The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently released an article on global leaders in broadband deployment. This article promotes the United States (U.S.) as the only “large” country placed in the top 10 for high-speed Internet penetration.
Where it was once thought that the United States was behind in broadband deployment, performance, price and adoption, this is not the full picture. The other nine countries that ranked in the top 10 are much smaller with higher urban population densities.
According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the United States ranked 22nd in the world for broadband performance in 2008. Just five years later it ranked 8th, which indicates that the United States is faring much better than Europe in terms of broadband coverage.
A key finding is that the approach the United States promotes (facilities-based competition) is outperforming Europe’s approach (service-based competition). “Since 1996, [U.S. Internet service providers] have invested over $1.2 trillion,” Sununu and Ford wrote in a letter to The New York Times. “That’s how 99 percent of Americans today have access to wired and wireless broadband, and Internet speeds have gone up 1,500 percent in the last decade.” Ultimately the U.S. approach of promoting investment in broadband deployment proves to be most beneficial for consumers.
Click here to read the article.