“Compared to France, U.S. Internet access is twice as expensive and one-fourth as quick. Since 2000, the United States has gone from fifth in the world to twenty-second in broadband penetration. We have become a nation of buffering YouTube videos.”(Source: Nick Thompson’s new Washington Monthly piece on the tech policies of the two presidential candidates.)
2 thoughts on “Factoid of the day: www.usa.not”
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I’m anti the use of ‘broadband penetration” numbers for countries b/c it’s not apples to apples. Everyone loves Sout Korea, but it’s the size of New Jersey or whatever. France is the size of Texas. Also, context matters….what are tax rates in France that subsidize this?
Good points Jeremy, but that being the case, you would think large regional areas (think New York) would be able to offer something competitive. Doing a quick comparison of New York and Finland, its ~50% faster, ~50% cheaper, for an area that is ~2x large with ~1/4 of the population. [1]
Now taxes, I think Finland does have higher taxes (although their top bracket is 31.5%, it kicks in and compares to lower brackets in the US) [2][3], although they do get a few other perks (ie: dirt cheap education, health care) which I would bet would account for more of the taxation difference VS ‘broadband penetration’ subsidies.
Although I am sure you are right that some of the countries that rank ‘ahead’ have geographical advantageous, as well as some ranked ‘below’ have disadvantageous (hey, I’m in Canada so we have some size issues as well :)), I think both of us (US and Canada) can stand for some marked improvements in our telecommunications infrastructure.
Mark.
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[1] From: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0711/
[2] From: http://www.worldwide-tax.com/finland/finland_tax.asp
[3] From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Year_2007_income_brackets_and_tax_rates