How does VoIP work

2008 OECD Broadband Statistics. How’s the US Doing? Survey Says — Stagnation and Decline.

New broadband statistics from the OECD (through the last quarter of 2007) point to the complete and continuing failure of the United States to reclaim its prior successes, much less, even keep up with a growing list of other countries. Even the Wall Street Journal is jumping into the fray:

“Once the undisputed leader in the technological revolution, the U.S. now lags a growing number of countries in the speed, cost and availability of high-speed Internet. While cable and telecom companies are spending billions to upgrade their service, they’re focusing their efforts mostly on larger U.S. cities for now.”

The Wall Street Journal article contains some real gems — pointing to historical precedents that mirror today’s broadband situation and debates:

Chattanooga’s Mr. DePriest compares his agency’s plan for high-speed Internet to the rollout of electricity, which came to many parts of Tennessee only in the 1930s as a result of the creation by the federal government of the Tennessee Valley Authority. That was three decades after many businesses and homes in major urban areas like New York were first electrified. The country’s electricity at the time was largely provided by private companies, which denounced any government efforts to get into the business as “socialist” — echoing the debate over municipal fiber networks today.

Meanwhile, if a picture’s worth a thousand words, here’s a few bloggings worth of data:

Lots more OECD facts and figures concerning broadband statistics are available here. For the truly ambitious, take a look at the OECD report on broadband growth and national policies to read about the documented importance of governmental intervention to supporting the spread of broadband connectivity.