Monday, September 08, 2008

Growth of Broadband, versus growth of Railroads


Came across this table in Brad DeLong's blog.

What a fantastic growth rate in merely 30 years!

I wish our broadband speeds had gone up at such growth rates! I think we got DSL connections in Bakersfield about nine, maybe even ten years, ago. Yet, the connection to the internet today does not seem to be that much faster than what it was a decade ago.

How much have we fallen behind in broadband speeds? Too far :-(

USA Today reports that "The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second — a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits).
"We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world," CWA President Larry Cohen says. "People don't pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind."

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