Let's face it: We can argue about the pros and cons of P2P clients and protocols 'til we're blue in the face. But without available bandwidth, it all means nothing.
So I'd like to pick all your brains about the present and future of connections offered by ISPs and compare the situation in different countries:
a) How much is the installation cost and monthly fee for each type of connection?
b) What is the availability of high-bandwidth connections? (rural areas may often only have old exchanges offering dialup - if you're lucky)
c) Are these prices reasonable considering what the providers have to spend on investment and maintenance? (I'd like to hear from telecommunications experts on this one)
d) What is the penetration of high-bandwidth connections in your country and is it likely to increase significantly in the short or medium term? (another one for the comms boffins)
As an example and reference. Here's the situation in Spain, which has around 7,7 million users who regularly connect to the net:
Modem dialup Monthly flat fee of around 29 euros ($26.70) for 6pm-8am on weekdays and all weekend (6pm on Friday until 8am on Monday morning)
In Europe we don't have free local calls like in the USA as far as I know! Some rural areas in Spain still can't even connect to internet on normal lines.
Cable/DSL
Spain has about 405,000 wide-band users (focused mainly around Madrid and other big cities) Telefónica - the leading telecommunications company in Spain - has said that DSL coverage should be about 90% by the end of the year. The main providers have been campaigning heavily in the media to get people to upgrade to DSL so this number should increase significantly in the next couple of years.
128/256kbits - around 40 euros ($37) monthly fee - no installation fee for the cheapest offers.
128/512kbits - 70 to 90 euros ($65 to $83,70) monthly fee - up to 150euros ($139) startup fee.
300Kbits/2Mbits - Around 180euros ($167) monthly fee - at least 300euros ($279) startup fee
The sources I have looked at don't even mention faster connections , though I'm sure they're available at vast cost.
http://www.aui.es/estadi/egm/iegm.htm#evolucion http://www.teltarifas.com/internetindex.php3?con=cable http://es.gsmbox.com/news/mobile_news/all/42952.gsmbox http://www.lavanguardia.es/web/20020415/23442854.html
(all in Spanish)
I'd appreciate your feedback on this one as it's a central issue to the evolution of file-sharing and the internet in general.