US Lags World In Broadband Access

An anonymous reader writes "When It Comes To Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow The Leader says a story in IWeek. Their thesis is that, while broadband access in the United States rose from 60 million users in March 2005 to 84 million in March 2006, the US is well behind countries like England and China. Indeed, what you may not realize is that the U.S. ranks a surprisingly poor 12th in worldwide broadband access, a situation which could threaten its ability to maintain its technological lead. The federal government is no help: the FCC has almost no data on the rate of hi-speed adoption, or of what the speed and quality of those services are. Broadband is more expensive here than in other nations, as well, almost 10 times as expensive by some estimates. The cost and poor quality of service aren't from population density, aren't from lack of interest, and are not from lack of technical know-how. So, what is holding us back?

Comments

" US Lags World In Broadband Access"

[EvanED]

Maybe we can reduce that lag if we install broadband. I hear ping times are noticeably faster than dial-up...

Perhaps the problem lies in our leadership?

[curunir]

Quote the article (emphasis mine):

President George W. Bush admitted back in 2004 that while broadband use had tripled over the previous four years, the U.S. then ranked 10th among industrialized nations for broadband availability, and he added, "Tenth is 10 spots too low, as far as I'm concerned."

<snide-remark>With intelligent leadership like that, it makes you wonder how we can be lagging so far behind.</snide-remark>

Re:Perhaps the problem lies in our leadership?

[EvanED]

Maybe he's just an uber-techie who always counts from zero, ever think of that?

Sheesh, you Bush bashers, always so quick to the trigger. ;-)

Isn't It Obvious?

[ReidMaynard]

The Tubes are cloging.

Re:location, location, location

[14CharUsername]

in soviet russia the country settles you.

Re:This might be...

[14CharUsername]

haha everytime someone says this.

Person A: US boradband sucks because the US is a big country.
Person B: Canada is bigger and boradband doesn't suck there.
Person A: Oh...

Re:This might be...

[gardyloo]

It's quite easy to put cables through a heavily concentrated Asian population. It's quite another thing to lay thousands of miles of cable across the United Staes.

      Ron Jeremy can do it.

Re:This might be...

[wclacy]

The US lags behind 11 other Countries because Porn is more important in those other countries. They need their Broadband!!! E-mail works fine over dialup :-)

Re:Competition, competition, competition

[miyako]

it's funny how every post in this thread has put a larger portion of Canada's population closer to the US border.
I just keep expecting to see:
Everyone in Canada lives in one house who's front porch is on US soil, except bill, who lives on Neptune, but he still gets 1TB down and they pay him $25 a month to use it!