Despite President Bush’s vow that all Americans would have access to high-speed Internet service by 2007, a new study suggests the U.S. is continuing to fall behind other developed countries in broadband subscriptions.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development today released its annual broadband Internet statistics, which shows the U.S. now ranks 15th among the group’s 30 member countries for broadband subscriptions. Last year, the U.S. ranked 12th.
To be fair, the number of broadband subscribers per 100 residents in the U.S. has steadily increased over the past five years. In 2001, only 4.5 of every 100 U.S. residents subscribed to broadband Internet services compared to 16.3 in 2005. Last year, that figure increased to 19.6. And the U.S. still has more total broadband subscribers, with more than 58 million.
But since other nations’ residents have signed up for broadband services at a higher rate, the U.S. continues to slip in these annual rankings. “It’s a national embarrassment and the only way to change it is to develop a broadband strategy like every other industrialized nation has already done. These rankings aren’t a beauty contest — they’re about our competitiveness as a country and creating economic opportunity for all our people,” FCC commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Recently, the FCC quietly launched an effort to look at whether it needs to change the way it collects data on broadband subscribers. The agency has been criticized for not releasing enough detailed information, like a breakdown between consumer and business subscribers and pricing information. The FCC’s role in helping speed the adoption of high-speed Internet services in the U.S. will likely come up tomorrow at two hearings on Capitol Hill focusing on speeding U.S. broadband adoption rates.
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