 
ColorBASIC
8-bit Fun
Premium
join:2006-12-29
Corona, CA | Don't worry... These increases will still be spun to "US broadband sucks". | |
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 | satellite68
join:2007-04-11
Louisville, KY
| Re: Don't worry... quote:
The findings for the study, "Broadband Access and Service in the Home 2007," are based on a telephone survey of 1,600 randomly selected households across the country. The overall sample has a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 2.5%
Can anyone say flawed statistical methodology? How random? What percentage of those "randomly selected" households were in statisically-favorable-to-the-intended- outcome areas? | |
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ColorBASIC
8-bit Fun
Premium
join:2006-12-29
Corona, CA
1 edit | Re: Don't worry... True; usage rates may be much much higher.  | |
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Jerm
join:2000-04-10
Richland, WA
| Statistics... Thats the beauty of statistics, the results of a small sample are generally spot on when comparing against the "whole".
I'm not sure why you think it would be flawed. I mean how much better can you get than a random sample? They calculated to margin of error as +/- 2.5% so that should give us some sense of accuracy. I guess you'd have to know their exact method to know if it was flawed. Take all the phone books in the US and randomly select 1600 households via computer and call them up - doesn't seem too hard to me, and I'm not sure why you'd be wanting more accuracy than that.
There are a few arguments that could be made though. For example the people have to have phone service. But in general I think the statistic is probably correct and seems to fly in my book. Why do you think otherwise? | |
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| | | Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
 ·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Statistics... Statistical Bias is very easy to manufacture, so I would first look at who provides their funding, and why the research was done in the first place. I'm not saying the numbers are incorrect.
I do find it interesting that the under $50,000 households % of broadband users is growing faster than the over $50,000 households. Maybe they're only lower overall because they're generally less informed. | |
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| | | | satellite68
join:2007-04-11
Louisville, KY
| Re: Statistics... said by Ahrenl  :Statistical Bias is very easy to manufacture, so I would first look at who provides their funding, and why the research was done in the first place. I'm not saying the numbers are incorrect. Thank you, that's what I would've said sooner had you not beaten me to the punch. | |
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| | | bmn
? ? ?
Premium,ExMod 2003-06
join:2001-03-15
hiatus
| said by Jerm :I mean how much better can you get than a random sample? A representative sample... Random samples are not always representative.
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Prove it... | |
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| | | | lesopp
join:2001-06-27
Land O Lakes, FL | Re: Statistics... How many people stuck on dial up couldn't participate because those collecting the data couldn't call them? | |
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| | | satellite68
join:2007-04-11
Louisville, KY
1 edit | Your assumption is incorrect; you are assuming that they followed your example-"randomly" calling 1600 households.
I doubt that happened here. This issue is highly politicized and often these kind of surveys are funded by (gasp) the major telecoms and/or policymakers or their brethren. I'm betting they "prequalified" the respondents to get the outcomes requested/demanded by whomever funded this survey.
It's easy to lie with statistics. | |
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McSummation
Mmmm, Zeebas Are Tastee.
Premium,MVM
join:2003-08-13
Round Rock, TX
 ·AT&T Southwest
| said by Jerm :Take all the phone books in the US ... Then that may automatically eliminate all the folks that don't have landlines, but have only cell phones. | |
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Fluker
join:2005-04-07
West Lafayette, IN
| Re: Statistics... I totally agree.
On campus, the greater majority of people have a cell phone and broadband, but no landline.
I can't think of any student I know with a real phone. All of them have at least cable internet though. I doubt any of these people could have been included in this statistic if it were call based. | |
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RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| Re: Don't worry... said by satellite68 : quote:
The findings for the study, "Broadband Access and Service in the Home 2007," are based on a telephone survey of 1,600 randomly selected households across the country. The overall sample has a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 2.5%
Can anyone say flawed statistical methodology? How random? What percentage of those "randomly selected" households were in statisically-favorable-to-the-intended- outcome areas? How many of these 1600 have non-broadband Internet (AKA Dial-Up) or have no Internet access?
IOW: Did they keep calling households until they get 1600 Internet Users and thus rejected 3200 households with no Internet (Thus meaning that Internet access was only 33% of the 4800 households actually called)?
Note: My 3200 non-Internet number is a manufactured number to show how the numbers could be slanted and does not mean that I claim/think the ratio of non-Internet to Internet households is that high. | |
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amungus
Premium
join:2004-11-26
America
clubs:
| I'm poor... and I have cable internet access... don't think I could stand dial up even if I did have a landline. Besides, phone line + dial up OR DSL is still more expensive than having the "normal" Cox interweb package.
I think these #'s would be different if it were available in more areas. Many "rural" areas near here have DSL, but that's not true for many areas of the country. | |
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ieolus
Support The Clecs
join:2001-06-19
Duluth, GA | Re: I'm poor... You aren't poor, you live in Manhattan! | |
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ieolus
Support The Clecs
join:2001-06-19
Duluth, GA | Re: I'm poor... I was joking.  | |
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| | | openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA | KS or NY is irrelevant...he isn't "poor" if he's paying for broadband access. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Pure BS A what is "broadband" do they use the governemnt standard of 200 Kbps? That's glorifed dial-up in my book.
Also you can't tell anything from 1600 people. Maybe 16,000 then I'd take a poll more seriously. | |
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| WayneHolmes
join:2006-12-23
Mountlake Terrace, WA
| Re: Pure BS Assuming the same sampling methodology, increasing the sample size will reduce the margin of error.
We can argue about how the sample is determined, but for that conversation to be significant would require that we both have Doctorates in Statistics or Mathematics. I don't, so will defer to anyone with the appropriate mathematical background to talk about sample determination. (I haven't used those neurons since college. )
In case people are interested, here is a link that offers some fairly understandable background on issues around margins of error and sampling techniques.
»www.wku.edu/~david.neal/statisti···ml#Table
Wayne | |
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| | Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
·Verizon FIOS
| Re: Pure BS The reduction in margin of error going from a sample population of 1,600 to 16,000 is statistically insignificant. Let's pretend that it's a linear relationship (which it's certainly not). That would mean that the error would move from 2.5% to .25%, and the mean would move the difference of 2.25%... It would be relatively the same result.. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: Pure BS said by Ahrenl :The reduction in margin of error going from a sample population of 1,600 to 16,000 is statistically insignificant. Let's pretend that it's a linear relationship (which it's certainly not). That would mean that the error would move from 2.5% to .25%, and the mean would move the difference of 2.25%... It would be relatively the same result.. I think 2.25% is alot. if your pay got reuced 2.25% I'm sure you'd notice.
Anywas 1600 is to enough. One could poll 1599 from say NY City adn 1 from Backwoods Ark. And that's a valid survey of the nation? Of course not. 16,000 would make a more even distibution more likely. There are over 3500 counties in the US so at best you aren't even surveying half of them. And only polling ONE person from Chicago, NY or LA is not valid either.
You can not make any valid statement on 300,000,000 based on 1600. Going by that they most likely polled a whopping 30 people in my state. And as I said of all 30 are in say Nashville of course you're going to get a high% saying they have broadband. If they polled 30 people from Holaday the answer will be 0%. Neither paints an accurate picture. | |
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| | | | Nuts
join:2006-04-27
Forest, OH
| Re: Pure BS Now, BF, don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
BTW, in 2000 just over 59 mil people were in rural America, that was 20.99%. I'm sure that percentage has gone down since then. | |
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BF69
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN
| Re: Pure BS said by Nuts :Now, BF, don't let facts get in the way of a good story. BTW, in 2000 just over 59 mil people were in rural America, that was 20.99%. I'm sure that percentage has gone down since then. Once again what is "rual" what is "broadband"? What criteria and methods that where used in the polling. Surely they just didn't ask "Do you have access to broadband internet"? Sampling errors rate doesn't mean shit if the sampling is wrong from the start.
As far as the 59 mil? perhaps. I do know that 225 million Americans live in the top 200 metro areas in the US. Whether you want to call #201 "rural" when it contians over 200,000 people is up for debate. | |
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| | | | Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
·Verizon FIOS
| Well it's not. Would you care if the story read 51% or 55% instead of 53%? Because that's what we're talking about here. So If you like, just tell yourself, between 51-55%.
Weather or not the 1600 was properly selected goes back to the character of the pollee. Which is why I stated that you needed to start there. If they're truly an independent organization, with no agenda (pretty unlikely, because who does a poll like this without an agenda?) then they can easily select a representative 1600 out of 300m. This is pretty basic statistical theory. Of course you can game it, but if you're actually trying to get an accurate reading, then it can be done pretty easily. | |
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DufiefData
join:2006-06-13
Gaithersburg, MD
| "Income still plays a major role" The report also notes that income still plays a major role: "68% of all households with annual incomes over $50,000 now get broadband, compared to 59% last year; and 39% of all households with annual incomes under $50,000 get broadband, compared to 27% last year."
I'm shocked! You mean people prioritize and make choices based on how much money they have to spend?! Could this also be true about food and transportation??? | |
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zemus
join:2001-01-13
Brooklyn, NY | Re: "Income still plays a major role" no it could not. | |
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Rob A
Same Old Jets
Premium
join:2005-01-17
Pompton Plains, NJ | Surprised... Should be more, 47% of people still use dialup?? | |
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| Kulock
join:2006-03-27
West Jefferson, OH | Re: Surprised... Hey, if some of us could get better, we would. | |
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| Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA | Actually it's more like 21% use dialup and 26% of homes aren't connected to the internet at all. | |
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gnoll110
join:2007-06-09
Australia
| Who's the Piper? But OECD data said that as of last December, the 19.6% of US inhabitants had broadband access (8.5 DSL, 10.3 Cable, 0.3 Fibre/LAN and 0.6 Other).
So who paid for this Leichtman Research Group research in the first place? | |
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ipzedge
join:2007-07-28
Jamestown, CA | would you dump you dsl for a wireless T-1 service (with 256-bit encryption)? | |
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| DemonChicken
join:2006-10-15
Boon, MI | Re: would you dump you dsl for Flip no, BUT ID DUMP MY DIAL UP! | |
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53% Of US Homes Broadband Connected
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