{"id":548059,"date":"2006-02-22T08:50:29","date_gmt":"2006-02-22T08:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548059-us-broadband-still-trails-asian-pacesetters.html"},"modified":"2006-02-22T08:50:29","modified_gmt":"2006-02-22T08:50:29","slug":"us-broadband-still-trails-asian-pacesetters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548059-us-broadband-still-trails-asian-pacesetters.html","title":{"rendered":"US broadband still trails Asian pacesetters"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years being closer to the information hard shoulder than\u00a0 the superhighway, life in the United States is being steadily changed by the web and fast broadband Internet connections are speeding the way. <\/font><\/p>\n

But the land that gave us Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and\u00a0 Apple has a secret. The world’s lone superpower doesn’t even make a top 10 list of\u00a0 the world’s most wired broadband states, trailing giants like Japan\u00a0 and South Korea, and even tiny Denmark. <\/font><\/p>\n

Always on, always fast, web hook-ups are not only changing how\u00a0 Americans use computers, but setting new trends for work, shopping\u00a0 and leisure time, according to new surveys. <\/font><\/p>\n

Instead of having a mission in mind when they reach for the\u00a0 keyboard, more people see the Internet as a venue for fun and\u00a0 entertainment. Forty million Americans surfed with no specific purpose on a\u00a0 typical day during December according to a study released last\u00a0 week by the Pew Internet and American Life Project\u00a0 up from 25\u00a0 million people the previous time the topic was studied in November\u00a0 2004. <\/font><\/p>\n

That growth was fuelled by widening broadband penetration, home\u00a0 wireless networks, and web ready cellphones or hand held computers\u00a0 which take the pain out of surfing and dispense with sluggish\u00a0 dial-up connections. <\/font><\/p>\n

Anyone with a few minutes to spare, perhaps at work, or while\u00a0 waiting for a bus with their BlackBerry handheld perhaps, can get\u00a0 online to kill time. "Instead of tapping your toes or drumming your fingers, you can\u00a0 go to the Internet," said Deborah Fallows, a senior Pew researcher. New lifestyle trends sparked by high speed hook-ups were also\u00a0 revealed by another recent survey, by the University of Southern\u00a0 California’s Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. <\/font><\/p>\n

For the first time,\u00a0 a broadband connection is the most popular\u00a0 way for US Internet users to go online at 48 percent, compared to 45\u00a0 percent to dial up, said the data published in December. Whereas dial-up consumers typically got online only twice or\u00a0 thrice a day for around 30 minutes, those with broadband links were\u00a0 always dropping in. <\/font><\/p>\n

That kind of two-minute fix, dubbed an Internet "snack" by the\u00a0 Pew team, is often carried on at work as well as in the home. And broadband’s speedy partner the home wireless network helps people surf the web while doing things which traditionally\u00a0 occupied their free time like watching television. In one offbeat finding, the USC team even concluded that half of\u00a0 Americans with wireless networks or wi-fi had logged on in the\u00a0 bathroom. <\/font><\/p>\n

No business like web business<\/b>
But the Internet is not just a trendy new way to waste time. It\u00a0 is changing what it means to be a customer and a service\u00a0 provider. While city dwellers can usually pick a broadband hook-up, tens of millions of rural Americans are out in the cold. William Graham, mayor of Scottsburg, Indiana, travelled to\u00a0 Washington recently to spread the gospel of municipal, wireless\u00a0 broadband Internet access, which he credits with saving his remote\u00a0 heartland town. <\/font><\/p>\n

He transfixed what would otherwise have been just another dreary\u00a0 dull policy forum in the US capital, relating the moment he realised\u00a0 it was high speed Internet or die for his city. "’Mayor, I have got to tell you a story,’" Graham quoted a local\u00a0 Chrysler dealer as saying. "’Our mechanics don’t have a service manual anymore, they’ve got\u00a0 a laptop that sits on the air breather or fender of a car, and that\u00a0 laptop connects directly to Chrysler.’" <\/font><\/p>\n

"I thought, what’s this sucker leading up to?"\u00a0 Graham said. "And finally he said ‘Chrysler tells us that if we can’t get\u00a0 high-speed secure, reliable, Internet service in Scottsburg,\u00a0 Indiana, we have to move the dealership’. That’s 60 jobs. Sixty jobs\u00a0 in a community of 6,000 is a lot of jobs." Multi-million dollar cable companies had declined to provide broadband to Scottsburg, saying costs would far outweigh profits. <\/font><\/p>\n

One firm quoted the figure of five to six million dollars just\u00a0 to lay a fibreoptic cable around town. So in a pioneering effort, Graham set up a municipal wireless\u00a0 Internet service hooking up the whole town, for just 275,000\u00a0 dollars. Now, instead of businesses deserting the small town, it has\u00a0 become a magnet for firms that need high speed to survive. <\/font><\/p>\n

US no broadband Superpower <\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

Though high-speed brings the Internet high life to many\u00a0 Americans, new data obscures a surprising fact the world’s lone\u00a0 superpower, dominant economic player which nursed the early\u00a0 Internet, is lagging in the web revolution. As far as\u00a0 "broadband penetration" is concerned, the United\u00a0 States trails South Korea and Japan. The United States ranks 12th in the world in broadband coverage,\u00a0 also behind the Netherlands, Denmark and even its vast northern\u00a0 neighbor, Canada. <\/font><\/p>\n

Only 10.5 % of Americans were always connected to the\u00a0 Internet\u00a0 compared to 25 % of South Koreans, according to\u00a0 figures by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development\u00a0 (OECD). Some analysts say the Bush administration has failed to put the\u00a0 might of government behind spreading high speed Internet, and slam\u00a0 cable providers for charging too much and keeping the market too\u00a0 closed to competition. <\/font><\/p>\n

In a provocative article in Foreign Affairs last year, former US\u00a0 foreign service officer Thomas Bleha warned the US economy would pay\u00a0 a heavy price. "By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are\u00a0 positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits\u00a0 of broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a\u00a0 better quality of life." But not everyone in the industry agrees, and a philosophical\u00a0 argument has been raging on the status of broadband in the United\u00a0 States for years. <\/font><\/p>\n

In a December 2003 report entitled "Does the Broadband Market\u00a0 Need Fixing", the Congressional Budget Office, which provides\u00a0 non-partisan advice to legislators, doubted the utility of\u00a0 government action. "Nothing in the performance of the residential broadband market\u00a0 suggests that federal subsidies for it will produce large economic\u00a0 gains," the report said. <\/font><\/p>\n

Inet-Bridge<\/i> ||\u00a0 <\/font>Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the bus, in the bathroom, on a BlackBerry in the boardroom, or a car mechanics’ laptop, the Internet is burrowing deeper into every corner of American life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548059"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}