[ NNSquad ] Why does the US lag?

[Barry Gold <BarryDGold@ca.rr.com>]

International measuring groups report that broadband has a smaller 
penetration in the US than in other developed countries, that we often 
pay more for less.

The question is, why?  In principle, the US is the least regulated 
market in this regard.  Not _unregulated_, by any means, but by and 
large our regulators have been less heavy-handed than in Europe or 
Japan.  So, by capitalist theory, we should get the best results.  But 
measured results do not agree.

This is _not_ an automatic indictment of our capitalist system.  Quite 
the contrary, it is a call for a _reasoned_ discussion of the factors 
that affect our performance.  Is it really as abysmal as it looks?  If 
so, why?

Some factors I can think of:

1. The US is a great deal less dense than the EU & Japan.  THis means 
that any form of wired access (TV cable, telephone wires) costs more per 
household here than elsewhere.  I have read that you could fit the 
entire population of the world into California, at the same density as 
Los Angeles (a not-very-dense city compared with NY, Boston, and 
especially Tokyo).

2. Lack of incentive for consumers to adopt broadband: the concept of 
the "local call".  This was adopted early in the US telephone 
regulation, part of AT&T's tradeoff of "universal" service for a 
protected (but regulated) monopoly.  This concept does not exist in 
Europe AFAIK.  Even calling your next-door neighbor costs a few cents a 
minute.  So keeping a dial-up connection to the internet open is cheap 
in the US, expensive in the rest of the world.(*)

3. Lack of a government commitment to connect everybody to the Internet. 
 AFAIK both Japan and many EU countries have spent tax dollars to 
increase broadband penetration.  Economists can argue until doomsday 
about whether this was, overall, a good thing.

4. Something in our regulatory scheme that encourages artificial 
creation of scarcity.

To the extent possible, I would like to see _reasoned_ arguments backed 
up with _facts_.  Speculation, proof by assertion ("Our ISPs create an 
artificial scarcity, I'm sure of it"), circular reasoning, do not 
advance our knowledge.

To quote from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, by R. A. Heinlein:

What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? 
Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars 
foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind 
the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how 
many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are 
your single clue. Get the facts!

(*) This means that people who don't feel a need for videos or large 
images have much less incentive to buy broadband for $30+/month, 
compared with dial-up at $10-15/month.  And, by one of those odd 
paradoxes of life, people who have never used a high-speed connection 
and seen what it can do, simply may not realize what they are missing.

An old friend who moved to Germany visited us in the late 90s, when we 
already had broadband through our cableco.  He's a big space fan, and 
looked at some _huge_ images on the NASA site.  And watched as the image 
filled the screen in about 1 second, filling in almost as fast as he 
could scroll down to look at more of it.  And he swore to get broadband 
as soon as he could.  Without that visit, would he have even known this 
was possible?  And that he really wanted it?