Our low-density Wisconsin county, population 27,000, is about to be connected with FTTH (FiberToTheHome), or optical cable technology. The company that is proposing this has already begun the installation process (http://brilliantcities.com) and is expected to make it available to 80% or more of the population without a connect charge, and perhaps up to 95% – the most rural customers – for a small connect fee. This will allow bundled phone service, cable TV, hi-speed Internet (2Mb/sec up & down minimum) and video-on-demand to every subscriber for what they claim will be cheaper than the separate services are now (and 80% of the county has NONE of these now except for POTS).
So what country or countries will this make us comparable to in terms of communications technology? I think of South Korea, Singapore, and Finland as in the top tier and cutting edge. Is this correct and are there other countries in this class?
As of a year or so ago, I was reading that whatever cellphone technology we’re starting to use here has been in widespread use in Japan for some time. They apparently have the lead in that corner of the business. FWIW xo, C.
It’s also important to note that communications technology is not a single-line scale. Different places develop in different directions. To me, for example, most of the cell phones available in Japan feel “ancient” because they’re big and bulky and ugly. To Japanese my (japanese-made, mind you) US cell phone probably looks archaic because it has a small 2D screen and doesn’t even record video.
In general in terms of general communication availability, US probably leads the way. This is just a guess, however, but countries with good home internet might have bad TV or bad cell phones, etc. US has GPRS EDGE (256Kbps cellular) in most metro areas. US has 7 megabit Cable/DSL in most metropolital areas. US has On Demand/Digital Cable/Satelite TV in most areas. Yes, there are countries with 100 megabit fiber to the home, or very fast 3G cellular, etc. but US should average out to have most availability of ALL services. Also I don’t know if any country has the same selection/“quality” of TV as current digital cable offerings. On demand TV and movies, DVR, HDTV with 250 channels for about $60 a month.
According to this which references this, which takes into account not only speeds, but consumer charges, the top nations would be (in no particular order): France, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Canada.
Although I’ll bet the *geographic *coverage in Canada isn’t much to crow about.
The US is behind other countries in deployment of most technologies, even by the very broad criteria that groman uses (Canada, for instance). However, consider also that the US has a much larger population than most of the other countries in the running, which is going to make that technology that much more expensive in terms of capital investment. Even Japan’s population is only half that of the US (and besides, unless you have satellite or Yahoo BB’s “cable” service, TV here sucks).
Hong Kong has an awesome communications infrastucture, mainly because it’s so small and dense and the government fosters competition. I’m surprised Singapore didn’t make it onto that list.
I haven’t got all the technical lingo but here in France it is one of the government’s aims to make ADSL available to eveyone by 2007 - Ponster knows more about it, but essentially they want to make sure that it isn’t any more expensive for someone connecting in a small Alpine village than it is for us in Paris.
So when you say ‘best and latest’ it is probably an asian country like South Korea, Hong Kong or Japan with the newest/best technology. But if it is the most important and most effective at having an effect on people it is probably in the developing world in places like Africa. Having a cell phone may be a more efficient way to stay in contact with friends in South Korea but in Africa it can be a life changing piece of technology.
