NYTimes story on Broadband Gap:
In Japan, broadband service running at 150 megabits per second (Mbps) costs $60 a month. The fastest service available now in the United States is 50 Mbps at a price of $90 to $150 a 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.
There’s more than just envy at stake here. President Obama campaigned on a promise of fast broadband service for all. On the White House Web site, he writes “America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access.” And the recent stimulus bill requires the Federal Communications Commission to create a national broadband plan in order to make high-speed Internet service both more available and more affordable.
19 comments:
It is amazing how cheap Japans broadband is compared to ours. I could never imagine paying $150 for going on the web. I would rather go to the library than pay that much. If Obama is going to live up to his promise he has a long way to go. I'll take my slower hook up at an affordable rate for now.
While I do think that broadband is a step in the right direction for the US, I do not agree with Friedman when he states that it should have taken priority over the war on terror.
Wow, even in New York broadband for 1mgps is $20? Geez that is expensive. I would have never realized that the United States was that far off from all of the other countries. It would seem that United States was at least a little bit closer than that! I pay $35 for clearwire internet that is not even 1mgps!!
Yeah I agree that broadband needs to be considered and pushed for with Obama. We need to be able to get information from anywhere...which the internet has provided us the opportunity with, but we need to be able to get this information faster. I am just picturing US engineers and scientists sitting at their desks hunched over a computer waiting for it to load...while the Japenese are busy typing away and gaining knowledge while we twiddle our thumbs. Thats discouraging.
I like the fact that President Obama is pushing for so much in the scientific field. We need to get our collective butts in gear as a country and start focusing on science and math a whole lot more. The broadband factor will hopefully be just a small stepping stone to bigger and better things.
The United States needs to get on board with the cheaper broadband. It's so expensive here. That's ridiculous.
In London, $9 a month buys 8 Mbps service.
In Naches, $10 a month buys 56kb/s.
I think that's enough said.
I hope Obama makes good broadband service more accessable in the U.S. Right now I have broadband and sometimes it is fast and sometimes it is really slow.
I get my fastest internet at work, (which is where i am now :) at home it's not too bad, but its expensive. work's wireless internet is free for me, and fast so i do anything of importance (taxes, fafsa, homework, etc) at work, which is nice. :) and i completely agree that things need to change and priorities need to be sorted out!
At the same time, we have to consider the "priorities." I feel like broadband ties in with education and infrastructure, but do we choose to upgrade our connections before we spread health and child care? Ugh the world would be such a great place if money did grow on trees!
I also like how Obama is pushing in the area of science. It is a good way to become an "untouchable".
i think if we have cheap internet it will help the educational gap at the bottem... some people disagree with that. if your one of them read my essay
I will believe it when I see it and hopefully I see broadband get cheaper sooner than later. Maybe someday we can catch up with other country but it seems like we are taking steps the wrong way doesn't it.
We have to remember that Japan has a lot more people-per-sq. mile, which makes it much easier to get braodaband to more people.
What is sad is that 90% of the broadband use is for myspace and facebook. Broadband in the house is good, broadband in your kids room is a disaster.
-Matthew
I think broadband internet is great resource and everyone should have it because it is the age of technology. I am nervous about all this technology though, like in all those sci-fi movies where technology takes over and controls the humans. Take google earth for instance, couldn't terrorists use that information to help plan an attack? Is too much technology a dangerous thing? Something to consider at least.
That's it I've made up my my mind. I'm moving to Japan. All the sushi you can eat and all the broadband you can shake a stick at. I'm in!
John you have certainly got a point about Japan. But the thing that gets me is that they don't have our Second Amendment rights.
i think its important to have broadband. i watch the commercials that are constantly on tv about this stuff and it seems pretty cheap
Post a Comment