10.30.2007

USA! USA! We're the middle!

We do have kickass bombs, but some of the other stuff has started looking pretty creaky: levees that break, bridges that fall, a healthcare system that's not very, well, healthy, fire-fighting planes that can't take off and...whoa, what's this?...the Internet. Oh oh. There's a broadband gap.

In South Korea an average apartment-dweller can get an internet connection 15 times faster than a typical US connection, reports the AP. (Fifteen times? That seems a little suspicious, but still.) In Paris, the story says, a package deal including TV, phone, and broadband service costs half what it costs in the US. (But remember that cafe where they let us sleep all night in the back booth? I bet they're still on dialup.)

Dave Burstein, editor of the DSL Prime newsletter and a "telcom gadfly" (that's callin' 'em like you see 'em, AP!) says the US is in "the middle of the pack" among developed countries where Internet service is concerned. But hey, the telcos say it's gonna get better. They just don't say when. Or for how much.

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