Report: U.S. Internet is Slow and Pricey

Yet another report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows the United States trailing the rest of the world in high speed internet access.

OECD's Communications Outlook 2007 is a comprehensive look at the state of telecommunications around the world. Its findings bolster the case that high speed internet in the United States is slower and more expensive than in many other developed countries.

Worldwide high speed internet has become faster and cheaper. The U.S. actually ranks fourth in cost of service, but that number belies our country's slow connections speeds:

[W]hen the metric switched to cost per megabit per second, the US did not fare so well, slipping to 12th out of the 30 countries ranked. In the best-case scenario, broadband in the US cost $3.18/Mbps but could be as expensive as $20.74/Mbps. As one might expect, given their high speeds and low broadband costs, Japan and Korea were at the top of the list. Japanese broadband is as cheap as $0.22/Mbps, while Korea is $0.42/Mbps. Sweden performed very well in the cost per megabit category too, with prices as low as $0.35/Mbps.

The countries with the best rankings had significant fiber optic infrastructure, which provide lightning fast connections that enable the latest technologies like internet TV.

While these results make U.S. internet connections look bad, news out of Sweden made our internet look positively creaky. Sigbritt Lothberg, a 75 year old grandmother from Sweden, has been outfitted with the world's fastest internet connection.

Sigbritt is the mother of Swedish internet pioneer Peter Lothberg, who set up the super fast connection using new technology that allows data to be transferred over virtually unlimited distances with no loss of speed or quality.

As Lothberg's colleague Hafsteinn Jonsson said,

"As a network owner we're trying to persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections. And Peter Löthberg wanted to show how you can build a low price, high capacity line over long distances."

For now, though, the high costs and low speeds of U.S. internet connections mean technology like this remains a pipe dream for Americans.

Communications Outlook 2007 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

Sigbritt, 75, has world's fastest broadband (Sweden's The Local)