Dept. of Good News, Not So Good News

By Brad

Via PC World comes some encouraging numbers when it comes to U.S. broadband adoption. The magazine reports that, along with a projected increase over the next five years of the number of broadband lines available throughout the world, Broadband penetration in the U.S. will go from 24.9 percent to 35.9 percent in 2013, counting penetration on a population basis.”
This increase is by no means something to sneeze at, but the article goes on to report that

Even though broadband penetration will continue to grow in the U.S., it won’t be the largest country in terms of number of lines. China is forecast to be well in front as the biggest broadband in the country, with 153 million broadband lines against 117 million in the U.S. In fact China is expected to zoom past the U.S. by the end of the year, according to Point Topic.

In 2001, the U.S. ranked 4th in the world in terms of broadband deployment. By 2007, its rank had plummeted to an estimated 15th. So while projected gains over the next five years are encouraging, lagging so far behind China is not.
This is just one of the reasons the IIA has been calling for a National Broadband Strategy. The U.S. should be among the leaders when it comes to broadband, not forced to play catch-up.