New Report: Speeding Up Our Internet and Our Economy

Technology has been a driving force behind the United States' ascension to the top of the global economy. But as the 21st Century unfolds, we are seriously lagging when it comes to high speed internet access. Americans pay far more for much slower speeds than most other developed countries.

Last week, we released a new whitepaper, "Speed Matters: Affordable High Speed Internet for All [PDF]", to explain the problem and explore solutions.

Here is just one astonishing finding in the report:

The top speed generally available in Japan is 51 mbps at a cost of $0.06 per 100 kbps. The top speed generally available in the U.S. is 6 mbps available at a cost of $0.72 per 100 kbps. In other words, the Japanese have 8.5 times the speed at 1/12 of the cost.

From our railroads to our highways to our telephone networks, we benefit most from technology when our government takes the lead with a comprehensive national policy. The U.S. is virtually the only developed country in the world without a national plan to promote high speed internet.

The effects on our current internet speeds are obvious, and the future looks even bleaker. More from the whitepaper:

The U.S. invests relatively less in telecommunications as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product. Indeed, we rank behind South Korea, Great Britain, Spain, Canada, Japan, France and even Mexico.

We at SpeedMatters are going to change that. Our new paper features more than two dozen specific policy recommendations to help U.S. high speed internet service catch up to the rest of the world and strengthen our economy at home:

A number of reports using forward-looking economic models have calculated that broadband would add $500 billion to GDP and 1.2 million additional jobs from the construction and use of a nationwide broadband network. Another paper warned that the failure to improve broadband performance could reduce U.S. productivity by one percentage point or more per year.

High speed internet can touch so many lives in so many ways, from education to medicine to emergency and civic services. It would be a shame for our citizens to miss out on these benefits, and for the U.S. economy to lose ground to the rest of the world.

Read the whitepaper [PDF], get the facts, and make it happen.

 "Speed Matters: Affordable High Speed Internet for All"