Broadband challenge facing global competitiveness

Broadband has become a vital tool for producers and distributors of goods as it is for people plugging into all the social and cultural opportunities offered by the web. As a military superpower and the world's top economy, the USA is losing the race to Europe and East Asia in developing high-speed broadband. While the USA has a substantial number of broadband subscribers, it is mostly in 'basic' broadband which is too slow to run the many innovative applications necessary to maintain economic competitiveness. This paper discusses how the USA is falling behind in offering high-speed broadband and compares its lagging performance to the successes of countries such as Japan and South Korea. It concludes by stating that future economic and country competitiveness could well be determined by the successful adoption of these new technologies.