A Broadband Beatdown (yet another setback because of bu$h)

[Triana]

(Yet another way in which bu$hit's REGRESSIVE policies have set this country back and behind the rest of the world)
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By DAN MITCHELL
Published: June 25, 2005

IT looked for a while as if the United States was firmly entrenched as the world's leader in Internet innovation. President Bill Clinton and Al Gore, his vice president, did much to encourage development of the country's technology infrastructure, writes Thomas Bleha in an article accessible on the Foreign Affairs magazine Web site (www.foreignaffairs.org).

From the 1960's until the day President Bush took office, he writes, "The United States led the world in Internet development."

No longer. The Bush administration's policies, or lack thereof, have since allowed Asia - Japan in particular - to not only catch up in the development and expansion of broadband and mobile phone technology, but to roundly pound us into the dirt. "The lag," he diplomatically asserts, "is arguably the result of the Bush administration's failure to make a priority of developing these networks."

Japan instituted what used to be called an industrial policy, which provided incentives for expanding broadband and wireless technology to the masses. The United States, meanwhile, has done essentially nothing. Japan is now well ahead of us in the percentage of homes with broadband. And their broadband on average is about half the price and 16 times the speed of ours.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/technology/25online.ready.html?th&emc=th

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[DBoon]

1. and South Korea and Finland...

the US has fallen behind in so many ways it is no longer funny.