Average U.S. Upstream Speed: 371kbps - CWA offers updated speed data, state by state
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Average U.S. Upstream Speed: 371kbps
CWA offers updated speed data, state by state
(old news - 05:37PM Monday Jun 25 2007)
tags: business · bandwidth · stats
The Communications Workers of America organization has been directing users to their Speed Matters blog in order to test their Internet speeds. As the LA Times and ComputerWorld explore, the CWA has released a more comprehensive report (pdf) and interactive map exploring the average upstream and downstream speeds from state to state.
Click for full size

According to the CWA's data, the average broadband download speed in the U.S. is only 1.9 megabits per second, compared to 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, 17 Mbps in France and 7 Mbps in Canada. The average upstream speed in the United States sits around 371kbps.

The union, obviously concerned with increased deployment (more jobs, more members) is putting its support behind the the Broadband Census of America Act -- a newly proposed bill that aims to improve the mapping of broadband penetration, while increasing the FCC's minimum official broadband watermark from 256kbps to 2Mbps.

Related:
  1. Friday Evening Links
  2. Global Broadband Prices Plummet
  3. Backbone Analysis Puts Exaflood Myth To Bed
  4. PC Mag Ranks ISPs By Browsing Speed
  5. Once More With Feeling: There Is No Exaflood
  6. Wednesday Evening Links
  7. WildBlue Passes 400,000 Customers
  8. Sandvine: P2P Now Just 20% Of Internet Use
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ColorBASIC @ 25th Jun 04:35PM:
Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Speedtest.net which has speed test host members all over the world says differently in terms of global averages. Japan for example is only averaging 10Mb locally.

»www.speedtest.net/global.php

While some Tokyo highrises have 100Mb service, the average people (and companies) are actually seeing across Japan is NO WHERE near 60Mb.
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phills_suck @ 25th Jun 04:41PM:
Speeds

I live in the green area...but then again this is fios vs comcrap territory. I do get great speeds with comcrap though and with powerboost up/down its not to shabby.
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Pashune @ 25th Jun 04:42PM:
They're right about where I live... =/

I'm in the yellow area (south MS), and they couldn't be anymore right. My cable ISP fails to offer speeds anywhere above 5 mbps...considering 5 mbps is insanely expensive in this area anyway. CableOne needs to go in a fire and die, I'm sorry. Comcast or Time Warner...please take over this area. Oh, and Charter...go die in a fire too. :D

1.5 mbps DSL is all that's available in my area. It's either that, or go with expensive CableOne.
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MrMoody @ 25th Jun 04:43PM:
France?!

We're being beaten by France, a country where most people don't even have air conditioning?
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TKJunkMail @ 25th Jun 04:48PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by ColorBASIC :

Speedtest.net which has speed test host members all over the world says differently in terms of global averages. Japan for example is only averaging 10Mb locally.

»www.speedtest.net/global.php

While some Tokyo highrises have 100Mb service, the average people (and companies) are actually seeing across Japan is NO WHERE near 60Mb.
Reports( »www.itif.org/files/BroadbandRankings.pdf ) like these have an agenda. Make the US look worse than actual and make other countries better than actual. The people who developed this report( »www.innovationpolicy.org/index.php?s=board ) are lobbyists and the Board is controlled by 2 ex-congresspersons. They create a report and then go lobby Congress to spend HUGE dollars to remedy the solution.

So 2 questions arise:
Who is paying for their research and provides their funds?
CWA

Who benefits if the Congress decides to lay out a lot of money to fund infrastructure?
CWA
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Vamp @ 25th Jun 04:50PM:
Re: France?!

Yeah this is a load of bullshit..

Square mile my ass, we are completely equal to them countries in workers:square mile ratio, there is no excuses for our lacking in broadband.

--
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Rob @ 25th Jun 04:56PM:
Re: France?!

said by MrMoody :

We're being beaten by France, a country where most people don't even have air conditioning?
That article is from 2003. And most places in Europe don't have central A/C.
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 04:58PM:
And we need more speed for??

Torrents? Warez?

People think obtaining faster speeds will drastically change their lives :uhh: It won't make hair on your chest grow any faster, a porsche will not magically show up in your driveway, you wont get 30 headshots or 30 knife kills in a single match of CS....
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johnh123 @ 25th Jun 04:59PM:
Re: France?!

said by Vamp :

Square mile my ass, we are completely equal to them countries in workers:square mile ratio, there is no excuses for our lacking in broadband.

We don't need excuses because we aren't lacking in broadband speeds. As the earlier poster said, checkout speedtest.net
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Pashune @ 25th Jun 05:02PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

said by ninjatutle :

Torrents? Warez?

People think obtaining faster speeds will drastically change their lives :uhh: It won't make hair on your chest grow any faster, a porsche will not magically show up in your driveway, you wont get 30 headshots or 30 knife kills in a single match of CS....
o.o No. But it will eliminate lag when I'm watching unlicensed animes in Stage6...

_ *anime-fanatic/geek*

D: 3 mbps is all I ask for...and I'm stuck with a lame 1.5 mbps..which is 1.2 mbps when you add IP overhead...
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Vertickle @ 25th Jun 05:02PM:
Re: They're right about where I live... =/

Ditto... :(
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lrtc @ 25th Jun 05:06PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

Speed does make a difference. Who the hell wants to wait hours for porn to download. Stuff like that you need as soon as possible.
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 05:14PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

Just get the PB channel :D :D
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Pashune @ 25th Jun 05:17PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

said by ninjatutle :

Just get the PB channel :D :D
Well said. :p
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Vamp @ 25th Jun 05:20PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

said by ninjatutle :

Just get the PB channel :D :D
Those channels are softcore garbage.

youporn ftw :D
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LegoPower77 @ 25th Jun 05:24PM:
Policy trade offs

Apropos that ColorBasic was the first to post on this topic because recently we concluded a thread where we touched on government action in the broadband market in regards to ala carte pricing.

There is philosophical crossover with these issues, mutatis mutandis, because my original point was that ala carte was not the "efficient" way to do it otherwise the cablecos would already be doing it; and likewise, there are many reasons why broadband speeds are so slow in the United States (I maintain that population density is the main reason why), but in both cases government direction isn't all pluses.

Just to reiterate, I'm not saying no regulatory scheme should be in place (though I'd like to see more serious consideration of that idea), just that there are relative trade-offs. Mr. Basic made good points when s/he points out that the current government-created regional monopoly would allow for the government to tell the company how to price its product. I suppose under the same umbrella it's fair to say the government move to bring faster speeds.

The proverbial fly in the ointment is, of course, the stifling of innovation that comes with regulation.

All regulatory schemes in one way or another make the market more stable for the incumbent. Most involve a "rate of return" (RoR) the company is guaranteed. This guarantee means the company no longer has to put emphasis on cutting edge technology. In fact, the accounting works such that, in the electricity industry for example, because the RoR is guaranteed, they phase out their old equipment slower making for less-efficient production (old equipment=less efficient equipment).

You can see how the same would be true for the broadband industry. In fact, in light of this, it can be said that some CWA-backed regulatory regime is exactly contraindicated. Of all the fields to try to funnel through bureaucrats' minds. . .

At the World Economic Forum on the Middle East conference this spring, one speaker said “We must do more to promote failure . . . In Silicon Valley, failure is a badge of experience.” You fall on your face a couple of times — or eight times — and eventually you get it right. Failure is indispensable to entrepreneurship, to experimentation, to economic flourishing. Government intervention prevents failure making us safe and stable, but never pushing the edge.
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lrtc @ 25th Jun 05:27PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

PB channel is to softcore plus there is better selection when dling, say I was in the mood for GonG with PB I'm forced to watch amateurs or whatever they have playing. I'm not looking for quantity I'm looking for quality.
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anon @ 25th Jun 06:52PM:
Re: France?!

France regulatory authority has forced the local monopoly to unbundle its last mile, hence the surge in speeds and decrease in prices. In France like anywhere else, more competition means better services for less money. Duh!
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netwire @ 25th Jun 05:41PM:
I'm in the yellow...

I'm in the yellow area too, but I get 28.8k... no such thing as broadband in my neck of the woods.
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anon @ 25th Jun 05:57PM:
CWA is comparing apples and oranges

The "international comparison" that they're using uses the geographical average of the fastest advertised speed in an area, whereas their "Speed Matters" speed test rankings use the actual speed people have.

So, for example, Fairfax, VA has 30 Mbps download speed FIOS available in the area, and under the procedure used in the international comparison, the entire area would measure at 30 Mbps. However, their actual measured data shows a lot of people with slower connections in the area, because plenty of people actually sign up for cheaper, slower plans, including 768k DSL.

Also, the use of advertised speeds instead of actual speeds can cause some significant differences, particularly in comparing the US and Canada, both with very strong DOCSIS cable modem presence.
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anon @ 25th Jun 06:54PM:
Re: They're right about where I live... =/

Ah, but the international comparison your area would be measured at 5mbps, since that's the highest advertised speed.

This data looks like it might be a decent measure of actual speeds (though it's not a random selection of people who participate, of course), but the international comparison is worthless.
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Fox McCloud @ 25th Jun 06:04PM:
Re: I'm in the yellow...

of all places, why is there a large area in Montana listed as "greater than 7 mbps"?

Also, there's an extremely small dot of green that's south of Columbus (definitely out of the city limits, and not in the surburbs) that's listed as 7 mbps...this doesn't make much sense either.

Also, I know for a fact that there's quite a few areas in Ohio now that have 15,000k/768k from Roadrunner.

This whole "report" is complete bullcrap.
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nasadude @ 25th Jun 06:06PM:
forget about speed, how about coverage

the real story of U.S. broadband isn't about speed, it's about coverage.

the FCC statistics are so bad, nobody has any idea what kind of coverage exists in the U.S. (one connection in a zip code = coverage for whole zip - get real)

make no mistake: the incumbents don't give a crap if there is universal coverage or not; this is not in their business plan. Their goal is to make money for their shareholders, not offer service to every household in their territory.

furthermore, because of the near total lack of competition, they don't care if you have good service either. If you are not going to make them the money they want to make, you will not be served.

as long as we have the current set up, there will be no universal service and higher speeds will come very slowly. If something isn't done to increase competition, U.S. broadband will slowly but surely, over the next several years, become at best 2nd rate and potentially third rate when compared to the leaders in the world.

if you've got good speeds now, you're lucky; if not, don't hold your breath as it may be a long time coming.

just remember: THE INCUMBENTS DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOU.
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TigerLord @ 25th Jun 06:18PM:
Re: France?!

Do your research a little better and you will find why most of us don't have A/C and why it's a luxury.

We pay around 0,17€/kW for electricity here, and my A/C machine uses ~2,4kW per hour. So leaving it on only for 8 hours a day still costs me about 100€ (about 130$US) in electricity cost per month to keep it running... leaving it on 24/7 would cost me around 360$US a month just for the A/C. Remember that I live in a 1 1/2 apartment and have a relatively small and economical machine, houses who have central A/C pay anywhere from 400-700EUR per month to have A/C on.

Re-evaluate that statement now !
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ColorBASIC @ 25th Jun 06:29PM:
Re: Policy trade offs

There's a difference between which is more efficient and which is more profitable. Cable companies don't do a la carte because it is less profitable for THEM, not because it's inefficient. It is about what makes money, not what is easy.

You will never have 100% BB deployment because rural residents aren't willing to pay their share of the deployment costs. Where deployment costs can be recouped in a resonable time, providers are deploying.

These providers aren't a charity and people should consider broadband availability when they choose where to live just as they choose where to live based on quality of schools, closeness to shopping and work etc.

IOW, people shouldn't move next to an airport and THEN bitch about the noise.
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 06:29PM:
Re: France?!

Do you have a washing machine in your kitchen too?
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TigerLord @ 25th Jun 06:32PM:
Re: France?!

I'm afraid not :)
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 06:33PM:
Re: France?!

Why do European homes have that? I always see it in the kitchen under the counter or in the bathroom.
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Time4aNAP @ 25th Jun 06:36PM:
Re: France?!

said by Rob :

...And most places in Europe don't have central A/C.
Americans tend to forget that Europeans still inhabit dwellings that were constructed hundreds, even thousands of years ago. It's often difficult to fit air conditioning to buildings that were designed before electricity was a utility. And France's climate isn't often that severe.

Chicago suffered a record number of heat-related deaths not too long ago, and its broadband options suck. Wha's the excuse for that?
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Tzale @ 25th Jun 06:38PM:
Re: France?!

said by TigerLord :

Do your research a little better and you will find why most of us don't have A/C and why it's a luxury.

We pay around 0,17€/kW for electricity here, and my A/C machine uses ~2,4kW per hour. So leaving it on only for 8 hours a day still costs me about 100€ (about 130$US) in electricity cost per month to keep it running... leaving it on 24/7 would cost me around 360$US a month just for the A/C. Remember that I live in a 1 1/2 apartment and have a relatively small and economical machine, houses who have central A/C pay anywhere from 400-700EUR per month to have A/C on.

Re-evaluate that statement now !
Thank God my ancestors decided to move to America.

-Tzale
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TigerLord @ 25th Jun 06:40PM:
Re: France?!

Picture? Dishwasher isn't a luxury like A/C is, the fact I don't have one (simply don't need it) doesn't reflect anything, I had one when I lived in Germany.
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TigerLord @ 25th Jun 06:40PM:
Re: France?!

Coming back home in Montreal in August after three years over here - rent will be twice as cheap, double the space :D
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Time4aNAP @ 25th Jun 06:41PM:
Re: France?!

said by TigerLord :

We pay around 0,17€/kW for electricity here...
Well, all you have to do is rip up your lovely countryside, find some nice, dirty coal, and burn that for electricity. Problem solved! For the near-term, that is...
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Time4aNAP @ 25th Jun 06:45PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

said by ninjatutle :

It won't make hair on your chest grow any faster, a porsche will not magically show up in your driveway, you wont get 30 headshots or 30 knife kills in a single match of CS...
You can't say that unless you've tried it. For all you know, it could do all of those things. All the more reason to have it! ;)
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Time4aNAP @ 25th Jun 06:52PM:
Re: forget about speed, how about coverage

said by nasadude :

the [sic] FCC statistics are so bad, nobody has any idea what kind of coverage exists in the U.S. (one connection in a zip code = coverage for whole zip - get real)
Well...since you can set up a VSAT anywhere in the CONUS, technically we have 100% coverage. :huh:

just remember: THE INCUMBENTS DON'T GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOU.
Not even on Election Day? Oh, wrong incumbents...
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jester121 @ 25th Jun 06:56PM:
Re: France?!

We have the Cubs.
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 06:57PM:
Re: France?!

No, I'm talking about a clothes washing machine in the kitchen. Everytime I see a European house on tv, there's alway washing machine installed in the kitchen.

»www.exclusively-cyprus.com/prope···hen1.jpg
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Rob @ 25th Jun 06:57PM:
Re: France?!

said by TigerLord :

Do your research a little better and you will find why most of us don't have A/C and why it's a luxury.

We pay around 0,17€/kW for electricity here, and my A/C machine uses ~2,4kW per hour. So leaving it on only for 8 hours a day still costs me about 100€ (about 130$US) in electricity cost per month to keep it running... leaving it on 24/7 would cost me around 360$US a month just for the A/C. Remember that I live in a 1 1/2 apartment and have a relatively small and economical machine, houses who have central A/C pay anywhere from 400-700EUR per month to have A/C on.

Re-evaluate that statement now !
I wasn't putting Europe down. I'm European. It's the ignorant America who don't know how the rest of the world operates.
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DustinR @ 25th Jun 07:05PM:
Re: France?!

They charge you by the kilowatt not by the kilowatt hour in Europe?? Man you guys over there really get ripped off buying gas in liters and getting charged by the kw. What a load of crap.
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DustinR @ 25th Jun 07:10PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

After I got off of 56k and onto broadband I realized something. When I click on something to download I want it now damnit not 5 mins from now. So untill I can download entire dvds in 5 seconds I wont be happy. And after that I would still want something faster.
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TigerLord @ 25th Jun 07:11PM:
Re: France?!

My response was aiming at MrMoody , my bad ! Guess as a mod I should know better by now, huh ? It's Justin's fault :D

What's the difference between kW/h and kW ???
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bmn @ 25th Jun 07:17PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

I could do my job faster... Although, considering we bill by the hour, that might not be such a good thing. :o
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Rob @ 25th Jun 07:18PM:
Re: France?!

said by TigerLord :

My response was aiming at MrMoody , my bad ! Guess as a mod I should know better by now, huh ? It's Justin's fault :D

What's the difference between kW/h and kW ???
What is the difference between kW/h and kW and how much do they cost?

* kW/h is the measurement unit of energy consumption and it is equivalent to one kW of absorbed power during one hour.
* kW is the measurement unit of the absorbed power.

For example: A light bulb of 0.1kW (100 W) power used for 10 hours will result in a 1kW/h consumption to be billed.
KW/h price depends on the client’s rate.

»www.luzdelsur.com.pe/english/faq/faq07.htm
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Time4aNAP @ 25th Jun 07:21PM:
Re: Policy trade offs

said by LegoPower77 :

The proverbial fly in the ointment is, of course, the stifling of innovation that comes with regulation.
That kind of political rhetoric might have sold well in 1980, but after witnessing what a quarter century of deregulation hasn't gotten us, I'm not buying.

The fact of the matter is that American industry was second to none when it was regulated to protect the consumer. Regulation didn't stifle anything. The transistor, the laser, the integrated circuit and many other innovations flourished under government regulation. What innovations have come from deregulation?

Whining about regulation allegedly stifling innovation is nothing more than misdirection from reactionaries who have no intentions of innovation.
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Scree @ 25th Jun 07:22PM:
Re: France?!

I guess uncomfortable and having a few extra bucks outweighs being comfortable and unable to, what, eat 7 days a week? Is it that extreme? LOL
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Time4aNAP @ 25th Jun 07:27PM:
Re: Policy trade offs

said by ColorBASIC :

...people should consider broadband availability when they choose where to live...
So those people who live in underserved areas, both urban and rural, chose to be born into poverty? :uhh:
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PolarBear @ 25th Jun 07:40PM:
512k!

Woo hoo, I have 512k upload!

Unfortunately, I have 512k download as well.
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viperlmw @ 25th Jun 07:50PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

said by lrtc :

PB channel is to softcore plus there is better selection when dling, say I was in the mood for GonG with PB I'm forced to watch amateurs or whatever they have playing. I'm not looking for quantity I'm looking for quality.
PBTV goes hard late at night. DTV w/TIVO to the rescue!
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anon @ 25th Jun 08:12PM:
Re: Policy trade offs

It's all about being pragmatic. Countries, like France and Japan, who have forced unbundling of the last mile through regulation have seen competition flourish and hence, better broadband for everyone.
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John Galt @ 25th Jun 08:20PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

We should stop deploying or improving broadband so that the Unions will not be able to accomplish the nefarious goals of their fiendish plot.

Bastards!

::rolls eyes::

/sarcasm
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John Galt @ 25th Jun 08:30PM:
Re: France?!

You'll have to excuse them, TigerLord...they're Ugly Americans.
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moko @ 25th Jun 08:50PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

that was smart tch.....i agree with you on this...its a manipulitive way for them to make money using lies....and trying to push the "pride" buttons of a government....in this case ....ours :D
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spg @ 25th Jun 09:03PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Okay then. There we have it! We will oppose raising internet speeds just because the union for the telephone workers want more work for their members!

Let's all get slower speed packages until that union is destroyed!!!

Good grief. Give me a break. You folks want more bandwidth, but you don't want people earning decent wages to provide it.

Would slave labor be better?
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anon @ 25th Jun 09:34PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

well here in qwest territory the fastest they offer here where I am at is 256/256 so I would not doubt that they are telling the truth about speeds
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TKJunkMail @ 25th Jun 09:28PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by spg :

Okay then. There we have it! We will oppose raising internet speeds just because the union for the telephone workers want more work for their members!

Let's all get slower speed packages until that union is destroyed!!!

Good grief. Give me a break. You folks want more bandwidth, but you don't want people earning decent wages to provide it.

Would slave labor be better?
The average CWA member at Verizon made $53,000/yr in 2003 and their contract called for a 10.6% increase over the next 4 yrs and has fully paid by the company health benefits.

Sure sounds like slave wages to me./sarcasm
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Neyland @ 25th Jun 09:46PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Yea this report in its bias is soooo much different than the reports paid for by Bellsouth, At&T, the Cable Industry, Verizon, or any other group. It's simply more of the same from the other side.

Perhaps it really is best to have all ISPs provide the areas of coverage and levels of service.
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p51d007 @ 25th Jun 10:01PM:
Considering the size of Japan

I'm surprised they don't have a higher speed.
If the USA were the size of Japan, perhaps our download speed
would be as high. I love all these so called "USA is behind"
stories. Look at the geographic area of the USA, and then compare that with South Korea, Japan, Sweden etc....if their
land masses were the size of the USA, they wouldn't have the penetration of broadband like they do now.
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John Galt @ 25th Jun 10:01PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by TKJunkMail :

The average CWA member at Verizon made $53,000/yr in 2003 and their contract called for a 10.6% increase over the next 4 yrs and has fully paid by the company health benefits.
The poorly educated and technically unskilled will always complain about how much money someone else makes rather than do anything to increase their own skill set.
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CableConvert @ 25th Jun 10:58PM:
Guess I dont do too bad...

...by their tests. Guess Comcast aint so bad, huh
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dadkins @ 25th Jun 11:09PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

*I* wish to upload my backups in a more timely manner.

Sending 9-12GB over a 768k upload is... a drag.

YOU may not see any use in higher speeds, but some of us do have legit needs for higher Upload speeds.
--
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DaBavarian @ 25th Jun 11:25PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

I agree....people cry all the time that they hate talking to people from India, but then the cry about actually paying someone in USA to do the work. Blah blah blah.
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 11:25PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

The amount of data being uploaded could be cut back if you didnt include all the illegal movies and songs you downloaded. I'm sure there are programs that will do incremental backups and exclude certain folders.
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DaBavarian @ 25th Jun 11:27PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

If reports like these actually bring out positive things like real broadband deployment...all the power to it.
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dadkins @ 25th Jun 11:31PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

Grow up ninja!
My backups are C drive only.
Programs/porn/and whatever else on the Data drive is replaceable.

:uhh:

Bet I could find a few non-kosher items on your machine... LOL!
--
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jc100 @ 25th Jun 11:41PM:
The Truth

People here do not think for a second. If you hate unions so much, then I hope you are willing to trade everything you cherish about your job. Most jobs are unionized and only have the luxuries as a result of them. Try looking back at America just one century ago. Work weeks were 7 days. There were no holidays or paid vacation. Sick time meant cutting off your arm and being fired. If you died, tough luck to your family. There were no causes of liabilities. Children worked in mines and were expected to carry their weight as equally as an adult. Don't believe me? Go look up the statistics of children employed around 1900. I think if i recall it was someone around two million. »www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAchild.htm

Likewise, try reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. People were shredded in meat packing plants and the food still served. Conditions were atrocious.

Fast Forward to the future. We now have unions that have gotten us five day a week work hours. We now have many jobs that pay decent living wages to people who have them. These jobs provide health care to the individuals. Best of all, these jobs are in America. So before you moan about how much these people make, try thinking for one second the skill they must have to perform them. Teachers are a great example. A teacher starting out with 6 years of education in Ohio (BA. + MA) will make 35-40,000 a year. Yet, someone else in a different field with the same education will make much more. While some jobs are still underpaid to skill (Like Teachers), there are many that paying appropriately. Sadly, it's people like TCH without a real clue on life that make some asinine remarks a. What do you recommend we pay them? How about work you to death and pay you 7.25 / HR. You know, why not? Your statement seems to say people with training and skill deserve the least possible salary.

As for who is behind this report, well it does play a role. Still, what they are advocating isn't bad. Why shouldn't these companies provide more? Our cities are just as dense if not more than many of those with 10+mbit. Check outour population density on Wikipedia and compare it to Seoul and other major cities. You'll see its right on par. The excuse major areas of the U.S. are not as dense as those others is a LIE and an EXCUSE. Hate to break it to you, we are about the same and more in spots. Go justify that one. It's the shills and lobbyists at the Teclos though that'd have you believe otherwise. For once, I am all for holding them up to providing more speed for my money!
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ninjatutle @ 25th Jun 11:43PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

If the data items are irreplaceable, why don't you have a realtime backup? A mapped drive that is at a remote locale. Or set your backups to do a daily backup during the middle of the night.
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59126125 @ 26th Jun 12:31AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Making middle class wages and actually having insurance? The problem with that is?
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Steve Mehs @ 26th Jun 02:05AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

The map shows my area as a mix between red and yellow. I actually had broadband for only three years now, but the past two have been 8Mb or higher.
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cork1958 @ 26th Jun 05:21AM:
unions

I can't comment on this as I work in a union shop, but, personally, I think unions suck and prevent the company from doing their job in a timely matter, big time! Just to mention one thing.

Darn! I commented, didn't I?
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KrK @ 26th Jun 05:41AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by 59126125 :

Making middle class wages and actually having insurance? The problem with that is?
Because it goes against the modern Corporate mantra!

These days employees should work long hard hours and be paid a pittance. Hell, they are lucky these generous companies even hire them, they should donate most their work for free out of gratitude!
--
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marigolds @ 26th Jun 06:39AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by TKJunkMail :

The average CWA member at Verizon made $53,000/yr in 2003 and their contract called for a 10.6% increase over the next 4 yrs and has fully paid by the company health benefits.
That's 2.55% annual. That's not very much. And I thought reducing health benefits was one of the concessions Verizon received in the last contract...?

$53k does not even seem like much considering the average experience level... but it is still definitely not slave labor.
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reply
FiL @ 26th Jun 07:46AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Thats some tin-foilin' if I ever seen it. Why is it that when your Fatherlan, err, homeland gets criticized, and rightfuly so, your conspiracies come out? Easy fix; take the extreme WHATEVERs stats, and the other extreme WHATEVERs stats, and extract a median average...

Stats are stats brah.:)
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FiL @ 26th Jun 07:49AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

lol, exactly my sentiments...slave labor, slave labor, slave labor for all! Again...! For the 3rd time!

Makes me sick...These guys get paid the bare minimum to live out the aMurrrikan dream if those stats are correct tch...
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FiL @ 26th Jun 07:54AM:
Re: France?!

lol, but your ignorant to the fact that European's get paid lotttttts more on average then Pilgrims...
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FiL @ 26th Jun 07:59AM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

sure 'kin knows that. But then again, the rem. locale could be 1000's of miles away hence the need for faster UL's. But eff all that, Im streaming hunnid's upon hunnid's of vids via a couple links. uh i gotta go. holla!
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ninjatutle @ 26th Jun 08:04AM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

Word?
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TKJunkMail @ 26th Jun 09:16AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by FiL :

take the extreme WHATEVERs stats, and the other extreme WHATEVERs stats, and extract a median average...

Stats are stats brah.:)
They came from the CWA web site announcing the contract.
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jc100 @ 26th Jun 09:36AM:
Re: unions

Unions might be a bit greedy these days bud, but you sure to hell don't want to be without one. If you enjoy job security and the above benefits, then you overlooked the bad. Nothing is perfect and trust me, unions aren't. They often ask for more than they deserve at times and get a bit pissy. However, the alternative to no unions are that labor becomes cheap again, people get no benefits, and you are worked a lot harder for a lot less. Therefore, I wouldn't trade union labor for anything. Life today is much better than it was 100 years ago before they existed.
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JE @ 26th Jun 12:27PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by John Galt :

said by TKJunkMail :

The average CWA member at Verizon made $53,000/yr in 2003 and their contract called for a 10.6% increase over the next 4 yrs and has fully paid by the company health benefits.
The poorly educated and technically unskilled will always complain about how much money someone else makes rather than do anything to increase their own skill set.
That sure sounds like SARCASM to me! U know nothing about this guy or how much he makes in his life or what he does.
$53,000 is decent for any low budget bum like a telephone company worker.
No one told them to go buy a house, get some hooker pregnant, then marry her, and have 12 more kids to feed. Buy 2 LUXURY cars, and then refuse to pay the bills when they get out of control. Come on, Americans can do things to control their own, but the average bum just sits on sites like this and all they do is talk and talk about improvement.

HELL, WE ALREADY KNOW THIS REPORT IS NOT 100% TRUE! Shut this down already!

JE :)
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Endgame @ 26th Jun 02:40PM:
I'm below the U.S. average then thanks to at&t

I can only get 384k sync (325k actual) through at&t dsl so i guess I'm below the U.S.average then. The only thing that will fix that is Uverse which will never come cause I live in an apartment. :( AT&T needs to install more RT's if they want more business.
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anon @ 26th Jun 06:18PM:
The ITIF report that CWA uses gives US avg as 4.8mps

said by FiL :

Stats are stats brah.:)
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They're comparing apples and oranges in the international comparisons. Their report, linked off the story, references this report:
»www.itif.org/files/BroadbandRankings.pdf

From page 3 of that report:
However, measuring speed is not as
straightforward as penetration because national
networks are normally composed of connections
of widely varying speeds. We calculate average
download speeds based on OECD data that
compiles the advertised speeds offered by
several major broadband providers in each
country. The OECD gathered this data from
national providers wherever possible.


Note that Table 1, on page 4 of that report, the very source for the 61.0 Mbps number for Japan, the 45.6 Mbps number for South Korea, the 7.6 Mbps number for Canada and all the others, gives a number for the US. That number for the USA is 4.8 Mbps download.

Now, there are good reasons to think that the CWA speed test numbers may be more accurate for the speeds people actually have, as opposed to the fastest advertised hypothetical claims. But you can't compare the US numbers from actual speed surveys to non-US numbers from fastest advertised speeds.
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anon @ 26th Jun 04:54PM:
The CWA is blatantly dishonest here

They get their international average download speeds, according to their report, from this ITIF study:
»www.itif.org/files/BroadbandRankings.pdf

That's the one that gives the averages of 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, 17 Mbps in France and 7 Mbps in Canada. But that same report gives a value for the USA, of 4.8 Mbps, not 1.9 Mbps. (See Table 1, on page 4.)

What's the difference? Well, the ITIF report is based on advertised speeds from major vendors, geographically averaged. From page three of the report, they say:
However, measuring speed is not as straightforward as penetration because national networks are normally composed of connections of widely varying speeds. We calculate average download speeds based on OECD data that compiles the advertised speeds offered by several major broadband providers in each country. The OECD gathered this data from national providers wherever possible.


This is obviously a source of bias. Not everyone who has broadband has the highest advertised speed. Plenty of people have 768k DSL even when 5 Mbps cable is advertised in their area, for example.

The CWA numbers have their own set of bias (people with slow connections might be more willing to take the Speed Matters test), but might be more accurate. However, it's completely unjustified to compare speed test numbers for the US to advertised speeds everywhere else. Particularly when the source of the international numbers gives a US number itself, more double that of the CWA number. Speed test derived numbers for other countries might indeed be slower-- as international speed test results do seem to show.
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anon @ 26th Jun 07:13PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

You do realize that you are paying for that salary through your bill, right?

Regardless of the cost of labor, unions are businesses in themselves. They make their money by legally extorting it from other businesses, but regardless of how they make their money, this bill is meant by no means to benefit this union's members. It is meant to benefit the union, namely the wallets of those running it, as if telecommunicatons companies had more broadband customers, they would need more employees and if they need more employees, those new employees (who will likely be coercised into joining the union should they refuse upon the first offer) will pay union dues, which increases union revenues, making those running the union wealther as they will have more money in the union treasury that can be lost due to things that will be said to be "overhead."

By the way, if companies did not pay enough for workers to earn a living, their workers would quit. Imagine how long a company will last if it announced that it will begin paying all of its employees a salary of $1 a year. The market determines how much people are paid; unions attempt to manipulate that to earn money, like all businesses in their position would.
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59126125 @ 26th Jun 07:45PM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Actually, the Unions in general determine the wage level. Even if you are not a Union member, you still benefit from the work they do. Unions set the bar for wages in all industries.

You actually think that if the market is good, companies would generously give the employees a fat raise? That's funny.

It would be in the best interest of all workers for the Unions to have more members and a stronger influence. Unions are not perfect like everything else, but they are about the only way for the little guy to demand a decent living in exchange for making a corporation millions.
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KrK @ 27th Jun 02:54AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

said by AnonymousPerson :

You do realize that you are paying for that salary through your bill, right?
I think the CEO's compensation and retirement package cost me more on my bill then 1000 CWA workers do....

Unions do not extort money from other businesses. They leverage their member's labor value to gain more return for the workers.
--
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reply
nozzer @ 27th Jun 06:06PM:
Re: France?!

Not so much because of electricity prices - but more to do with the fact that the summer climate in central europe is nothing like as brutal (humidity wise) as it is in much of the US. New York is at the same latitude as Rome, which is pretty far south, and much of western europe gets ocean currents from the Atlantic, the same way OR/WA does from the Pacific.
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LegoPower77 @ 28th Jun 03:10AM:
Re: Policy trade offs

Your mention of the 80s reminded me of Ronald Reagan saying something to the effect that the problem with leftists isn't that they're wrong it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

But let's go past the one-liners and look at your claims.

The first instance of federal regulation was the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act (ICA) that imposed regulations on the railroad industry.

The ICA, which created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), was the product of a compromise between the shipping industry, who got all sorts of price controls imposed on the railroads, and railroad interests, who got a government-enforced cartel.

In 1965, historian Gabrial Kolko and economist Paul MacAvoy independently published papers, one at Princeton the other at MIT, that showed the effect of the ICA was to stabilize the railroad cartels, eliminate price wars, and increase average rates.

Of course, when the 1890 Sherman Anti-trust Act attempted to prevent the very collusion the railroad industry was engaged in, the ICC's response was to expand and entrench their enforcement powers.

The ICA expanded twice in the 30s to include the trucking industry and the airline industry. In both cases barriers to entry were raised, competition eliminated, and prices kept relatively high. Indeed the empirical data of the last quarter century show that after the airline and trucking industries were deregulated, prices dropped drastically. Go to the local university libray and you will find a legion of articles supporting this statement.

Conversely, an empirical study of regulation in the electric industry shows that the states that were first to adopt regulations had increases in prices relative to states that were late-adopters. (George Stigler and Claire Friedland, "What Can Regulators Regulate? The Case of Electricity," Journal of Law and Economics [Oct. 1963].)

And so it goes time and again, in industry after industry. The acceptance of the use of government regulation as a method of social control engenders a struggle for control of the political and regulatory process. Everybody jokes about crooked politicians but then turn to them first when they are afraid of businessmen taking advantage of them. As my colleague once said, I'd rather the market be controlled by businessmen who, after all, can't force me to buy their products, than it be controlled by the government through force.

Firms operating under regulation are less motivated to control costs than they would be in a competitive market and they do not abandon their older, inefficient facilities as readily.

If an industry is unregulated, when there are rapid technological advances, the old facilities become obsolete before their historical cost is fully depreciated. Firms abandon obsolete facilities sooner than if there had been no advancement.

That said, it is not just the control of prices that concerns me about regulation, but the impact regulation usually has on the discovery process which is part and parcel of the unregulated market. Even if we come to the conclusion that the current market outcome is not what we want, it does not follow that intervention—even successful intervention—is the proper course of action. In a free market, the problems that we see often generate, through discovery and correction, an outcome that is superior to that of interventionism.

In this light, intervention is not only an imperfect substitute for the spontaneous market process, but it could also serve to impede the finding of a solution that may not even have been thought of by the government. Besides all that, intervention might just generate new market adjustments that give us an outcome more inferior than that of the first, unregulated one (the law of unintended consequences).

There are four aspects in which government intervention is inferior to the free market:

The demand for regulation is often based on the assumption that not only undesirable conditions are because of lack of regulation, but also that the market cannot be trusted to correct the situation in the future. Also, the assumption is made that there exists a better market structure and that the free market just has not, or will not accomplish it.

These assumptions are based on two misunderstandings of the market discovery process, i.e., the failure to understand that the market may have already discovered what is worth discovering (so what appears to be inefficient can be explained if the regulators had all the information the market has already discovered and taken advantage of), and the idea that unsatisfactory conditions will remain unless the government takes action. If one sees that true inefficiencies can be counted on to create the market process for their own correction, the demand for regulation diminishes.

Now, your claim that without regulation none of those wonderful things you mention would have come into being is an example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. The fact is we simply don't know what or how fast things would have been discovered in the absence of regulation.

Again, I'm not saying that in no case should there be regulatory action (indeed, the electric industry prior to regulation did have franchise agreements with the local governments, but the barriers to entry were kept low), I just want people to understand there are serious negatives when we use the force of government to correct perceived market failures.
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reply
Time4aNAP @ 29th Jun 01:52PM:
Re: Policy trade offs

said by LegoPower77 :

Your mention of the 80s reminded me of Ronald Reagan saying something to the effect that the problem with leftists isn't that they're wrong it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
Reagan also promised less government and a balanced budget. What he actually delivered was the largest new bureaucracy of all time (the RTC, whose sole purpose was to use taxpayer dollars to meet FSLIC obligations instead of recovering the stolen funds from the thieves), and the largest national debt of all time (that is, until Bush Lite broke the same promises}. I'll go with the facts over unsubstantiated name-calling any day.

(I'm skipping over the stuff from the 19th century, since it's the 21st century, and nobody is alive to verify those claims.)

The ICA expanded twice in the 30s to include the trucking industry and the airline industry. In both cases barriers to entry were raised, competition eliminated, and prices kept relatively high. Indeed the empirical data of the last quarter century show that after the airline and trucking industries were deregulated, prices dropped drastically. Go to the local university libray [sic] and you will find a legion of articles supporting this statement.
What competition was eliminated? Trucking and airlines were the competition! In the case of the fledgling airline industry, safety concerns were the #1 barrier to increasing passenger payloads until the Jet Age. Without regulation to reassure the public, the airlines of the 30s would have gone bust back then. That they went bust under deregulation is the other side of the coin.

You also failed to mention that deregulation of these oil-dependent industries coincided with the end of the second OPEC embargo, and a period of record low fuel prices. You also failed to mention that airline passengers got a lot less service along with the lowered prices. Or that the subsidized trucking industry came at the expense of the national highway and bridge infrastructure, that was on the verge of collapse by the end of the Reagan era. Or that shifting freight from relatively efficient rail systems to trucks caused the railroad companies to fail, leading to the nationalizing of the railroad system at substantial taxpayer expense.

Even if you did factor it in, you can't put a price on the lives lost in the large number of aviation disasters and less-publicized car-truck crashes that are directly attributable to deregulation.

You can always cherry-pick to get the results that you desire. But when all factors are considered, your conclusions prove to be bogus.

Conversely, an empirical study of regulation in the electric industry shows that the states that were first to adopt regulations had increases in prices relative to states that were late-adopters. (George Stigler and Claire Friedland, "What Can Regulators Regulate? The Case of Electricity," Journal of Law and Economics [Oct. 1963].)
I was going to point out how you fail to factor in other cost-determining factors, like the power sources in each state. But then I realized that the electrical power industry has always been regulated because it's a monopoly. Therefore your claim is sheer fabrication.

No matter how many times you throw the word "empirical", saying it doesn't make it true.

(anecdotal content ignored)

Firms operating under regulation are less motivated to control costs than they would be in a competitive market and they do not abandon their older, inefficient facilities as readily.
I invite you to prove that assumption. First off, you're making an apples to oranges comparison, because regulation and competition are not mutually exclusive. And I'd love to read your excuse for the deregulated telcos that doggedly refuse to abandon their obsolete ways or embrace competition.

Go peddle your logical fallacies somewhere else. You're busted here.
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Time4aNAP @ 29th Jun 02:16PM:
Re: The Truth

As a (currently) non-unionized, college-educated technology worker who, due to abuse of the salary system, made less per hour than blue-collar unionized electricians, I'm all too aware of how it was/is before/after unions came in/went out.

The day that I go back to work as a corporate IT employee is the day that I do so in an IBEW shop, for hourly wages. When the current generation of 20-somethings who make up the bulk of the IT population settle down, get married and start families, the number of people willing to work 140 hour weeks in the mistaken hope of gaining recognition and promotion will drop like a rock. When that happens, I'll be more than happy to introduce them to the benefits of collective bargaining.

The IBEW and NABET were good to me when I was in broadcasting. I'm loyal to them because they were loyal to me.
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Time4aNAP @ 29th Jun 02:18PM:
Re: unions

said by cork1958 :

...unions ... prevent the company from doing their job in a timely matter, big time!
Darn straight they do! When their "job" is to screw over people, preventing that is a noble cause!
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Piggie @ 29th Jun 02:32PM:
100% Coverage available

If you can see the southern sky, rich, and don't mind a download limit of a few hundred megs a day. :@)

Oh and 24 hours of no internet if you exceed the limit, forgot that!
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anon @ 30th Jun 04:05PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

Bottom line is this. You're saying that just because people may be able download an album or a tv show on the internet, that communications technology as a whole should come to a halt, and perhaps even regress, for the sole purpose of supporting legislation(DMCA) that 90% of the tech savvy world thinks is nonsense.

I hope you're kidding.
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DemonChicken @ 30th Jun 09:19PM:
Re: And we need more speed for??

We dont need more speed. WE NEED TO HAVE BROADBAND TO PEOPLE WHO WANT IT before we need more speed. Ill pay you up to 50 dolla a month for 786k DSL
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DemonChicken @ 30th Jun 09:28PM:
Re: The CWA is blatantly dishonest here

How about DSL to everyone to increase our speed. Have the government fund some expantion. Were wasting tons of money as it is. Waste some more.
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Tzale @ 1st Jul 12:24AM:
Re: France?!

said by FiL :

lol, but your ignorant to the fact that European's get paid lotttttts more on average then Pilgrims...
Yeah, but the cost of living is still higher. That's true, just like how people in the New York Metro area (Northern NJ where I live) are paid much more than in middle America, but we also pay a lot to live here. In the end, the dollar goes much farther in America than Europe.

-Tzale
--
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Maddogmike @ 1st Jul 10:40AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

How sad is that, our speeds are so much slower than the rest of the world.
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Maddogmike @ 1st Jul 10:44AM:
Re: Considering the size of Japan

Well. you might be right there, but we are still behind when it comes to stuff like that because corporate America still only looks at their pocket books, not the interest of the consumer. Good example, a few years back with the power grid. They claim to be upgrading but are only dragging their feet.
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Maddogmike @ 1st Jul 10:46AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

Hmmm interesting
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Maddogmike @ 1st Jul 10:49AM:
Re: Speedtest.net's global results say differently

spg, i couldn't agree more with you, some people are just not educated. That's all nothing else. It seems that all the little sheep just want to follow, and not let our standards of living get any higher just because they are CONTENT with things right now.
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Maddogmike @ 1st Jul 10:54AM:
Re: They're right about where I live... =/

LMAO i love it
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Maddogmike @ 1st Jul 10:55AM:
Re: unions

If we let the company do there job, then they would take the full benefit of screwing over the worker even more.
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LegoPower77 @ 3rd Jul 05:32AM:
Re: Policy trade offs

I think after going away for the weekend before responding to your egregious rebuttal might make this post too late, but I just feel the need to point out some more errors you have made (not that you appear to have any interest in trying to correct them).

said by Time4aNAP :

What competition was eliminated? Trucking and airlines were the competition!
Uh, I don't know, restricting the airline industry to a maximum 19 trunk lines for 40 years? Sure, the industries competed against each other but within the industries to themselves, there was little to no competition. Indeed, after the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 passed, no entry was allowed into the scheduled interstate passenger business

Furthermore, to get around regulations, many small non-scheduled airlines sprung up. In 1947, there were around 150. As you may imagine, they took quite a bit of business from the major carriers so in 1947 they too were brought under entry and price regulations. By 1959 there were only 50 remaining. (Mary Peterson, The Regulated Consumer). Sure seems like a drag on competition, don't you think?

That the Civil Aeronautics board was holding prices up, not down, becomes clear when you see the research done on the California air travel market at the time. Between 1946 and 1965, there were up to sixteen intrastate firms who avoided regulations by transporting passengers only within California. This situation is prefect for empirical study because the unregulated airlines competed directly with regulated trunk lines to major California cities.

Economist William Jordan settled the debate in the economics profession over whether the CAB was holding rates up or down overall. He found that one non-regulated firm carried more passengers than any other carrier in all three of the largest California markets (William Jordan, Airline Regulation in America). Sounds like the unregulated market was what the consumers were choosing (higher demand implies lower price). I guess they didn’t know that they could crash more easily because the CAB hadn’t dictated the price they paid.

said by Time4aNAP :

You also failed to mention that airline passengers got a lot less service along with the lowered prices.
You’re right, I should have mentioned that because it offers more evidence to my point. Forbidden in engaging in price competition with one another on particular routes, the trunk lines substituted improvements in service quality—as economic theory predicts. As a frequent flyer myself, I can tell you nowadays people want cheaper prices, not an extra olive on their salads so less service for a lower price is what we get since the government has deigned to allow that.

As with the regulated airlines, evidence on the inefficiency and harmful effects of trucking regulation came partly from comparison with unregulated firms. Motor carrier transport of agricultural products was exempted from rate regulations. Not surprisingly, average revenues of the unregulated carriers were 58 percent lower than those of the regulated firms and their costs were much lower (Richard Farmer, “The Case for Unregulated Truck Transportation,” Journal of Law and Economics [1964]).

Also, after transportation of poultry was deregulated in 1952, the Agriculture Department found that shipping rates for poultry fell over 30 percent while service quality improved (George Hilton, “Transportation Regulation and Private Carriage,” Conference on Private and Unregulated Carriage [Northwestern University Transportation Center, 1963].

Your citation of the oil embargo did give me pause but I don’t think it hurts my essential point. As you can see here the price of oil really didn’t return to “normal” until the middle of the decade, but in the first year of deregulation, a whopping 2,400 firms entered the market.

said by Time4aNAP :

you can't put a price on the lives lost in the large number of aviation disasters and less-publicized car-truck crashes that are directly attributable to deregulation.
Ignoring your post hoc propter hoc error again, The Department of Transportation data on the trucking industry show that the fatal truck accident rate fell from 6.56 per hundred million miles in 1976 to 4.34 in 1987 (John Taylor, “Regulation of Trucking by the States,” Regulation [1994]).

Oh, and “directly attributable.” I know you aren’t going to agree with me on any of this, but you can’t say I haven’t at least done some research here. Show me yours.

said by Time4aNAP :

I was going to point out how you fail to factor in other cost-determining factors, like the power sources in each state. But then I realized that the electrical power industry has always been regulated because it's a monopoly.
I did make a mistake here, I incorrectly cited Stigler and Friedland when I was talking about Gregg Jarrell’s 1978 paper also in the Journal of Law and Economics, “The Demand for State Regulation of the Electric Utility Industry.”

First, he distinguished between regulations. Since electrical firms used the city streets, prior to state regulations, municipalities did grant franchises (as I mentioned in my first post in this thread). The common practice had been to grant franchises freely to virtually all aspiring electricity providers, creating conditions of open entry and low-cost. That some economies of scale were present was indicated by a tendency toward consolidations over time. (It’s important to note that there wasn’t some huge so-called electric monopoly starting out; there were, in fact, many small start-ups during this time.)

Jarrell suspected that state monopoly franchises (as opposed to the municipal licensing in the preceding paragraph) and rate regulation may have emerged not from consumer demand but from pressure by producers seeking to form a cartel. He knew if he found monopoly prices and profits before regulation that his suspicion would be proven wrong and the regulations should have resulted in falling prices and profits.

Five states had state regulation of utilities before 1912 and there were twenty-five more by 1917. The remaining states instituted state regulation over time and at a slower pace so he designated two categories, Early Regulation (ER) states (before 1917) and Late Regulation (LR) states (after 1917).

After considering the effects of population density, fuel prices, hydroelectric (cheaper) power, income of customers, and other demand conditions, he found that ER states had prices that averaged 46 percent lower than those in LR states, but by 1917 prices were only 20 percent lower—meaning the early regulation states had experienced a 26 percent increase in price after regulation.

The same case for profits. 1912 ER states had an average of 38 percent lower gross profits per KWH than LR states; but by 1917, the gross profits of the ER and LR states were the same. Jarell concluded that state utility regulation began where conditions were most competitive—not the most monopolistic, and the gainers from regulation were the utilities at the expense of consumers.

That’s why I started in the last post with the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act. (By the way, nobody being alive from then is a rather obtuse standard. One wonders how there could be any study of history under that constraint.) My essential point is that regulations are usually sought by the industry itself for the purposes of creating a government-enforced cartel.

Leftists are schizophrenic when they decry eeevil corporations and the destruction of Mom-and-Pop stores while at the same time pushing for increasingly burdensome government intervention. Indeed, the large firms have economies of scale when it comes to regulations because they have the armies of accountants and lawyers.

I’ll say it again, the acceptance of the use of government regulation as a method of social control engenders a struggle for control of the political and regulatory process. Having failed to suppress competition through market methods, executives of the largest firms turn to the political process and attempt to gain control of their markets through that avenue.

said by LegoPower77 :

Firms operating under regulation are less motivated to control costs than they would be in a competitive market and they do not abandon their older, inefficient facilities as readily.
said by Time4aNAP :

I invite you to prove that assumption.
I already wrote about this in my first post and it’s just a fact of accounting: the older facilities are protected by the averaging of their cost with the cheaper newer facilities into the rate structure. Since their profit is guaranteed, they have no incentive to upgrade and, to my other point you didn’t address in your truculent post, the discovery process is dampened if not eliminated when the government seeks to regulate and stabilize.
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"It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much or too little power."—James Madison
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