Cheap, Ultrafast Broadband? Hong Kong Has It..

[ShyWriter]

Cheap, Ultrafast Broadband? Hong Kong Has It

By RANDALL STROSS

Published: March 5, 2011

HONG KONG residents can enjoy astoundingly fast broadband at an astoundingly low price. It became available last year, when a scrappy company called Hong Kong Broadband Network introduced a new option for its fiber-to-the-home service: a speed of 1,000 megabits a second

[goldhound]

Steve i do appreciate the news but i hate it. Here in the hinterland along with millions of others i pay about 40 dollars a month for 3 meg DSL which often comes in at 2.5 ish meg regardless of their claims.

That being said, i would not live in a big city environment for anything. I mean so what if we peons only provide their food, what makes us think we are important?

Wayne

[ShyWriter]

Steve i do appreciate the news but i hate it. Here in the hinterland along with millions of others i pay about 40 dollars a month for 3 meg DSL which often comes in at 2.5 ish meg regardless of their claims.

That being said, i would not live in a big city environment for anything. I mean so what if we peons only provide their food, what makes us think we are important?

Wayne

Tell about it, my friend. VERIZON is big in Tampa, FL, and has FIOS throughout that county which means Time Warner Cable / RoadRunner has competition and also means Tampa users pay about $50 LESS than I do a few counties north of Tampa for the SAME SERVICES. My son-in-law lives in Tampa and gets All the cable packages (Movies/ESPN/Hockey/Etc) plus phone plus internet for much less than I do with just Premium cable (no movie channels or sports), phone and internet. I can't even send a FAX on my phone line; he can.. Same company; competition/no-competition..

Then again; I don't have to fight rush hour traffic to work.. A fair swap, I'd say.. (Retirement doth have a few privileges.. or two..

What you do Wayne is find that bear; tie the end of a big-a&&ed spool of fibre cable to his tail, and get the .22 cal out again.. One shot and you can run your own line through the woods..

Sorry Wayne; the imagery was just too intense..

[goldhound]

Ohhhh ya! The imagery

Our big 4 Canadian providers of telephone, mobile, cable, satellite internet, etc are some of the most profitable companies in north America. Poor devils have a tough time spending it with no competition

Wayne

[noknojon]

Size

Hong Kong is a small-sized island covering 1,095 sq. km (423 sq. miles).

That is about the size of 1 large country town or province - No problems with getting optic fibre cables to cover that size area -

Most of the rest of us still have Copper Telephone wire for our B/Band -

[ShyWriter]

Size

Hong Kong is a small-sized island covering 1,095 sq. km (423 sq. miles).

That is about the size of 1 large country town or province - No problems with getting optic fibre cables to cover that size area -

Most of the rest of us still have Copper Telephone wire for our B/Band -

@John: If VERIZON can do a 100% fibre roll-out in a city as big as Tampa that was either dial-up, ADSL or Road Runner cable when they started, it can be done in 95% of the US. The problem is a company, like the one in Hong Kong, that is willing to eat the losses until the break even point and then profit. A company that already has a built-up infrastructure (Like Time Warner / RR) based on Fibre between nodes but is built out with regular cable the last mile to every customer doesn't care about upgrading - They have too much invested in the older technology.

There is so much DARK cable in this country that using fibre between cities is dirt cheap.. It's that need to invest in all new routers, training, tools, equipment, etc that stops companies already making big profits the old way to chuck it.

A perfect example is High Speed rail.. Because of America's reliance on the old technology (Interstate Highway system), we'll NEVER have what Europe and Asia take for granted; Bullet trains..

I would NEVER want to live or be ANYWHERE else (except maybe up Wayne's way in BC) but America sucks big time when it comes to changing from the old ways of (insert name here)... Hell; here's for-instance - we got to the moon 40 years ago.. and then nowhere.. Now China and other foreign companies own 1/3 of the United States via our enormous debt load so I don't expect we'll ever be leaders again.

*sigh* Sad when one thinks about it.

[noknojon]

that is willing to eat the losses until the break even point and then profit.

There is so much DARK cable in this country that using fibre between cities is dirt cheap..

Pick 5 US companies that are willing to do that Steve on an unknown break even point -

Your platform for the next election - - - -

If VERIZON can do a 100% fibre roll-out in a city as big as Tampa

Then you can only connect to Tampa - As soon as it leaves the city limits Google is only on the old system -

We are only doing a Full Dedicated B/band rollout here , and that took an act of parliament ! ! !

[Relics]

This doesn't qualify as "cheap" by any means, but the packet-filtering crazy folks over at comcast are willing to offer you 105Mb/s if you can afford it.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/26/comcast-to-offer-extreme-105mbps-broadband-package-starting-in-j/

There has been much talk about data caps, net-neutrality, etc related to comcast and this service (and there other "high"-end bandwidth services) which probably make it a a weak offering.