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America's Not So Up to Speed

Posted by Zonk on from the tortoise-only-wins-it-so-long dept.

indiejade writes "According to The Broadband Life, the U.S. has quite a way to go before catching up to countries such as South Korea, Japan and even Canada when it comes to percentage of the population enjoying high-speed internet access. 'In 2000, the U.S. ranked third in Net users connecting at high-speed among the top-30 world economies. The next year it fell to fourth. Now it's 11th,' the article said." Commentary on this is also available at Foreign Affairs and The New York Times.

5 of 516 comments (clear)

  1. No kidding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm still downloading that Pam and Tommy Lee video that i started years ago....

  2. Not first post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would have got it but this connection is SO DAMN SLOW!

  3. IT'S NOT A WEEK AT /. WITHOUT THIS STORY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man....we almost closed out the week without a "USA is a technological backwater compared to all these countries with a lower standard of living with far higher population density and enormous federal pork to build their broadband connections" story. Thank God we dodged that bullet!

    1. Re:IT'S NOT A WEEK AT /. WITHOUT THIS STORY! by Stoutlimb · · Score: 4, Funny

      " Its people are better educated, they live longer, and they have a smaller homeless population. "

      I personally think that our low homeless population is due to our harsh winters. They provide a very strong incentive for people to live indoors.

      And the hobos we have that do live outside in the winter are usually DAMN tough customers.

      .

  4. *Even Canada!* by blorg · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't mind the negative comparisons to Japan, South Korea, Denmark. But *Canada*! That really hurts.