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Why is U.S. broadband so far behind other countries?

13.03.2009
New York Times editor Saul Hansell has written a on broadband in America, and how it compares with the rest of the world. It asks, "Why Is Theirs Faster? Why Is Theirs Cheaper? Why Do They Have More Fiber?" I'm sure most people haven't read the whole series, so here's a summary (in convenient bullet format!) of what Hansell found in his reporting. He placed U.S. networks in the "middle of the pack" for broadband speed and availability, and high on price.

For starters, other countries beat U.S. broadband by the basic numbers.

-- In Japan, broadband service running at 150 megabits per second (Mbps) costs US$60 per month. The fastest service available now in the United States is 50 Mbps at a price of $90 to $150 per month.

-- In London, $9 a month buys 8 Mbps service. In New York, broadband starts at $20 per month, for 1 Mbps.

-- In Iceland, 83 percent of the households are connected to broadband. In the United States, the adoption rate is 59 percent.

Why the gap? One crucial factor is the size of the United States relative to other countries. Wiring customers is costly, and it makes a big difference. Consider the following: