US Falls to 24th Place For Broadband Penetration

amigoro writes "According to research done by the consultancy firm Point Topic, the US has fallen to 24th place in terms of broadband penetration, with only 53% of households connected. South Korea led the pack, with 90% of households having highspeed connections. The US remains the largest broadband country in the world with more than 60.4 million subscribers in the quarter with 2.9 million new broadband additions, but China is fast catching up and has cut the gap to the US from 5.8 million at the end of 2006 to 4.1 million at end of March 2007. The firm's research also pointed out the disparity between the connectivity of first world nations and other places throughout the world. 'Many Sub-Saharan African states do not register in the figures at all: only South Africa, Sudan, Senegal and Gabon make it onto the list, with household broadband penetration running from 1.79% in South Africa - with 215,000 users at the end of March - to just 0.05% in Sudan - with a mere 3,000. North African states fare slightly better with Morocco scoring 6.78% penetration with 418,000 users and Egypt at 1.55% or 240,000.'"

Comments

I thought we covered this already

[alzoron]

We can't just run a cable 300 feet to an apartment complex and take care of 10% of the population in one shot like most European countries can.

Get it? We're big, really big, and when you add in the fact that our interior isn't a barren wasteland like most of the other big countries we have a whole lot of people spread out all over the place.

Re:I thought we covered this already

[Frenchy_2001]

Actually, no. You have 80% of your population in urban areas and those still cant get correct connections.
In the US, broadband is defined as any link that is both constant and above 128kb/s. In Korea, broadband is a link over 20Mbps both ways.

By your definition, you should be able to get the same type of connection in downtown New York city, but it is not the case...

Re:Not a surprise

[traveller604]

Well Finland is #190 with 15,5 pop per km and Sweden #185 with 20,0 pop per km. The USA has almost twice as large population density as Finland and about 1/3 larger than Sweden, but out of these countries still the lowest broadband penetration per capita figures. Wonder why..

It's insane

[ILuvRamen]

I was at someone's apartment yesterday that's pretty much on the edge of an almost 100,000 person city and they can't get anything but dialup there. They can't even get cable, they have to have a dish. I was actually considering moving in there cuz it was really nice and the price was right but then I heard that and was like forget it. It's not even close to a rural area either. It's like half a mile from one of the biggest malls around here. If the stupid cable and phone companies would just spend some money and lay down some fiber or at least copper, it wouldn't be so bad. When 99% of people with dialup are pissed, that's a pretty good business opportunity for broadband here.

Re:Easy to run broadband in dense populations

[Jarjarthejedi]

Well lets see, considering that South Korea's density is 41 times the US's I'd say there's likely some correlation

Using (# w/ broadband)/(total population)/density (if you have a better way please go ahead and use it, my math skills aren't the best) we get an "index" of what percent of the population/density has broadband.

US: 53%/31 density = 1.7096
South Korea: 90%/1274 = 0.0706
UK: 55.5%/246 = 0.22560

I wonder what a real mathematical formula would show in terms of the comparison between the US and South Korea. This one has a large number of problems, not the least of which is that it's completely arbitrary. I'd venture a guess that the US is actually one of the best in terms of penetration per area, what percentage of the area can have broadband.

Re:Not a surprise

[SoCalChris]

Actually, I do get broadband out in podunk Montana. It costs me $100/month for a 1.5/Mbit down 192Kbit up connection, but I do get broadband.

Re:Not a surprise

[N3WBI3]

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_per_liv_in_u rb_are-people-percentage-living-urban-areas

I would not be so sure about that:

Percent of people living in urban areas:

#40 Sweden: 83%
#43 United States: 80%
#88 Finland: 61%

Now the real question is what are the other percentage of people doing? are they in communities which are not urban but still sizable? are in farming?

DEFINITION: Percentage of people living in urban areas. Data for 2003. Urban-rural classification of population in internationally published statistics follows the national census definition, which differs from one country or area to another. National definitions are usually based on criteria that may include any of the following: size of population in a locality, population density, distance between built-up areas, predominant type of economic activity, legal or administrative boundaries and urban characteristics such as specific services and facilities.

I don't care to start searching about the US vs Swedish or Finish definition but my basic point is, its not as simple as people are making it out to be.

Re:"Falling" means what again?

[ls -la]

So we've got more broadband users than anybody else in the world, and more this year than last year, and they're calling that "falling"? The absolute number means little to nothing. We're 24th (down from 19th if I remember last year's number correctly, it's been a while) by percentage, which matters more.

And that's only counting households - that's not counting the number of people there That's only counting households for the rest of the world too, and I think our average household size is lower than most of the world (not china though).

IMHO, the people pushing the "oh, no, we're falling behind" FUD are mainly trying to sell television over broadband I think they're trying to induce competition which much of the US lacks, leading to higher prices and lower bitrates.

Re:What about total population/landmass?

[Chandon Seldon]

Laughingstock? Seriously, you need to stop caring so much what other people think of you.

I just want a decent speed internet connection. I pay twice as much for a 3 Mbps / 768 kbps connection than a South Korean pays for a 100 Mbps symmetric connection. I'm not worried about what other people think - I'm pissed off that getting the same speed connect it would cost $30/month to get in Tokyo would cost me me more than $10,000 / month.