running out of spectrum is like running out of color...

A short discussion of the "we're running out of spectrum" cries of the mobil industry in the New York Times

(title quote from David Reed)

Comments

[Roger]

Count your blessings. We live in the country where cable is unheard of, and our ancient telephone lines do not support DSL (probably not even a 56K modem.) We do not watch television; NPR and Verizon wireless telephone and Internet ($104/mo) are our contacts with the outside world. We do not have cell phones or blackberries or iPhones or iPads or any of those fancy gadgets.

Hughesnet is a joke. We dropped them for Verizon after six months and did not get our deposit back.

Now Verizon's 1.1 Megabit (Mb) capacity 3G network (4G is promised) is akin to stage-coach travel in the 21st century. However, we seldom see that blinding 1.1 Mb speed, as it is more likely to be 10-20 KB/s or nothing. It is not unusual to wait 2-3 minutes for a webpage to refresh, or to get a timeout or off-line message, or to be without Internet service for hours on end. Rarely can we watch a short video clip without first saving it to the computer, which may take 10-20 minutes. It recently took three days of intermittent downloading to update the software on my Mac.

AT&T recently upgraded their MIFI and boasts a 10% speed advantage over Verizon. WOW! On the other hand, their reliability rates do not appear to be any better than Verizon's. And here is a kicker; Verizon warns that if I try to hog the Internet by downloading too much, they will slice my download rate to 10% until the next billing cycle!

We have been considering moving to Bangladesh. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/international-internet-bandwidth-bits-per-person-wb-data.html