ITIF Senior Fellow Claims "America's Broadband Networks Lead the World"

McGruber writes "In an Op-Ed published in The NY Times, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF.org) Senior Fellow Richard Bennett claims that 'America's broadband networks lead the world by many measures, and they are improving at a more rapid rate than networks in most developed countries.' Mr. Bennett also says, 'the most critical issue facing American broadband has nothing to do with the quality of our networks; it is our relatively low rates of subscribership.'"

Comments

Re:What!?

[operagost]

Akamai published the Q4 2012 edition of their State of the Internet report yesterday, and it's pretty much as expected: the trends that have been evident since 2010 are continuing. Globally, Internet connections are growing incrementally faster, and we see this trend in the U. S.

The U. S. has picked up one place in the "Average Peak Connection Speed" that's the best measurement of network capacity, rising from 14th to 13th as the measured peak connection speed increased from 29.6 Mbps to 31.5 Mbps.
In terms of the "Average Connection Speed," widely cited by analysts who don't know what it means, the U. S. remains in 8th place world-wide. but we're no longer tied for it as we were in the previous quarter; Sweden is right behind us on this one.
In terms of "High Speed Broadband Adoption", the proportion of IP addresses with an Average Connection Speed greater than 10 Mbps, we remain in 7th place, but now we're tied with Sweden.

http://www.hightechforum.org/u-s-broadband-speed-slightly-better-in-latest-akamai-report/

Re:Out of touch

[sstamps]

Where?

I don't even have a library within 40 miles of where I live, let alone one with a $20,000 router in it.

I pay the same universal service fees as everyone else, and I don't get anywhere NEAR the access as 99% of the rest of the country.

My ISP is shit. SHIT. They WAY overcommit their crappy low-end ADSL lines (which constantly crash/go down), and have delayed any upgrade plans for YEARS. Then they have the unmitigated gall to go whining to the state legislature to block any attempts by our local municipality to seek out a better PAID-FOR solution for us.

No, the problem with broadband in 'Murrica is all the goddamned crooks in the government-backed monopolies who pocket all the money we are forced to give them, both voluntarily, and at gunpoint, and then give us sweet-motherfuck-all in return.

I couldn't be happier at this point if all the goddamned telcos died in a fire, painfully. I sure as hell wouldn't consider even pissing on them to put them out.

Re: The Point

[reve_etrange]

I don't have to think or believe that a lot of Americans are struggling to feed themselves and their families, because unfortunately I have the luxury of knowing it. 14.5% of US families suffer from food insecurity. SNAP (food stamps) only provides $4 / day.

Page with summary statistics
2011 USDA study