[Hen] FW: U.S. places a slow 6th in Internet speed

[Johnson, Bill]

The following article was shared by Tom West; I thought you might
appreciate seeing it as well.
Regards,
Don Riley





From: "Eric Lee" <ericlee at dupontgroup.net>

Date: June 25, 2007 11:27:11 AM PDT

To: "'Economics of IP Networks'" <arch-econ at cookreport.com>

Subject: [Arch-econ] Story From LA Times Today

Reply-To: Economics of IP Networks <arch-econ at cookreport.com>

 


U.S. places a slow 6th in Internet speed


A communications workers union advocates measures to improve Americans'
access to faster broadband connections for medical, educational and
business purposes.

By James S. Granelli, Times Staff Writer
10:00 AM PDT, June 25, 2007 

 

Forget how far the nation is falling behind the rest of the
industrialized world in the percentage of households with high-speed
Internet access. A first-of-its-kind study released this morning shows
that both California and the United States are taking a bigger thumping
on what constitutes "high-speed."

The U.S. is a distant sixth place in terms of how fast data move through
the Internet pipes for homes, schools, hospitals and workplaces,
according to the study released by the Communications Workers of
America.

The median Internet speed in the U.S. is 1.97 megabits per second. In
California it's even slower, at 1.52 mbps. Both are dwarfed by No. 1
Japan, which offers users 61 mbps at the same price as U.S. service.

The difference in speed means that downloading a movie in Japan takes
two minutes compared with more than two hours in the U.S.

But the communications workers union, through its Speed Test project,
doesn't care about how fast movies are downloaded. Its focus is on
telemedicine, education and other areas in which a super-fast connection
can save lives, teach citizens and make businesses more competitive.

"Speed defines what is possible on the Internet," union President Larry
Cohen said. "Speed determines whether we will have the 21st century
networks and communications necessary to grow our economy and jobs."

The group also is interested in making sure the country builds out the
needed infrastructure, which it says would provide quality jobs as well
as more potential union members.

The study, which surveyed 80,000 Internet users, dovetails into pending
legislation proposed by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) to collect data
on broadband deployment, redefine what "high-speed" means and help local
officials study the reach of broadband.

"The first step toward good public policy is good data," Cohen said.

The union's report determined that the nations following Japan with the
fastest speeds were South Korea at 45.6 mbps, Finland at 21.7 mbps,
Sweden at 18.2 mbps, Canada at 7.6 mbps and then the U.S.

In the United States, Rhode Island had the fastest median speed at 5
mbps; Alaska had the slowest at 545 kilobits per second.

The communications workers union advocates six steps for providing
affordable broadband to all U.S. residents. Those include setting a
national policy goal, improving data collection, creating public-private
partnerships for deploying broadband and preserving an open Internet to
give users unfettered control of what they do online.

Results of the report are at www.speedmatters.org.

 

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--
Dr. Don Riley
SURA IT Fellow;  Chair, IEEAF (www.ieeaf.org)
Professor, Decision Information Technologies
   and Affiliate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Univ. of Maryland
4469 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD 20742
Phone/VMail: 301-405-8855      FAX: 301-405-8655
Home Office: 240-683-4564    H.FAX: 301-417-9493
drriley at umd.edu
"Leaders for the Digital Economy"   www.rhsmith.umd.edu
_____________________________________________________
 

 

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