While I consider imperial overreach on the part of the U.S. I wonder if we are not getting stung by our success.
Other countries have faster and cheaper broadband connections while more of their population is connected to a faster Internet.
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would develop an annual inventory of existing broadband service--including the types, advertised speeds and actual number of subscribers--available to households and businesses across the nation.
This move by the Committee means that entrepreneurs better move fast before the government slows down progress.
If bright people start applying themselves, before the government begins to thwart progress, broadband would help spur job growth, access to health care, improve education, and promote innovation.
Faster countries include: South Korea, where the average apartment can get an Internet connection that's 15 times faster than a typical U.S. connection, and in Paris, a "triple play" of TV, phone and broadband service costs less than half of what it does in the U.S.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) puts the U.S. at 15th place for broadband lines per person in 2006, down from No. 4 in 2001.
Although the statistics may be criticized by some, and they are, the OECD numbers are in line with other international measures. The numbers are confirmed by British research firm Point-Topic Ltd. which concluded that the U.S. had only 55 percent of its households connected, in short, in 17th place for adoption rates. In comparison, Canada has 65 percent of its households connected to broadband.
As an additional confirmation, Dave Burstein, editor of the DSL Prime newsletter, stated: "We're now in the middle of the pack of developed countries," during a recent debate at the Columbia Business School's Institute for Tele-Information.
In 2004, President Bush called for nationwide broadband access by 2007, to be characterized by a lack of taxes and little regulation. The U.S. is close to Bush's goal.
The Internet is comparatively expensive and slow. Moreover, people are not necessarily plugging in.
One promising area is a new cable modem technology called Docsis 3.0 could allow U.S. Internet speeds to leapfrog those in countries dominated by DSL.
In addition, the country's second largest telecommunications company, Verizon Communications Inc., is spending $23 billion to connect homes directly with super-fast fiber optics.
Even though the new network can match or outdo the 100 megabits per second Internet service widely available in Japan and Korea, Verizon isn't yet selling service at that speed.
We have to do better than 15th.
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