Jason Dunn
05-25-2011, 06:33 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/video-high-fiber/9263/' target='_blank'>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-kno...igh-fiber/9263/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"The United States is where the Internet was born. But we're falling behind in the race to the online future. Most of us go online these days using a service that's called broadband - faster than old-fashioned dial-up, and always on. But broadband service in the U.S. lags behind a dozen or more industrialized countries - and we're doing worse every year. Need to Know correspondent Rick Karr traveled to the U.K. and the Netherlands - with support from the Ford Foundation and in collaboration with the website Engadget - to find out how these two countries have jumped ahead of us online. This is a story about capitalism, competition, dynamism and innovation in what is arguably the most important industry of the 21st century. Old-fashioned American values, right? Then why are we being left so far behind?"</em></p><p><object width="512" height="288" data="http://www-tc.pbs.org/video/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="flashvars" value="width=512&height=288&video=1923261274&player=viral&start=1545000&lr_admap=in:pbs:0" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /><param name="src" value="http://www-tc.pbs.org/video/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /></object></p><p>It's a little sad when I think about the leadership role North America had when it came to wired Internet access, and how that has been eclipsed by other countries putting more money into infrastructure. I remember having fast, always-on Internet via a cable modem in 1995...yet if I stop and look at what I have today from that cable modem, and what I'm paying for it, it doesn't seem like 16 years of progress has been put into that technology. Watch the documentary - it's worth it.</p>