phone line probably equals or eclipses what you might pay for DSL or cable.

Say, isn't this thread in the wrong forum?

if you consider what you're paying for 56k bandwidth (ie. cost per k of bandwidth) and the time required to connect, and the likely need for a separate phone line if you use the web for any lengthy amount of time.

Broadband, local phone, and unlimited long distance for under $100 a month.

Check you local phone companies. Many are having financial problems and might have some good, new offer.

but it does go to show that there is a cost associated with that "information superhighway". The stuff that makes it all work is not free and the amount of that available resourse that you COULD use is what determines the cost. Plus profit, as you might expect.

Under Bush, the FCC has decimated competition. A few years ago, the Bells had to allow competitors to use their lines at low cost to provide service. As a result, you could choose from lots and lots of providers at competitive prices.

The FCC has sided with the Bells and eliminated that provision, so a lot of smaller providers have gone out of business. Apart from the Bells and a few large providers like Covad and Earthlink, you've got no real choice. Hence, stagnation and high prices.

my opinion is that these networks require a lot of regular adjustment/maintenance. There's a lot of equipment too. Thirdly, we more regulation, increases faster than the cost of inflation are ridiculous.

Cable and phone companies still aren't making a profit off of it after the vast amount of money they invested.

Verizon recently dropped the price of DSL by 10 bucks, and I assume there will be more price reductions as more people sign up and the initial investment is amortized.

Eventually, broadband will be universal. It's just a matter of time.

:evilgrin:

That's what makes it so expensive...and completely unaffordable to a single-income household like mine. I am the only resident here.

I'll keep my cheap dialup with Internet accelerator. I'll make do with less quality pictures for faster loadup...and I can refresh with full quality anything I REALLY want to see!

Until there's a Governemnt subsidy to buy broadband for cheap folks like me, I'll stay with dial-up and an Accelerator.

That's the future of broadband in rural areas.

DSL requires digital switching at the local exchanges, and it's still only good within a couple miles of the exchange. in rural areas, it's not a very good solution - there's no good reason to spend the godawful amounts of money it would take to upgrade the local exchanges, and no one lives within range.

cable makes more sense, and i've had broadband cable in my house (a small texas town of 5000) for 2 years or more.

wireless will always face latency issues. there has been asynch modem upload/satellite download into truly rural communities for years - but no one does it. Dont expect anyone to build real wireless into rural areas - it's a wireless pipedream.

There have been a couple initiatives to put the signal into the powerlines and use existing copper infrastructure, but honestly who the hell wants to go buy all that internet infrastructure hardware so they can lose money on every subscriber.

Theres so much dark fiber running around this country, and so many improvements to wave division multiplexing the only problem is that who the hell wants to go buy a bunch of hardware they'll never get to ROI. Other countries, who've lacked the infrastructure until now, are starting to take advantage at this point. A friend sent me a note about Norway going 100mbps switched to the house for what we pay for cablemodems the other day.

While I applaud Edward's efforts to get cheap broadband into rural areas, as someone who's actually been in those trenches connecting rural schools into OC12 networks years ago - there's not a lot of truth to the whole 'if you build it they will come' premise that somehow this actually creates jobs (well, it'll make some weaselly cisco salesrep's quota - and he can spend another quarter lighting cigars with $100 bills (yes, i've seen that too)) but it isnt magic for rural america.

Think of this project which uses powerful radio signals:

Rural connections: http://www.fcc.gov/osp/rural-wisp/
Community Connections: http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/MtBaldi

High-speed land lines (copper and fiber) are too expensive and unless the government decides it's worth paying for it they won't happen. Obviously low-signal strength options like 802.11x and 3-G are less plausible in rural areas, but if you could create a network in which each station acts as not only as a base but as a router this could happen. Obviously we're still many years from this becoming a reality. Wireless is where land lines were over a decade ago, from that standpoint we've still got a ways to go.

latency

in the future, we'll use bandwidth like air. no one wants latency - and between the multiple rf-hops etc... it's just not the best idea in the world (though lots of people have put a lot of money into supporting it). I think the potential in the existing copper in the electric lines is a better option. Nortel had something a couple years back, and some Oklahoma electrical coop was trying some 10mbps to the house stuff (but it was coming in slower than that, and the issue was unless you saw a marked increase no one wanted to put the real money into infrastructure).

Edward's idea of putting more money into rural connectivity is good - but it's not going to solve the real problem of job losses to places like India.

Even with hops and latency RF signals can produce faster throughput than my cable-modem. My guess is laying fiber with optimal tap points and using radio signals for interconnect and failover will bear out as a viable solution over the long run. For instance in India/China it is much cheaper to connect the country using wireless than land lines; providing better signal integrity than the current infrastructure without incurring the costs of laying more fiber. The biggest reason for wireless is the number of mobile devices using broadband is increasing at a much greater rate than PC's and other fixed devices.

Of course none of this deals with job exportation, just better communications for rural areas.

When I was on dial-up, I had two different phone lines. One for the computer, one for the house. That way, time on the internet did not tie up the phone line. And I needed a lot of time. In the last year or so of dial-up, I was being disconnected every 5 minutes or so. And, with the slow speed, often couldn't actually load a site I was trying to get to in the amount of time before I was disconnected.

So, I switched to DSL. What a relief! The DSL costs me $50 something dollars a month. I cancelled the 2nd phone line at about 25.00 a month. I cancelled the dial-up internet connection at about 22.00 a month. And I cancelled call-waiting and caller ID on the other phone line, which just about covers the cost of the DSL.

I want your phone company!
We pay $35 for a dial tone here. And they offer no ADSL, no DSL, just dial-up.

Now, I can get cable access for $49 a month, and "normal" cable is $43. you do not have to be connected for video to get cable web.(How? I don't know. Maybe filters, I don't have cable, I don't know)

And....We have "wireless" internet, too! 10 Mb access speed. $79 a month, and $250 for connection (antenna, equipment)

While there are some discount (very limited service) plans available for less, just the ISP (Internet Service Provider) seems to be about $20/month ... whether it's AOL, Earthlink, or whatever. This doesn't include connectiblity. DSL is a complex issue when it comes to pricing, much of it due to tariff 'headroom' obtained by the POTS folks. AtHome had an 'arrangement' with the cable companies that gave it a net of around $10/month ... and went bankrupt (intentionally, imho). The rest of the fees paid by subscribers went to the cable companies who were providing an already-subsidized connectibility.