Why Your Phone, Cable & Internet Bills Cost So Much
Ron Czapala
Posts: 2,418
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-phone-cable-internet-bills-cost-much-130914030.html
The U.S. has fallen behind much of the Western world when it comes to phone, cable and Internet service. Americans actually pay much more for inferior service compared to their global counterparts.
In his new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use 'Plain English' to Rob You Blind, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston highlights these astounding facts:
Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play packagephone, cable TV and Internetat an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.
The French get global free calling and worldwide live television. Their Internet is also 10 times faster at downloading information and 20 times faster uploading it.
America has gone from #1 in Internet speed (when we invented it) to 29th in the world and falling.
Bulgaria is among the countries with faster Internet service.
Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data.
Since the mid-1970's when Ma Bell was cited as holding a monopoly over phone service, Americans have been told more competition would lower their phone bill. But the promise of lower prices has actually led to higher prices, says Johnston.
The U.S. has fallen behind much of the Western world when it comes to phone, cable and Internet service. Americans actually pay much more for inferior service compared to their global counterparts.
In his new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use 'Plain English' to Rob You Blind, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston highlights these astounding facts:
Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play packagephone, cable TV and Internetat an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month.
The French get global free calling and worldwide live television. Their Internet is also 10 times faster at downloading information and 20 times faster uploading it.
America has gone from #1 in Internet speed (when we invented it) to 29th in the world and falling.
Bulgaria is among the countries with faster Internet service.
Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data.
Since the mid-1970's when Ma Bell was cited as holding a monopoly over phone service, Americans have been told more competition would lower their phone bill. But the promise of lower prices has actually led to higher prices, says Johnston.
Comments
It's probably because they get more paid time off to use it and can't use their employer's Internet during those periods!!
France 5 weeks[2] (+ 2 weeks of RTT (R
Over here they've only just introduced fibre to our area.
I do get both broadband and Sat tv for free from work so not bothered about cost.
Could it have anything to do with America having lots of rural areas to cover so speed measurements get averaged out in these stats? I mean, if you live in a country where everyone is stacked like cordwood, how hard is it to run a signal line? Some places in the world, you can't even sneeze without getting a booger on your next door neighbour.
Not really. They just get very poor service and speeds. Overall, we've not done the next upgrade of infrastructure needed to keep up in the US. There are fast spots, with various cherry picking going on, but no real movement to take it to the next level happening yet.
Networking, maybe but didn't Tim Berners-Lee invent the www?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
Mickster