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Why your ping sucks
Roxianna
Member Posts: 60
My husband just wrote an article on the state of the Broadband Industry in the USA. I kind of knew this stuff, but when he put it altogether in one write-up I found myself getting angry. First because I am an American who likes to compete and thinks the country should lead in all things technology related, and two because I am tired of lag in my games.
Sad huh. 
The blog article, by gamerDNA CEO, Jon Radoff appears is here.
Comments
Thanks roxana, and big thanks to your husband. Interesting stuff.
Take the Hecatomb TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
What are you complaining about? We're better than Denmark and Khazakstan.
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
coming from a broadband company, I can give you some reason why our speed isnt as high as Japan's or South Korea.
In terms of size, Japan and Korea are very small compared to the United States. With similiar level of technology readily available to Japan, South Korea, and the United States it is much more cheaper to replace older antiquated equipment and wiring in a smaller area as compared to the United States.
Japan is a little smaller than the US Eastern coastline and just wide enough to reach the Appalation Mountains from the Atlantic if you were to lay Japan on US Eastern border. Korea is 1/3 the size of Japan. Korea would only fit in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Newyork, and Virgina.
With that said, it cost them a LOT less to replace their infrastructure with modern equipment and wiring, thus giving a faster access.
I live in Kansas City. Right now Time Warner Cable is replacing much of their cables with fiber optics. This project alone is going to cost them well over 4 billion dollars. And this is just Kansas City and the suburbs.
Imagine the ENTIRE country. It would be tens of trillions of dollars. Japan would invest about 100 billion and they're done. Unfortunately, for the US a hundred billion will cover 2 to 5 states or just New York alone.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Canada...
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
Domestic and international routes plays the larger part in my opinion, not just capacities' raw power. Say 1 MMO are hosted on a South East Asian country, it won't be much of any diff to a 100Mbps "foreign" (non-Asian countries) user from a 1.5Mbps user the pings' gonna be the same at average. At which a good majority of time it'll be bad at best. That's why these days I look seriously at MMO launches particularly at localizations. If it's gonna be too far away from me then I'll have to down the bitter pill and choose not to play.
Canada...
Canada, while geographically larger than the States, has far fewer people spread over a much smaller area. Canada has an order of magnitude (10x) fewer people than the US and about 3/4 of them live within 150 KM of the border. A very large proportion of those people live in the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario.
Same principles apply - smaller geographic area to cover means that the costs are relatively cheaper to get upgraded connectivity to a large proportion of the population.
there's not much difference in terms of speed between the US and Canada
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
very interesting article, indeed, but i have to disagree somewhat with the stats on that chart.
the united states does have companies offering broadband speeds at 20-30, though most people can't afford it or don't have it available in their particular area.
this chart only represents the average speed that each country is getting overall, not what each country has available to offer. and if it really does represent the latter, then the chart is outdated by a couple of years.
america has always strived to offer the best in the world. but unfortunately, with the way the america economy currently is, the demand for the best has gone down, while the demand for the cheapest has gone up.
but, yes, in most regions of the usa, you can get the same speed as people in france or sweden, but chances are you just aren't willing to go broke for it.
for example, in my area of the states they do offer broadband speeds of 20-30, but they want you to pay $160+/month for it, while the next highest speed available ranges from 5-10 for only $40/month. sounds wierd, i know..
but i think this is exactly why we don't sit higher on the charts, it is not like we're not competing, but most americans can't afford the prices of the usa competition.
(hmm.. gee.. sounds like a lot of things here in the usa)
*shrug*
war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength
big brother is watching you
By this logic... why the hell do we have rubbish speeds in the UK? We're a tiny little island, yet our internet sucks!
I live in a CITY... and the fastest I can get is 512kbps... That's awful! 8mb (and crappy 16mb occasionally) is the most you can hope for over here.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
By this logic... why the hell do we have rubbish speeds in the UK? We're a tiny little island, yet our internet sucks!
I live in a CITY... and the fastest I can get is 512kbps... That's awful! 8mb (and crappy 16mb occasionally) is the most you can hope for over here.
And NZ too, it has only 4mil people and is much smaller then the uk
By this logic... why the hell do we have rubbish speeds in the UK? We're a tiny little island, yet our internet sucks!
I live in a CITY... and the fastest I can get is 512kbps... That's awful! 8mb (and crappy 16mb occasionally) is the most you can hope for over here.
That's easy as I was just there a few months ago. Because they aren't using fiber optic cables....they are still using coaxial in 98% of all private residences.
Tell the English Parlament to upgrade! You guys dont even put ice in your soda! lol. (which is another story)
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
As I stated above. They havent put as much effort as Japan and South Korea has. Do you have fiber optic cables in your home? Does your next door neighbor? More than likely no.
In Japan, their cities of Tokyo and other major cities is RIDDLED in fiber optics. I cannot think of one major US city that is laced in Fiber optics (maybe Las Vegas but I doubt it) and I cannot think of one English city that is hardwired with fiber optics.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Wow, I live in Maine which I always thought was on the ass end of the Earth for technology.
I'm quite surprised by this study as I get 9.7 Mbs on a bad day and I've seen it go well over 10 on good days. This puts me well above the national average on that chart. I guess Maine aint so bad after all. 
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
3rd best broadband. Woot
But yeah, even i have 15mb and it's pretty cheap here. everyone can afford fast broadband here in Sweden.
Heck, i know people that have 100mb and 1000mb. <<;
The speed of the mole and the power of steel is my weapon
Heh...
I lived for a while in this small town in Florida or I should say near it called.. Frostproof.
I lived off of a 4 lane highway.. surrounded by pretty much nothing.. swamps and things that looks like land scapes on tv shows about parts africa...
Broadband what?
I had dial up... eventually I even had a half dial up half sat connection through aol.. made patching more fun.
At the end I had isdn... and still had it when I moved to Oregon in 2002.
Far as I know you still cannot get any form of broadband where I was (tho the actual town I believe had road runner cable.. not really sure on that).
I spent quite a bit of time in areas of South Carolina as well that only had service through Charter cable.. and no package they offer comes close to what I have through comcast atm. (my parents still live there).
Oh so the short version was.. at least the part of Maine you live in.. is far ahead of many areas.
Try 16 cities in Utah soon www.utopianet.org/
I highlighted the key word in my quote above; Major.
The biggets population on that webpage that is getting fiber optic has 119,000 (and ONLY 18% of the 199,000 will have the fiber optic available) with the second largest being 64K and then 34K.
They can afford the fiber optic placement and Im sure their speeds with be MUCH higher, proving my point.
Many many small cities in the US has fiber optics installed. My point was the US on average as a whole and the major US cities have not updated their network since before the internet was even used by the public. 98% of all US cities still use coaxial cable to transport their bandwidth.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Bulgaria , third worldish eastern european country with obscene levels of corruption and poverty and poor infrastructure.
True unlimited, 12mbit/6mbit adsl for 25bgn a month. About $15us.
Meanwhile I'm paying $79au a month (around 125bgn) for 1.5mbyte with a 25gig cap.
I think i would take the lower internet speed over obscene levels of corruption and poverty and poor infrastructure.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Canada...
Canada, while geographically larger than the States, has far fewer people spread over a much smaller area. Canada has an order of magnitude (10x) fewer people than the US and about 3/4 of them live within 150 KM of the border. A very large proportion of those people live in the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario.
Same principles apply - smaller geographic area to cover means that the costs are relatively cheaper to get upgraded connectivity to a large proportion of the population.
This is true but there are 10x fewer people paying for the costs and the reason for it is not as demanding. Networks in Canada should not be as strained as they are/will be in the high population density areas in the US.
The urban area of New York city alone equals 1/2 Canada's entire population.
Canada should be far above the US or far lower but not just slightly above.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"