The OECD global broadband rankings released earlier this week showed the United States dropped further when it comes to broadband penetration. The politicized and polar response to the report is a prime example of why the nation has no broadband policy in place — we simply cannot agree on how to proceed, much less come to a common understanding that there are issues regarding rural broadband deployment in America that may need addressing. A collection of opinions from the week:
Category: Why It’s Needed
US Falls to 25th in Broadband Penetration Worldwide
The US fell from 23rd to 25th place in worldwide broadband penetration in the last half of 2006, according to a recent survey by Point Topic. OECD data confirms the slowdown, with the US falling to 15th in broadband penetration among OECD countries surveyed. US broadband penetration grew 0.65 percentage points to 80.81% among active Internet users in March.
“When it Comes to Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow the Leader”
The United States often views itself as a paragon of technology innovation and deployment. In some cases, that view is correct, but not when it comes to broadband deployment, where the country lags considerably behind other major nations. Here’s why.
100 Mbps available nationwide in Singapore
Singapore will become the first country in the world to commercially launch 100Mbps residential broadband services nation-wide, as StarHub marks another milestone with its deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 technology.
Michael Copps: America’s Internet Disconnect
America’s record in expanding broadband communication is so poor that it should be viewed as an outrage by every consumer and businessperson in the country. Too few of us have broadband connections, and those who do pay too much for service that is too slow. It’s hurting our economy, and things are only going to get worse if we don’t do something about it.
Universal Service for a Globally Competitive America
It is the premise of this paper that the United States should adopt broadband as the universal service standard for its national information infrastructure—the nation’s system of telecommunications. Derived from Section 254 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which embraces an evolving standard of Universal Service, Universal Broadband Access constitutes a new generation of Universal Service policy beyond that construed in the 20th century as plain old telephone service (POTS).