Dr. Dobb's | CWA, ITIF Cite Slow U.S. Broadband

CWA, ITIF Cite Slow U.S. Broadband

The U.S. lags behind many other developed countries in average internet-access speeds, according to recent reports.

May 29, 2007
URL:http://drdobbs.com/web-development/cwa-itif-cite-slow-us-broadband/199703033

The Communications Workers of America claim in a recent study that "average broadband speed" in the U.S. is just 1.9 Mbit/s, well below the national average for most other industrialized nations.

"We desperately need a national Internet policy to reverse the fact that our nation, the country that invented the Internet, has fallen to 16th in the world in high-speed Internet penetration," said Larry Cohen, president of the CWA, speaking earlier this month in support of the Broadband Census of America Act before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

Another recent report, by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, shows slightly higher numbers, placing average U.S. broadband speed at about 4.8 Mbit/s, still well below many other nations, including Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Canada, Poland and Germany.

The CWA's numbers, by their own admission, are somewhat unscientific. It is unclear what percentage of the 67,000 people surveyed for the report use dial-up. This only underscores the point, however, that broadband penetration in U.S. markets is well below that of the other nations in the report.