Economics, Public Affairs, Research, Technology

Jun 19, 2006

Gary Bivings

Broadband Usage Around the World

I didn’t realize that the U.S. was such a laggard when it came to the deployment of broadband Internet access. See chart below, courtesy of the International Telecommunications Union. We’re 16th on the list of the top 20 economies, one-half Korea’s rate, and just under Liechtenstein’s.

Not very impressive; perhaps reflects a real need for policy to spur more investment and competition in the telecommunications sector. Wonder just how the debate over net-neutrality will affect our position in this chart over the coming years.

http://techbizchina.delporto.org delportd

Korea (and Japan) are starting to see the fruits of their investments from a decade ago. Even these numbers understate the quality of their bandwidth, as it often dwarfs our DSL and cable speeds. We will need to look at those markets to see what new applications arise from having such massive bandwidth at the disposal of each user.

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