Two-Thirds of US Internet Users Lack Broadband

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/012411-us-internet-users-broadband.html?hpg1=bn' target='_blank'>http://www.networkworld.com/news/20...nd.html?hpg1=bn</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Two-thirds of U.S. Internet connections are slower than 5 Mbps, putting the United States well behind speed leaders South Korea and Japan. The United States places ninth in the world in access to "high broadband connectivity," at 34% of users, including 27% of connections reaching 5 Mbps to 10 Mbps and 7% reaching above 10 Mbps, Akamai says in its latest State of the Internet Report. That's an improvement since a year ago, when the United States was in 12th place with only 24% of users accessing fast connections. But the United States is still dwarfed by South Korea, where 72% of Internet connections are greater than 5 Mbps, and Japan, which is at 60%. Hong Kong and Romania are the only other countries or regions to hit the 50% mark."</em></p><p>Nothing surprising here - the US is a big country, with a significant number of its 307+ million people spread across the land, and it's hard to give high speed access to everyone. There will always be people living in places where high-speed wired Internet will be hard to get to, but there are certainly wireless technologies that will do the trick - but only if they're willing to pay for it!</p>