In the race to increase broadband Internet access, the United States continues to make gains; but compared to many other Western countries, the U. S. is beginning to lag behind. The Lichtman Research Group recently published a report demonstrating that the rate of broadband Internet expansion has slowed considerably in 2008, compared to the levels of growth over the last seven years.
In fact, the report said that growth was slower in the second quarter of 2008 than in any quarter since the group began keeping track of broadband expansion seven years ago. Cable companies in the US are still managing to expand broadband access at a reasonable rate; but rural area broadband access has slowed significantly this year, creating the possibility of an “information gap” between Americans who live in urban areas, and those who live in the countryside.
Even more bad news for the expansion of high-speed Internet in the US comes from the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The CWA recently sponsored a study which suggests that the U. S. is falling behind other nations regarding the speed of our broadband Internet access.
This CWA tested over a quarter of a million broadband connections throughout the US. The results were somewhat shocking: broadband speeds averaged just 2.3Mbps in the U. S., placing us well behind most other industrialized nations.
Japan for example, has an average broadband download speed of 63Mbps, or nearly 30 times that of the US. South Korea isn’t far behind with average speeds of 49Mbps. Most European nations also had 7 to 10 times America’s average broadband speed, with countries like France averaging 17Mbps.
Back in the U. S., Rhode Island is the state with the fastest average broadband access, coming in at only 6.8Mbps. On the low end of the scale, Alaska came in 50th with a meager 0.8Mbps average broadband speed. The speed of Internet access is important for many reasons, but as Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America notes, “speed matters to our economy and our ability to remain competitive in a global marketplace.”
Cohen also pointed out that the US is the only Western nation lacking a high-speed Internet access policy at the federal level. Many experts believe this lack of a centralized vision for high speed Internet access is to blame for the dismal average access speeds in the US. Countries like Japan, Korea, Norway, France and Germany all have a national policy with the goal of providing high-speed Internet access for all citizens.
In order to better compete with our European and Asian allies, the US would be wise to adopt a similar high-speed Internet policy at the federal level. And the time to do it is now — Japan’s average Internet speed is increasing by 20% annually.
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