ITNews

The Business Week posting The Sad State of U.S. Broadband tells the story

The U.S. has a dismal showing among nations in terms of broadband availability, with no easy solution to bridge the gap

For the second year running, the U.S. ranked 15th among the 30 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development in terms of broadband availability. Denmark ranked first again in the annual OECD survey, followed by a host of European and Asian nations. Indeed, while the number of Americans with access to broadband service rose 20% last year, to nearly 70 million people, the most in the OECD, that amounted to just 23 of every 100 residents. By contrast, the top five countries in the OECD ranking all sport per-capita penetration rates of better than 30%.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission seems to playing the Telecom industry lap dog role when it quickly points out differences in population and geography that have made it more difficult for the nation to catch up with smaller countries.

Yea, right, sure. Lame excuse. My take on this situation is control is paramount for the telecom industry. The Telecom greed mongers will increase broadband speeds once they have stifled any and all Internet video on-demand competition, and the Telecom industry is firmly in control. This business model has worked well for the Hollywood greed mongers for decades, so why not for the Telecom greed mongers.

…John