The surprising news in that is where the United States finds itself in the high-speed Internet race.
Americans are mired in a broadband world that leaves them far behind their global competitors in Japan, South Korea, Finland, France and even our neighbors to the north in Canada.
For instance, nearly 230,000 Americans took an Internet speed test between May 2007 and May 2008 offered by speedmatters.org, a Web site established by the Communications Workers union. Internet subscribers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia took the test, which revealed that the median download speed for the nation was 2.3 megabits per second.
That lags far behind Japan, which has median download speeds of more than 60 mbps, or South Korea, where Web surfers cruise at 50 mbps. Even Canadians enjoy an advantage over their U.S. neighbors, with broadband speeds of almost 10 mbps.
Lagging further behind
Oklahomans lagged even further behind with average download speeds of 1.86 mpbs. That's 40th among all the states and the District of Columbia, although an official with Cox Communications pointed to a survey that showed Oklahoma ranked fifth among the states for Internet connections of 5 megabits or more.
The union, which represents many workers in big telecommunications companies such as AT&T, has launched an initiative to urge the government to establish a national broadband policy. The initiative would develop public and private consortiums to build out high-speed infrastructure nationwide.
"It's a basic issue of competitiveness,” said Debbie Goldman, an economist with the Communications Workers. "Communications networks are the infrastructure of the 21st century. This is where we are going to be able to compete for good jobs and economic growth with our competitors.”
Supporting new legislation
The digital divide also is one of "equity,” Goldman said. Rural citizens and low-income citizens are likely to be left behind.
That's why the union is supporting legislation working its way through Congress that would provide funding so that states can map their broadband infrastructure, and support initiatives between the public and private sector that would expand broadband networks. She pointed to an effort called ConnectKentucky that expanded broadband availability from 60 percent of the state to 90 percent.
For its part, an AT&T spokesman Monday said that the telecommunications giant supports public policy that encourages broadband growth.
AT&T offers broadband options ranging from speeds of 768 kilobits per second up to 10 mbps, spokesman Andy Morgan said.
AT&T claims to offer all of its Oklahoma customers broadband Internet access, whether through DSL, 3G wireless service or satellite.
"We support public policy that encourages broadband growth, innovation and investment and establishes broadband adoption and investment as priorities to promote U.S. economic growth and global competitiveness,” Morgan said. "AT&T has proposed a broadband universal service plan for the 21st Century.”
More than 80 percent of subscribers to cable Internet from Cox Communications have download speeds greater than 7 mbps, up to 12 mpbs, spokeswoman Christine Martin said.
"Cox is extremely proud to offer lightning-fast high-speed Internet service to every Oklahoma customer in the Cox footprint,” Martin said. "For those who crave even more, Cox will again increase speeds in the coming months up to 20 mbps with Cox PowerBoost.”
Martin provided a survey from Akamai Technologies that showed Oklahoma ranks fifth among all states for the percent of broadband connections that have connections greater than 5 megabits per second. The Akamai survey showed that 78 percent of state broadband connections exceeded 2 mbps.
However, Cox only serves consumers in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas, which leaves much of the state to rely on a patchwork of service providers that includes dialup, wireless, DSL, satellite and smaller cable operators.
All sorts of connections
Internet speed tests at www.speedmatters.org draw volunteers from all parts of the state and with all sorts of connections, the Communications Workers of America's Goldman said.
"Our test takes all who tested and takes the median (speed),” Goldman said. "People with dial-up would be statistically averaged in with those over 5 megabits.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Jim Stafford
Quelle/Source: NewsOK, 19.08.2008
