US Is in Danger of Losing Internet Leadership

First off, given the geography and dispersion of the American population, one has to consider that it is a lot more difficult to implement broadband here than it is in Denmark, Holland, Switzerland. and other incredibly small countries with socialist governments.  Go ask some midwestern telco's how difficult it is to provide broadband to Brimson Missouri for example, or upgrading remote DSL to FiOS.  Second, the raw numbers are more interesting yet deserve a closer look.  If there are approximately 112M households (and 66+M Broadband households) in the US, what are the characteristics of those households that do NOT have broadband and why?  It is entirely possible that a significant percentage of the American population that is fine with dial or nothing.  I personally cannot imagine my home and work without broadband, but I can understand that there is an interesting demographic that is uninterested.  I know many people like that, they may be happy, intelligent, informed, and busy with other things.  Its OK!..  I do not believe that the US is falling behind technologically or in Internet LEadership.  As far as I can tell, more innivation still occurs here than anywhere else on the planet.  Look at the number of patents approved on a worldwide basis. 

You cannot think of life without the internet.It has to be there and it is for the benefit of all the nations.We have discussed many countries are developing technologies and providing their people with technologies to help them for better work and accessibility.

The issue should be of integration, support and making this world even shrink more and knowledge be imparted to all, information available to all, making this e-world a secure and reliable.

Collaborations should be the key-point towards this development rather than supremacy.

 

First of all there should not be any leadership when it comes to internet or new technologies. They must be considered as tools that benefit the whole world. In that way, the term leadership should be extended to all countries of the world, for the goodof human kind. In other words, each country must be a leader. Moreover,we are living the era of globalization! However, this utopian like analysis is limited by the fact that the United States has maintained the status of leadership for years, let's say since the birth of the internet .So,it would be unbelievable that the Americans, famous for their belief in world leadership in all domains would loose that place.  Europeans are on the race. According to the Economist Magazine, " The United States was No. 1 in the first three years after the ranking was launched in 2000. It lost that position to Sweden last year, falling to third place". This situation is explained by the fact that Europeans mostly use broadband instead of dial up. In fact, this race spirit is a positive aspect in the development of internet in general.

I think it's inevitable that the US will cede its leadership in the Internet development. It is known that the Internet has had very beneficial influence on economies of many countries, especially developing ones like China, India, etc. One may look at this issue from the demand point of view because no one would argue that the demand for the Internet technologies is higher in these countries. A one way to meet it is to improve the existing technologies and, thus, develop the Internet. And this is what happens. Developing countries get much bigger from it campared to developed countries.

I would not say the U.S is loosing its Internet leadership but, it has already lost its position to numerous nations around the world.  It is apparent that the U.S. is continuing to loose the global race in fostering a knowledge-based society. 

Only a handful of U.S. cities have taken steps to expand the highways of the Internet through wireless technology whereas, countries around the world have undertaken that effort at a much more mammoth scale. 

It is evident that the governments in those nations place a higher priority on education.  The issue of education has been for the most part absent from the presidential elections to this date.  Why haven’t the current crop of candidates seriously raised the issue of education and the U.S. status as an Internet leader? 

Either free or affordable access to the internet provides citizens with access to the world’s largest “library” and an opportunity for them to participate in the global economy. 

Historically, libraries have been the gateway for those seeking knowledge.  Walk into any public library today and chances are that their computers with access to the Internet are very popular, especially, for those who for one reason or another do not have Internet access at their homes.  However, libraries continue to receive mediocre funding in their efforts to improve their digital services.

The race to unleash the powers of wireless technology and increasing broadband bandwidth is in a sense to gain power.  After all, knowledge is power.  The U.S needs to significantly upgrade its digital infrastructure to ensure that majority of its people are not devoid of the Internet’s educational benefits and empower the nation.

Being a European, I am not familiar with the role of the government concerning broadband penetration, however, this issue is far more complex..

First, it is not fair to compare a huge country like the US to countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Korea and Japan in terms of broadband penetration. There are significant technological difficulties covering large (rural) areas with wired or wireless broadband access in an economically sound manner. Urban areas in the US are pretty well-covered according to my (limited) experience. What's more relevant is the development fo China and India, since these countries are vast, as well, with dozens of big cities and also rural areas of millions of square kilometres. Keep an eye on them.

Nevertheless, the broadband access market in the US is not competitive enough to make ISPs invest more into their broadband infrastructure. I see this as one of the major causes for being 'overtaken' by certain European and Asian countries. Also do not forget that in a small country, funds from the government may be enough to build a high-tech infrastructure, while in the US private funds have to be involved. That has the potential to make things more difficult.

Another thing is that advanced users cannot be astonished anymore with high bandwidth; they look for applications which makes sense, turning to value added services.

Furthermore, what people mostly want is the freedom of choice. This increasingly applies to what they are allowed to do with the Internet subscriptions they pay for. While there are such a large number of American ISPs on this list, it is hard to make users pay more.

we (probably) still have the lead in terms of companies formed around Internet applications, but you're absolutely right, if we fail to make it easy and cheap and powerful and flexible for all citizens to use the Internet, and if we fail to continue to invest (belated thanks to Al Gore for pushing the early funding), then we will lose the next generation.