Various evidence that more bandwidth and computing is useful and valuable and cheap, reliable and faster broadband would boost the economy

Some question the value of higher speed internet access and the linkage of studies which indicate that higher broadband speeds are correlated with a boost in GDP.

The US has a broadband definition of 1 megabit per second download speed. About 90% of adults have access to broadband at that speed. But some surveys indicate only 70% have that speed in their homes and only 30% have “premium broadband”. This lack of “real broadband” makes business limit the release of services that require faster speeds. Most businesses will target the lowest common denominator of customer bandwidth capability (this also goes to mobile vs desktop connection levels.) Only a very big company would be able to support a wide range of bandwidth capability.

South Korea can release more games and video entertainment or business services that require higher speed internet because the most of the korean market has faster internet.

Business internet with higher upload and download speeds sell for $150-250 per month and can go even higher.

I know that I have higher speed bandwidth (upload and download) that there are money generating businesses that could be started.

It is not just the lower speed. It is the restrictions on usage and the lack of reliability. There are plenty of times when video pauses and stops when it should be nowhere near the limits of the supposed 20 mbps download bandwidth.

Kansas City has 20 startups in just one of its e-villages after getting Google Fiber

South Korea is one of the most wired nations in the world with broadband penetration at over 100%. The number of Korean startups has nearly doubled to 28,193 in 2012 from just 15,401 in 2008, according to data from the Korean Venture Capital Association.

According to Statics Korea, a state-run agency, revenue from South Korea’s e-commerce market grew 16% last year to 999 trillion won ($895 billion), more than four times China’s $190 billion in 2012.

35-year-old Ms. Paek, was an office worker at an online education company in Seoul before setting up her own company, 10Box, in October last year.

Ms. Paek’s 10Box is an online shopping mall catered to pregnant women where members can buy individual products or subscribe to a monthly delivery of a box with carefully picked items for expectant mothers. Items include anything from books to healthy food items to underwear. Her business has been growing rapidly, Ms. Paek says, noting the company’s revenue rose tenfold in July compared with the first month, though she declined to give specific figures. This year, the company is targeting 500 million won ($450,600) in revenue.

Ms. Paek’s business represents more startups in South Korea that are adopting a subscription-based e-commerce model. Under the model, consumers pay a monthly fee and receive a package of products on a monthly basis. Other startups using the model include Memebox, founded in December 2011 and byBox started in May.

Google is helping many of the South Korean startups go global.

Google is an example where if you don’t have to think about bandwidth and computing limitations you can cheaply try and test various online projects and keep running those that are profitable and successful.

Google’s employees have started hundreds of projects that leverage Google’s datacenter infrastructure. Making systems able to live within bandwidth and computing limitations right off the bat and with usage costs smothers the number of new ideas and services that can be tested.

Lower bandwidth limits new services

Telemedicine and telepresence and high resolution video conferencing is limited by lower bandwidth. This forces more work and meetings in one location. Connections are costly, inconvenient and unreliable for these services. Yet there is a highend market where these services are being used and where business productivity is increased.

Large screen high resolution TVs are about $300-400 now and will get cheaper. Even 4K resolution televisions from China are less than $1000. High resolution cameras are getting cheaper.

Right now even mobile phone voice service is not really reliable in many parts of the US. Voice quality is often terrible. Service has to drop to the 50-70% range before you get let of contracts. Having dropped calls and bad mobile phone service every week apparently only counts as 90-95% bad service because most of the other calls were ok. (Yes, Sprint sucks).

Clearly a significant number of people do want to use more bandwidth or Comcast would not have been rolling out different bandwidth usage caps.

In 2012, Comcast suspended its nationwide 250GB data cap that first rolled out in 2008. Comcast is trying to put 300 GB bandwidth caps back in place.

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