US Broadband Still Woeful
Posted February 19th, 2009 by Albert Banks
Here in the United States we like to think of ourselves as a modern technological society. The truth is we lag behind the rest of the world in a very important facet of technology – broadband. High Speed internet access (broadband) has continued to grow in this country, but not nearly as fast as other nations.
Penetration
The US has continued to drop in the broadband penetration rankings worldwide – we are now 19th. This means a greater percent of people in countries such as Luxemburg, Australia and Canada have broadband access than Americans.
Speed
We also lack when it comes to broadband speed. The latest CWA Report has the US ranked 15th with an median download speed of 2.35 Mb/s. Compared to Japan (63 Mb/s), South Korea (49.50 Mb/s), Finland (21.70 Mb/s) and France (17.60 Mb/s) our speed is pitiful. Even neighbor Canada ranked ahead of the US with an average download speed of 7.60 Mb/s. Now comes the news that Koreans will have 1Gbps connections by 2012.
Cost
After hearing these stats, you might wonder how our costs compare to other countries. This is the one list we do top. The US has the highest cost of broadband among industrialized nations.
Where do we go from here?
The government is ready to influence the situation, citing productivity gains from an improved infrastructure. The economic stimulus package should include a $10 billion to $15 billion investment.
US internet service providers have fallen into a stagnant situation. Hopefully, this influx will energize the market. Otherwise, we will continue to drop behind the modern world in broadband…
Filed under Internet
