The Open Technology Institute (OTI) finds that customers in the U.S. continue to pay higher prices for slower Internet. It examines broadband prices and speeds in 24 cities in the U.S. and abroad. Looking at the price consumers pay for 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) in each city, as well as the speed they can get for $50 in each city, the report finds that Americans in major cities pay higher than average prices for 25 Mbps and get slower than average speeds for $50 when compared to their global peers. Martyn Warwick of telecomtv.com explains:
The US lags much of the rest of the world not as a result of inferior technology but because there just isn’t sufficient competition in the marketplace to force the fat and lazy monopolies and duopolies that dominate the SME and residential broadband internet access sector from their monied torpor. It is a state of affairs that, if not addressed, will have serious long-term economic consequences for US competitiveness.
As Tim Wu, an erstwhile advisor to the US Federal Trade Commission and now a Professor at Columbia Law School, says, “It’s very simple economics The average market [in the US] has one or two serious Internet providers, and they set their prices at monopoly or duopoly pricing.” That’s the basic reason why the US so obviously lags behind so many other countries when it come to Internet speed and affordability. In America it can take 20 time longer to download a film than it does in Hong Kong, London, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo or Zurich and it costs 10 times as much.
Download OTI’s Cost of Connectivity 2014 report.
3 Comments
Rohan Samarajiva
The problem in the heads of people like Warwick is that their world is limited to that of the members of the OECD. The headline includes the terms “more” and “lesser.” They compare the US to some OECD country. LIRNEasia research ( e.g., http://lirneasia.net/2011/03/10479/) has demonstrated that US and Canadian consumers get more Kbps per dollar than consumers in our countries, including Bangladesh.
Let the insular telecom people have their internal debates. Our focus is on the emerging economies.
Rohan Samarajiva
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/technology/europe-shifts-on-priorities-for-telecoms.html?emc=edit_th_20141103&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=9770121&_r=0
Now the other side of the irrelevant-to-us debate.
Adopting AI in Sri Lanka’s public sector with vision & caution: Insights from LIRNEasia’s Merl Chandana at AI Asia Summit ’24
Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant potential to enhance public services and drive innovation within Sri Lanka’s public sector. At the AI Asia Summit 2024 in Colombo, Merl Chandana, Research Manager and head of the Data, Algorithms, and Policy (DAP) team at LIRNEasia, shared insights on how the government can harness AI effectively and responsibly.
Software failures and public funds: Monumental coding errors explained
In the world of technology, programming errors—whether stemming from minor oversights or fundamental misunderstandings—can have catastrophic consequences. From the tragic failure of spacecraft missions to the collapse of critical infrastructures, history is filled with examples where a simple bug or miscalculation triggered massive disasters.
Aswesuma to Prajashakthi: considerations for future social protection programmes
This article was carried in the Daily Mirror on 17 October 2024 on International Eradication of Poverty Day Poverty in Sri Lanka has increased significantly with the onset of COVID-19 and the macroeconomic crisis. LIRNEasia’s national survey in 2023 highlighted that 4 million people fell into poverty between 2019 and 2023, causing 7 million individuals — or 31% of the population — to live in poverty at the time.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
12, Balcombe Place, Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2024 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific