Global Broadband Speeds Dropped At the End of 2011 118
darthcamaro writes "A strange thing happened at the end of 2011. For the first time in years, global broadband adoption and speeds dropped. According to Akamai, broadband adoption declined by 4.6 percent and average speeds declined by 14 percent. In a somewhat strange twist, New Jersey now also dominates the top 5 list of fastest broadband cities in the U.S, though Boston is the fastest overall at 8.4 Mbps."
For those that didn't read (Score:5, Informative)
For those that didn't read the article and were confused by New Jersey's new status as a city, what it actually means is New Jersey cities are in the #2, #3 and #5 spots of the top five list.
Re:Why is it strange that NJ dominates the USA cit (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of that traffic passes/passed via NJ and to a lesser part Rhode Island. So the area by default would be over served by private telco and NSA interests over many years e.g. TAT-14.
Add in huge loops that span Europe, the Caribbean, and South America and link to parts Middle East - it all gets back to parts of New Jersey.
Would state-wide density really show a bump if everybody was on the same fly over state "old copper, cable or average new optical roll out speeds" vs say massive hardened backhaul?
Re:I'm not at all surprised. (Score:5, Informative)
The point about tech isn't how much bandwidth people use today, but how bandwidth could be used tomorrow. You get a chicken and the egg issue. Certain services require high bandwidth, like true 1080p BR quality streaming, or weekly cloud back-ups of your 1TB drive.
There are an infinite amount of possible services that we have not yet thought of because we don't have the bandwidth for them. The same thing happened with computers. Pffft, who needs an electronic calculator? Who needs an 8086? Who need a Pentium? Who needs a dual core cpu? We now have quad core 1.5ghz cpus with GPU acceleration and 2GB of ram, packed into a cell-phone.
Build it, and they will come.
Re:City, State, whatever (Score:5, Informative)
NJ has the highest population density (1189/sq mile) [wikipedia.org]. It is surrounded by two major cities (New York and Philadelphia).
AT&T is not based here, but they used to be, before SBC bought and renamed themselves. That company is now based in Dallas. There are still a lot of AT&Ters around the state in large facilities. This doesn't really matter though, considering AT&T probably provides local access to less than 1% of the NJ population.
Verizon is based here. Their actual headquarters is located in New York City, but all of the executives sit in Basking Ridge, NJ. This is important, because almost all of the Verizon employees at a director level and above are now in New Jersey. Different from AT&T, they are the local telco in almost every town.
Comcast is based in Philly. Lots of Comcast employees live in New Jersey. Comcast is a major cable franchise in NJ (as it is in most places).
The state of NJ, a few years ago, granted Verizon a state wide video franchise. [cedmagazine.com] This is a big deal. It means that Verizon can offer FiOS everywhere in the state without negotiating with the 566 different municipalities in the state [wikipedia.org]. (566 municipalities for 8.8 Million people - NJ is a a good example of local government gone awry. Compare to 351 for 6.6M in MA, or 482 for 37M in California)
As the result of the above, FiOS is available in most towns, offering 20-50Mbps internet. Comcast Xfinity offers their highest tier service wherever there is FiOS, so nearly everyone in the state can get fast internet if they're willing to pay $30-$60/month. Notice to governments: reducing the amount of regulation (state wide franchise) can create more competition which can yield better results for citizens.