IP Democracy: Is U.S. Becoming a Broadband Laggard?

From David Isenberg’s isen.blog:

The latest figures on Japan’s Internet connectivity, reporting through year-end 2004, are out. OK, OK, so Japan has 75,000,000 mobile phone based Internet users. I am more intrigued that there are now over 2,400,000 FTTH homes. A footnote explains that only about 1 million are in apartment buildings (collective housing) while the other 1.4 million FTTH users are mostly from single-family homes. There are 13 million DSL subscribers and just under 3 million CATV customers. The population of Japan is 125,000,000. The U.S. population is 290,000,000. So multiply by 2.3 to compare U.S. Internet numbers.

Here’s the data David’s referring to.

In an earlier post, Isenberg had cited the fact that the U.S. has fallen from 13th to 16th in per capita broadband penetration during 2004.

In another recent post, David asks the question, “Whatever happened to the Bush broadband policy?”, and cites an editorial by John Eger in Public CIO Magazine. Eger is Lionel Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public Policy at San Diego State Univ., and president of the World Foundation for Smart Communities, a non-profit corporation founded to help “local communities get connected to the global information economy.”

According to Eger, “Unlike the earlier shift of manufacturing jobs to less developed East Asian countries, the loss of the latest round of high-tech software and service jobs will have dramatic — some say devastating — impacts on America’s economic wealth and well-being.” Describing U.S. national communication policy as “bankrupt,” Eger called on President Bush, Congress and new FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to “act swiftly and decisively…to ensure that America has the infrastructure of the 21st Century, and that our cities once again are allowed to retool so that all our citizens get connected.”

Posted by Mitch Shapiro on May 24, 2005 2:09 AM to IP Democracy