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Re:Groups funded by the Koch brothers are campaigning agains... by michaelmrose on Monday December 18, 2017 @01:06PM (#15953708)
First I'm not sure of the yardstick you are using to measure. There is still a not insignificant minority with no internet access at all in the US and further lots of people are stuck with truly mediocre dsl at speeds we no longer consider broadband.

Lets start with Germany.

Internet (60 Mbps or More, Unlimited Data, Cable/ADSL) 25.92 € or 30.59 usd

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou...

United States

Internet (60 Mbps or More, Unlimited Data, Cable/ADSL) 56.60 $

Further in the US only 80% of households had a broadband connection at home or access to a smartphone with data.

In Germany its 98.

In summery the internet is almost twice as expensive in the US and lots of people don't even have access to it.

We could go through all the countries you listed and see if we could find even one where your assertion is correct but I feel like that would be a waste of my and your time because its not clear that being able to find even one nation in all of Europe worse than the US would prove that private competition has served the US well. It hasn't.

Re:Groups funded by the Koch brothers are campaigning agains... by rayiner on Monday December 18, 2017 @01:09PM (#15953742)
See Akamai’s Q1 2017 numbers, where the US breaks into the top 10 for average connection speeds: https://www.fastmetrics.com/internet-connection-speed-by-cou....

The whole report is here: https://www.akamai.com/fr/fr/multimedia/documents/state-of-t.... Other interesting statistics: 48% of American connections are above 15 mbps; in Germany its 33%. Maryland, which has almost exactly the same population density as Germany, is at 60%.

Re:Groups funded by the Koch brothers are campaigning agains... by michaelmrose on Monday December 18, 2017 @01:36PM (#15954016)
I don't think measuring the average speed is even remotely a meaningful measure.

Imagine

scenario 1

3 users with gigabit 4 users have dialup 3 users have nothing

Scenario 2:

4 users with gigabit 6 users with nothing

Scenario 3: 10 users have 50 Mbps

In scenario 1 the average is 300 even though only 30% of people have real internet access and 70% either can barely send email or have nothing at all. Scenario 2 is even better at 400 even though most people have nothing.

Another way to look at it is that one person with gigabit is as good as numerically as 20 people with real internet or 100 people with basic internet.

Re:Groups funded by the Koch brothers are campaigning agains... by welterde on Monday December 18, 2017 @01:50PM (#15954189)
The whole networking infrastructure is privatized as well though in Germany (since 1995) - so it doesn't support the argument that private competition is somehow better, since both have it.

While in general I agree that competition is great - I don't think that applies to the last mile (from the next PoP to the customer).