shauny

Richard Kelly wrote:
> "Basement" <wvandekamp@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:45d4b8e8$0$329$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>> I found this quite interesting. How are you americans thinking about this:
>>
>> quote Slashdot:
>>
>> "When It Comes To Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow The Leader says a story in
>> IWeek. Their thesis is that, while broadband access in the United States
>> rose from 60 million users in March 2005 to 84 million in March 2006, the
>> US is well behind countries like England and China. Indeed, what you may
>> not realize is that the U.S. ranks a surprisingly poor 12th in worldwide
>> broadband access, a situation which could threaten its ability to maintain
>> its technological lead. The federal government is no help: the FCC has
>> almost no data on the rate of hi-speed adoption, or of what the speed and
>> quality of those services are. Broadband is more expensive here than in
>> other nations, as well, almost 10 times as expensive by some estimates.
>> The cost and poor quality of service aren't from population density,
>> aren't from lack of interest, and are not from lack of technical know-how.
>> So, what is holding us back?
>
> Try living in Australia. We only just got ADSL2 (24mbps) broadband in the
> last 12 months or so, and it is only available in capital cities (and only
> some suburbs in those cities). This 24mbps is the maximum speed - actual
> speeds vary greatly depending on usage in the neighbourhood. The fastest
> ADSL the rest of us can get is 1.5mbps (with some 8mbps plans now being
> offered, but not many). I have what is considered in Australia as a hardcore
> plan (1.5mbps, 50 gig a month download) and it costs me AU$79.95 per month
> (around US$63 per month). If I was able to get ADSL2, this plan would be
> AU$89.95 for the same data volume. I have been on this plan for a few years
> now and it is no longer offered. The closest plan my ISP (one of the leaders
> in Australia) currently offers is 1.5mbps, 25 gig download, AU$69.95. An
> 8mbps plan is AU$99.95 per month with 40 gig included download (which I
> would chew through in a couple of days at that speed).
>
> Then there are the people that can't get ADSL at all (more than about 5km
> from the nearest exchange). Australia is very sparsely populated across a
> great distance, so there are a lot of households in this situation. They
> might be able to get wireless or ISDN, but the majority have dialup, which
> is worse than being taken roughly from behind by Hitler's corpse.
>
> At the end of the day, if you live in a capital city in Australia you can
> get decent broadband but at a hefty price.
>
> What's the state of affairs in other countries? What type of plan are you
> all on?
>
>

NZ is *thinking* about getting ADSL2. I'm on "unlimited" (yeah, right)
with a 20gb cap for $NZ60.
Maximum realistic download speeds are around 15-20kb/s
All p2p traffic is disabled, but I think that they are only blocking
common data ports, cos I can still download stuff.