News America in broadband backwater?

"It's ridiculous that the U.S., of all places, is so far behind in this key measure of economic development," - taken str8 from the article.

Connections in the home is not an important indicator economic development. Besides the facts I have already mentioned about the goegraphy of the states, it might actually indicate that in the US people have better options for other things to do and not indicate anything at all about the economy. If its only about entertainment, the whole article is moot. If its about entertainment, I would suspect there are a few things to do to keep the US population entertained. If its about business, then the subject of home connections is just a sideline measurement not an important indicator.

 

balls - look at the cities in this country (and many others).
e.g.: London - the palace, and many museums etc all bring in thousands of people a week bringing millions of pounds of revenue for the businesses that cater for them. So the tourism drives these businesses (including hotels BTW).

 

Way to pull one sentence of the entire article.
The point is that people in other countries, in general (if for home, then also for business, something not difficult to see), have access to higher-bandwidth lines...

You can put the blame on our geography, but then what about NYC? Detroit? Dallas? Phoenix? LA? Why aren't there 100mb connections there? Why aren't there reasonably priced 50mb connections? Or even 20mb? Or 10mb?? not even one TENTH of that which can be found in Tokyo? So what a citizen of Tokyo can get cheap enough to take for granted, businesses in LA have to spend thousands of dollars each month to obtain...

Yeah, that's only about entertainment, you're right. The entire article is completely moot.

 

I pulled that one sentence because the entire article was meant to be proof of that single idea - or else the sentence doesn't belong in the article.

I am not impressed in anyway with Tokyo. It takes two of their average beds pushed together for me to have something I fit on. The people there live in 2x2' boxes. The people there spend 1/2 their day commuting on overcrowded trains and their entire personal life is on their cell phones. I can only imagine that they need some escape.

As for 1/10th, I am of course suspicious of your figures but I am not going to bother digging into them to find out what their flaw is. If you want to think NYC is less prepared than Tokyo for the digital age then fine, please do.

I think you will find almost every thing about Japan to be hype though. I lived there for 4 years and other than a few top companies (e.g. Toyota and Sony), the rest of the country is an organizational nightmare.

Getting a connection run to your unit, getting the service provider to turn the connection on - simple things like this, they can not handle. When I got my cable installed, I was upset it took like a week and 1/2. In Japan do not be surprised if it takes 2 months.

Not to bash Japan, but lord there was always too much hype about the place- esp in the 80's.

Here is an example you might relate to. In doing BIOS development, flashing a BIOS simply and easily is a vital function (to quicken the debugging). Normally with a floppy you can do this in about 1 minute. We have a modern top of the line, Japanese customer (who shall remain nameless), who flashes their BIOS with equipment that must be from the 50's. They have a dedicated staff to do this simple task, and it takes them 20-30minutes for a small BIOS (say 256k).

Obviously if they fire their staff and get new equipment they could do things a lot better / cheaper / faster, but in Japan you just don't fire people. So, they are going to be stuck with this 1950's procedure forever. Never in all of the world have I seen such a backwards advanced country as Japan.

 

How can you question whether 10 is 1/10th of 100? Do you live in another universe? In Tokyo, apparently, I could have a 100mb connection. Here, I cannot even get 10mb without paying every dime I have to the cable company. THUS not even 1/10th of the bandwidth I *could* have is available to me here, or to anyone that I've heard of in larger cities such as NYC or LA.

Be suspicious as you want, but do YOU have a 10mb connection?


And for your company that does things the way they have for decades, you'll find that MANY more companies do this with MANY things. It's just a way the company operates, and of course no one will point it out to the owner, because they don't want to lose their job. You haven't tried contacting the owner to inform him/her of the more effecient method, have you?

 

Um - obviously I was questioning the information you have provided whether the source of the error was you or some article which distorted the facts I do not know. I was not questioning the result of dividing 100 by 10.

So, anyway I haven't been to Tokyo for about a year, but last time I was there, getting a connection was a pain in the rear and near impossible. So tout all the facts and articles you want, I am just telling you what I have seen/felt/delt with in reality.

And as for our Japanese customers, if it were an isolated case I would not have used it for an example. The fact is, with a few exceptions, Japanese society is not use to providing feedback or listning to it. So, if you approach your boss with an improvement you are in fact calling him incompetent not trying to make things better. That's just the way they function, good or bad.

Look at their political system. In the US, the popularity of the government waxes and wains, not so in Japan. If you take a poll or go out on the street, everyone will say they love the government or whatever individual you select. No one says they should do this different or that is aspect is not so good. Because to say even the slightest negative thing is the western equivalent of condemnation. Until one day the government goes too far, then everyone one hates them. There is no smooth transition. The Japanese governments are all wildly popular for 3-6 years and then they have to resign under a flood of scandle.

If you accidently say something that offends the typical Japanese person, they will never mention it. They won't say - wow - that hurts my feelings. They will just leave and never speak to you again.

That's just the way they are raised. I don't seeing that changing overnight. So, if you see some problem, you are suppose to assume it is that way because the boss wants it that way, not that he might have missed something.

Anyway - this customer is a very respectable international company and you probably have a dozen of their products in your home right now (if you have any electronics). So its not some mom and pop operation.

so sure the US is in the backwater go for it.