China to Top U.S. in Broadband Subscribers

An anonymous reader writes "China already is rapidly approaching the United States as the country with the largest number of broadband subscribers, according to the El Segundo, Calif.-based firm, and by the end of the year, China is expected to have 34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States. By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow."

i would hope so

[hsmith]

considering they have 4x as many people than us in an are that is a bit more densely populated

1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier to have more subscribers/anything when you have almost 4 times the population.

This isn't very interesting news at all.

Next on slashdot: China Tops US in rice consumption.

Percentages

[smilheim]

Be nice to see this number in percentage of population.

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

High speed access to everything the government wants them to see.

But most of the content is unavailable...

[binaryspiral]

So what if more people in China have broadband... most of the content of the Internet is monitored and filtered by the Chinese government.

Score one for the rest of the free world.

Yes, but who'd got MORE access?

[joetheappleguy]

A big chunk of the Internet is denied to people behind the Great Firewall of China.

Good or bad our 54 million broadband subscribers get the WHOLE Internet, even the crazy North Korean bits

Now when is China going to beat that?

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

Followed by US tops China in arrogance

Re:It's worthless....

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be interesting if the internet in the United States were being filtered without us even realizing it?

Re:chinese democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they would trade their broadband for US' democracy.

Is that the same democracy that has a US president and Congress making laws that apply to single individuals?

Is that the same democracy that holds people indefinitely without charge and without representation in cuba?

Is that the same democracy that give governments the right to spy on you without court orders and without your knowledge?

Is that the same democracy that executes juvenile offenders and the mentally impaired?

Is that the same democracy that has Congress enacting laws which give ridiculous amounts of power to big corporations. (e.g. DMCA, copyright extensions, Broadcast flag )

Hmmm,
Keep your democracy. The rest of the world is better off without it.

Re:chinese democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the same democracy...

Yes, it is, and it is still superior to the complete lack of democracy that China has.

Oh snap. I just fucking smoked your comment out of the water. Time for my victor lap.

Re:chinese democracy

[updog]

I bet most people wouldn't. Everyone I've met while in China is generally content, they're much better off than a generation ago. Prosperity abounds and the future looks bright - they are generally happy with their government, and probably wouldn't want to screw things up.

I'm personally a huge fan of democracy, but don't assume that everyone else in the world agrees with us, and certainly don't be lead to believe they want democracy forced upon them.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[jmv]

Next: China tops US in fuel consumption. That's when it's going to get really scary (I guess it's already scary that 4% of the world population consumes 25% of the energy).

Re:Population

[grumpygrodyguy]

China's middle class is quickly rising and is currently approximately twice the entire U.S. population

Yep, and our middle-class is on the floor after getting it's nuts kicked repeatedly over the last 5 years.

Just another symptom.

[stealth.c]

Within a decade, China's going to be "it." Not the USA. I know it's blasphemy to most Americans to say so, but it's a plain and simple fact.

At least when that happens, maybe we can get our manufacturing jobs back. Maybe we won't have to live in this stagnant consumer culture and it'll be fashionable to NOT be up to your earlobes in debt. Maybe sunshine will burst out of our asses.

I, for one, welcome our new Sino-Overlords.

firewall?

[karpediem]

With THAT many people on high speed connections, how does Big Brother intend to censor them from that evil word, *democracy*? I imagine they could use their Great Wall of China as a hardware firewall if push comes to shove!

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[TheKidWho]

and also produces 25% of all goods.

Makes sense doesn't it now? Turn off your selective memory.

Re:chinese democracy

[hoferbr]

No. It's the democracy that did us a favor and won this [wikipedia.org] war. I'm not even american, but I know when to respect a country.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

We are the richest, most powerful, most successful nation in the history of mankind.

For starters, China would own the US in anyway war, and most successful? haha, look up some history, oh wait, you're American.. you're too ignorant.

Head in the sand

[travellerjohn]

More broadband, more people, booming economy, bigger army.

When the US going to wake up and realise that China is big and powerful and growing?

A quick trip around some of the major Chinese cities and and you can see a booming economy, new cars, lots of construction, retail and manufacturing. The Chinese are catching up quick. And I dont think most Chinese are too worried about censorship so long as they can make money.

Meanwhile the US is mucking about in Iraq, and lecturing other people on how to run their own countries. (Something that doesnt go down too well.)

It is only a matter of time before the Chinese economy catches up with the US, and I dont think they will be too well inclined towards the US. Then perhaps we will be wishing we paid a little more attention and were a little less arrogant.

Broadband is only one of many indicators that the USA's economic dominance might be shortlived.

Re:i would hope so

[Anonymous Coward]

So when raw numbers (in the case of China) are not in your favor you call for percentages, and of course, when percentages show your are behind (South Korea, Japan, Canada, etc.) you say we should make comparison based on respective populations. Contradictions?

Re:It's the weekly....

[quarkscat]

Correction: "The USA is turning into a technological backwater because the regime in power would rather focus on their monopolist corporate contributors' profits instead of leveling the high tech "playing field" through uniform improvements to infrastructure and access."

Re:Just another symptom.

[Pros_n_Cons]

I know its "in" to hate the USA (certainly on this site) but this story shows the desperation of people to show how the "USA is losing it" and this is the best they can come up with? That is testement to just how darned strong the USA still is. While the rest of the world is trying so hard to show up the americans, the US is busy working on the next technology that will leave half of the world in the dust. Cars were suppose to be the end of the US, but little did they know about this TCP/computers thingy being worked on. Now the rest of the world fights over broadband while we're up on mars studying the water we just found. Think about it.

Re:Just another symptom.

[Anonymous Coward]

the US is busy working on the next technology that will leave half of the world in the dust.

That wouldn't surprise me at all.

Re:China has more Internet freedom than US

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, while you live in your uptopia of "freedom", I think I'll stay here in the good ol' states and put up with a few draconian copyright laws.

I'll take the much lesser of two evils, thanks.

Re:Great!

[Profane MuthaFucka]

So, in China, powerless people can speak because they are not powerful enough to threaten. And in the US, the powerful can speak because they are too powerful to be threatened.

Re:South Korea has the highest percent

[rodgerd]

Whatever measurement allows the grandparent to chant, "USA! USA! USA! Number One! Best country in the history of history!"

Seriously, the contortions some people will go to rather than think about whether they ought to be concerned about the state of their nation.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[ergo98]

The US can't even hang onto a semi average size nation in the middle east never mind China

The US walked over Iraq with unbelievable ease (with just a couple of battlefield casualties). Policing is an entirely different matter altogether, and you can't (well, normally) call in a strike package against insurgents hidden amidst a bunch of innocents.

In other words, if you think the policy and democracy building in Iraq is indicative of the war-capability of the US, you are very, very misguided.

Re:So?

[rtb144]

Instead of lies or damned lies, you chose statistics. The amount of federal taxes paid is usually a function of income and as we all know, it is not a linear function. I'm willing to bet that the average wage * population in New York or New Jersey is greater than say Alabama, Alaska, or Arizona so its real easy to gain the upper hand in taxes paid. On the other side of the equation, we really need to know what constitues the Federal dollars spent. Many red states have large amounts of Interstates, Military Institutions and other federal interests. Its really hard to say exactly how many "Handouts" the constituents of rural areas really get from the government. Another thing to consider is that large agricultural corporations are the largest recipients of farm aid how is that money accounted for? Does the state with the company land count as the place that recieved the money, or is it the state the company is headquartered in. A lot of red states have National Parks in them larger than New York City, do tax dollars spent here count against the state? Undevelopable land trapped in non taxable National Parks is actually a drain on most red states for many reasons. Finally, I'm not making excuses, but you have to realize that throwing around statistics is very easy to do, but try to compare states in this country based on averages and percentages is not very scientific without the background numbers to explain what you are trying to show.

Re:So?

[bleckywelcky]

That study is actually a bit misleading, because much of the spending in the small western states can not be offset by their comparatively small populations. Example: Let's look at Wyoming. Wyoming has less than 0.5 million people. Yet, they have 3 major interstate highways running clear across their state: I80, I90, and I25. These are major routes of passage that states all across the nation use to transport goods from north to south, from the east coast to the west coast. With a population of less than 500k, if Wyoming had to pay for these roads themselves, it would bankrupt their government. Therefore, the money they receive from the Federal Gov to maintain these roads already offsets a large portion of their income tax contribution to the Federal Gov. Yet a state like California with it's 34 million (legal) residents dwarfs Wyoming in its contribution of income tax to the Federal Government, yet it still receives similar amounts of money for upkeep of interstate highways running through its borders. Therefore, you quickly develop an imbalance of contributions to the Federal government versus receipts from the Federal government when looking at small states versus large states.

Another example (although more controversial) are some of the subsidies Wyoming receives. Wyoming's natural resources (minerals, gases, etc) are heavily subsidized from a strategic standpoint. If no subsidies existed, Wyoming would have stripped out much more of these resources than they currently have, selling them to other countries and economies. The result would have been a quick depletion of these particular natural resources in the US. So, the federal government pays Wyoming to not harvest the resources, and the result is that the US holds onto more of the resources for future needs. This is a strategic move by the Federal government to ensure that we are not left in a vulnerable position with respect to foreign countries and our natural resource needs (as we currently seem to be with oil, and the problems are apparent).

However, subsidies do exist that are not strategic and that need to be eliminated. Example: cotton subsidies. Cotton is not a strategic resource, who cares if our white shirts come from the USA or Thailand (unless they decide to lace our cotton shirts with germs, heh). Yet farmers still receive cotton subsidies. The industry is not fledgling, and could probably be streamlined even better if the subsidies were eliminated and the farmers realized they needed to reduce expenses.

Real conservatives do not believe in sustained subsidies (except, possibly, for strategic means), tax breaks, or welfare. About the only thing they might believe in is low cost health care, to ensure that the population stays healthy. Still, health care should only be partially funded by the Federal Gov so that industry still has motivation to invest in research. The only subsidies true conservatives ever support are those for fledgling industries. IE hybrid cars - if they were deemed a beneficial technology, yet were having a hard time taking off. The government can run subsidies for a few years and the industry starts growing. Once the industry has a firm foothold, the subsidies are cut off.

Bush does not represent real conservatives. He represents some sort of spend-happy, big government republican. True conservatives are not right-wing religious fanatics. They are typically religious, but they firmly believe in the separation of church and state. They realize that the system works better when this separation is in place. They believe everyone should be accountable for their own actions and that you only get out of life what you put into it.