U.S Ranks 15th In Broadband Speed: Support Affordable High Speed Internet For All

I received the following e-mail today and thought it would be of some interest to DU'ers concerned about broadband access and speed.

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Dear Friend,

You’ve helped highlight just how little progress the U.S. is making in high-speed Internet, and you can help push lawmakers to start turning the situation around.
More than 230,000 of you took the speedmatters.org Speed Test over the past twelve months. Today we released the second annual state-by-state report on Internet speeds.

http://www.speedmatters.org/pages/state.html

The Speed Test, which measures the last-mile speed of your Internet connection, shows that the 2008 median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). This represents a gain of only 0.4 mbps over last year’s median download speed. It compares to an average download speed in Japan of 63 mbps. At this rate of progress, it will take the U.S. more than 100 years to catch up with current Inernet speeds in Japan. This is unacceptable for the country that invented the Internet.

http://www.speedmatters.org/pages/state.html

The test results demonstrate the critical need for the U.S. to adopt a comprehensive national broadband policy. As a first step, the Senate should pass the Broadband Data Improvement Act (S.1492), a crucial piece of legislation that will help our nation determine which parts of the country have high-speed access and which do not. The bill would also provide funding to states to increase broadband deployment and adoption.

Write your Senators and tell them you strongly support this bill:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/s1492/x3k37bi2075n78t6?

The House of Representatives passed similar legislation last fall. It’s long past time for the Senate to act. The Broadband Data Improvement Act will provide the research and the funding to help make sure every American has affordable, high-speed Internet access. With an already struggling economy, we can’t afford to continue falling behind in high speed broadband.

We need your help in the critical effort. Write a note to your Senators now:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/s1492/x3k37bi2075n78t6?

Thank you for all your help in the fight for affordable high speed Internet for all.

Sincerely,

Beth

Why can't I sign up for Bell South or Verizon internet if I want? These services are nearby, just not available to me and others in my area because Embarq has a lock on our market. So I can go with Embarq or Comcast cable internet; apart from satellite internet, that's it as far as my choices.

In the UK, people can choose from a long list of providers as they please. In the postcode where my husband and I used to live, there are ELEVEN broadband choices, most starting well under $20/month.

Where's the "free market" when it comes to giving consumers the benefit, please?

since there are no cable services and it's difficult to mount satellites in a lot of the valleys. Forget about DSL, they're decades away from that, if ever. Cell phone service is incredibly spotty, so forget about large scale wireless.

It's very slow dialup or nothing.

If it weren't for Rural Electrification I'd bet there'd be plenty of places in our country that still wouldn't have power.

We need Rural Internetification or we risk leaving large percentages of our rural kids behind.