Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Fiddling (with numbers) On the Titanic

In recent testimony before Congress, CWA President Larry Cohen made the case that the average broadband download speed in the US is only 1.9 megabits per second, compared to 61 Mbps in Japan, 45 Mbps in South Korea, 18 Mbps in Sweden, and 17 Mpbs in France.

Another report came out recently stating that when combining so-called broadband penetration (lovely term!) with subscribers and price per household, the US is 12th in the world rather than 15th.

While I admire the desire to drill down into the details, no matter how you count the lifeboats, the fact is the Titanic is still going down. Unless we wake up and realize how critical the Net has become to every facet of society, including our economy, we will wake up in icy waters instead.

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