US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's For 101 Years

An anonymous reader writes "Internet speeds of users nationwide shows that the United States has not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year, and if the average US Internet speed continues to improve only at the same rate it did from 2007 to 2008, the country won't catch up with Japan's current download speed for another 100 years, according to findings released by the Communications Workers of America's (CWA's) Speed Matters campaign." With enough statistical mangling, nearly anything can be presented as plausible, but that's not enough to cover up my envy of Asian broadband speeds.

Comments

oook

[pak9rabid]

Yes, because we all know upgrade paths are all completely linear...

Re:oook

[MrNaz]

Replying only because you made this on topic :)

if only for the fact there isn't a clear successor yet

Ahem. China? India? Heck, Brazil?

All have far more robust economies than the US at the moment, if national budgets are anything to go by. The US government has long considered its ability to tax its citizens as an unlimited line of credit. They (you?) are about (in the near future, near being used on the historical timescale) to find out that there is no such thing as an unlimited line of credit. The US citizens' willingness to be frogboiled into paying for more and more of their income to their government's siphon-wealth-to-the-rich program is wearing thin.

If you're cynical enough, you could postulate that the destruction of the US education system is no a political misadventure, but a deliberate act to keep the working class in a poorly educated state. This would ensure that they lack the insight to interpret political reality for themselves, instead relying solely on pre-digested conclusions drip fed to them via the mass media.

But that's a position you'd take if you were cynical enough. I'm obviously not :)

Spin This So Action is Taken!

[eldavojohn]

US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's for 101 Years

Uh, could you somehow spin (regardless of truth) this as related to war and/or military prowess so our administration will mindlessly throw money at it instead of mindlessly ignoring it?

Like:

US Cyber Attacking Infrastructure Embarrassingly Lags Japan's

Japanese Identify US Broadband as "Ripe for the Pickin'"

Cyber Pearl Harbor Imminent

US President's Netflix Downloads 1/10 as Fast as Japanese President's

US Administration Idles as US-Japanese Broadband Gap Widens

Come on, these things basically write themselves! Turn it into a dick measuring contest or it's meaningless.

Red Herring Comparison

[Scudsucker]

Not the old "but America is rural!" chestnut again. Scandinavian countries have lower population densities than we do yet have much better access. And the "rural" argument might make sense for why you can't get good access on a farm in Kansas, but then why don't we have 100 Mbps consumer connections in San Francisco or Manhattan?

Why?

[illegalcortex]

Whether or not the prediciton is statistically shaky, the fact remains that there is a huge gap between the US and many other, quite dissimilar countries. The big question is "Why?" Japan and Korea aren't the only ones that far outclass American broadband speed, though they do have quite a speed lead.

Chart of Broadband Speeds by Country

And sure, in the US you can get FiOS at 30Mbps, but it will cost you $200/month and you have to live in a very limited area. You can get 50Mbps from Comcast only if you live in the Twin Cities (right now), but it's still $150/month.

I could point to the geography of the US, saying how its a much bigger area than the smaller countries at the top of those charts. Sure, Japan and Korea have an incredible population density. But not Finland, Sweden, France, etc. They have population densities several orders of magnitude smaller than even cities like Houston, Miami, Phoenix, or Chicago. Why aren't these cities more like those countries?

I could also try it from the angle of regulation/free market/competition. But I'm pretty sure those countries at the top aren't all the same in that regard.

Is it because our companies tend to each have local monopolies over large areas? That seems less likely considering how just about everyone in a metro area can get cable. So they have two companies, phone and cable, to compete with each other.

Is there something unique about our infrastructure? Did we make some horrible mistake that seemed like a good idea at the time but is now haunting us?

Is the US just in a perfect storm of craptitude where all these factors come into play?

Re:Euro/Japan envy is getting stupid

[CastrTroy]

I live in Canada, and from talking to a couple Americans, my taxes seem to be right on pay with what they are paying, possibly a little higher. Once I count in all the benefits my government provides me, like free health care, I would probably say I pay less taxes than many Americans. Americans think they have less taxes, but if you really look into it, you'll find that logic flawed. They pay a little less, but get a lot less out of their government.

Re:Bu-Bu-But the free market rules!

[Chandon Seldon]

You're blaming government-granted monopolies on the free market?