• by August 11, 2005

A PRETTY BROAD GAP -- It's been a while since Americans have had to deal with a really good gap. Back in the '60s it was the missile gap. More recently we've heard talk of gender gaps, science gaps, and even education gaps. Now it seems we Yanks are losing a new race. And the irony is it's one that concerns a medium we created in the first place: the Internet. According to a group of leading consumer advocates, America is falling behind the broadband race. Among the top 20 industrialized nations in terms of broadband penetration, the United States ranks 16th, just behind Singapore, but thankfully, ahead of France.

According to the data, compiled by The International Telecommunications Union, only 11.4 percent of Americans are broadband subscribers. That compares with 24.9 percent of Koreans, the No. 1 broadband nation.

The data is just one of the stats compiled by Free Press, Consumers Union, and the Consumer Federation of America in their new report, "Broadband Reality Check: The FCC Ignores America's Digital Divide."

The report asserts the divide is not simply an issue between America and the rest of the world, but within the United States as well.

"Despite claims to the contrary, the digital divide in America remains large and will continue to grow unless some real changes are made," said Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press.

Scott claims the federal government has been overstating the availability of broadband access, as well as increasing competition within the broadband marketplace that ostensibly has been lowering subscription costs and making high-speed Internet access available to the masses. "If the president's goal of universal, affordable high-speed Internet access by 2007 is to be achieved, policymakers in Washington must change course," said Scott.

The report, in fact, suggests that the FCC has been spinning the very definition of broadband, stretching the standard to the point of being, well, quite thin. The government, for example, defines "high-speed" as 200 kilobits per second. That's "barely enough to receive a low-quality streaming video," asserts the report, implying that the broadband gap isn't simply an issue of penetration, but actual bandwidth.

The issue, claim the advocates, is policies that have stifled competition and kept broadband prices artificially high. "On a per megabit basis, U.S. consumers pay 10 to 25 times more than broadband users in Japan," charges the report.

While the report doesn't outline any specific solution, Jeannine Kenney, senior policy analysts for Consumers Union, suggested giving consumers a third option in addition to cable and phone providers: "wireless broadband that is less expensive and which doesn't depend on DSL or cable modems. It offers the best and perhaps now the only way to close the digital divide."

Broadband Subscriber Penetration

Korea         24.9%  
Hong Kong     20.9%  
Netherlands   19.4%  
Denmark       19.3%  
Canada        17.6%  
Switzerland
17.0%  
Taiwan        16.3%  
Belgium       16.0%  
Iceland       15.5%  
Sweden        15.1%  
Norway        15.0%  
Israel        14.3%  
Japan         14.1%  
Finland       12.8%  
Singapore     11.6%  
USA           11.4%  
France        11.2%  
UK            10.3%  
Austria       10.1%  
Portugal       8.5%  

Source: International Telecommunications Union, January 2005.