Obama Plans to Increase Nation’s Broadband Access
There’s a Stimulus Job coming to a city near you.
A report surfaced this morning, stating the Obama administration is to award over $2 billion in grants and loans over the next 2 months to increase American’s access to broadband internet..at the same time creating over 10,000 jobs.
Even though the United States is portrayed as the leader of information technology development (in most areas this is true), when it comes to broadband access it continues to lag behind other 1st world nations; as well as 3rd world countries. Of course China will surpass the United States when it comes to total number of people online (China’s population is 1.3 billion)…however, according to a recent study sponsored by CISCO, the United States didn’t even make the Top 10 in terms of providing broadband services…with South Korea knocking Japan from the top spot.
According to the study, the rank for 2009 (from 1-10) includes: South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong (China), Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Singapore, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway…the United States fell in at #15, right between Lithuania & Ireland.
The study examined 66 countries and 240 cities.
This almost sounds like a Health Care System ranking..where the US falls in at #37 right above Slovenia.
It gets even better. In overall broadband quality, the US is behind not just Sweden, but island nations such as Malta & Iceland! They also took a look at countries that have the necessary access for future applications like high definition internet television. Again, the US didn’t make the cut.
Another interesting thing to point out, is that Hong Kong which is not a country, hit # 3. This means the bulk of China’s internet users are in metropolitan areas. It would be hard to say the entire country of China is leading the world on broadband connectivity, considering roughly 17% of their population has access.
With how much we rely on the internet on a daily basis (and it wouldn’t hurt to create a couple more jobs), I’m glad the administration is recognizing the need to correct this.
It’s said the expansion “aims to link communities to the Internet backbone.” I assume that means all of the bandwidth cables which already span the country.
According to a high ranking White House official (when it comes time for a quote everyone is “right ranking”), “The new broadband access will help underserved and often hard-hit communities overcome the distance and technology barrier by expanding connectivity between educational institutions, enabling remote medical consultations and attracting new businesses as well as the jobs that come with them.”
Sounds good enough for me.
Vice President, Joe Biden is expected to make an announcement in George today to kick off the project.
Too bad Al Gore isn’t around for this one.
P.S Check out this video…Thank God Biden is in charge of broadband expansion!
