Could the obsolete DSL become the USA standard for Internet speed?
If the United States government has it’s way, providing DSL to the country will fool everyone in to thinking they have “broadband”.
ConnectKentucky is an initiative, as the name would imply, by the state of Kentucky to bring Internet access to all their residents. The problem is that they have begun labeling DSL as “broadband”. While DSL does meet the criteria for the loosest definition of the term, it is still a far cry from what is available to others in this country, let alone in the rest of the world.
Why is this of concern to people outside of this isolated state? As their recent press release states:
America is watching Kentucky's success story and as a result, states are considering the possibility of replicating the Connected Nation model to close the digital divide that exists in communities across the nation.
While it is a noble idea to bring access to all the masses, it is worrisome that DSL is being accepted as the minimum speed to be used.
Countries such as France and Sweden are running in the area of 18mbps, England sees as high as 24mbps, China and Korea are running at 50+mbps, and there are reports in Japan of higher than 60mbps. DSL, when running perfectly, runs in the range of 1.5mbps.
As it currently stands, the United States is falling further and further behind the rest of the world in Internet speeds. According to the afore mentioned press release, the United States Congress wants to replicate the Kentucky plan across the entire nation. This will result in the country falling even further behind the international curve.
At a time of explosive growth in broadband speeds and technology, it seems rather backwards to settle for an older system as the minimum to be acceptable for use in the country that invented the Internet. This is akin to if in the early 2000′s the country had said “everyone in the country should have access to dial-up” and written it into law. It is shocking that the United States of America, the purported most technologically advanced nation in the history of the world, would accept such obsolesce as it’s standard for Internet connectivity.
You, of course, can contact your state Representative or Senator and express your feelings on this subject before it moves forward.
Related Posts:
August 25th, 2007
The US government is not unique in labelling DSL as “broadband”. The Australian government is just as guilty.
Worse still, much of Australia still only has access to dial-up, and the government regards upgrading these places to DSL standard of 256kbs as “provision of high-speed internet”.
What a f***ing joke!
The best I can do in rural South Australia, on a ADSL2+ connection, is 10Mbs, a far cry from the theoretical maximum of 24Mbs, let alone what Korea, Japan and China enjoy.
And to get that privilege of “high-speed”, I’ll have to fork out a minimum of $60 per month to get a 20Gb download limit.
It seems that the Australian Government, just like the US regime that it sucks up to, is just too busy chewing up its funds on a pointless exercise in Iraq, rather than investing in the future infrastructure of its own turf.
August 26th, 2007
“United States of America, the purported most technologically advanced nation in the history of the world”
Are you kidding? what a joke, country with the most money..yes(that you all spend on weapons)
Dude… England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada we all have the same technology and systems inplace for eveything, except we get free health care as well(you dont), And as far as technology goes, Japan is well in front, especially on a social context, What technology exactly are you talking about?
August 27th, 2007
I completely agree with Darin Jones. That was an uninformed comment… probably somebody that doesn’t get out much, in the national sense that is. In his defense though, I must say that he could have been talking about weapons, and not civilian technology. However, the fact is that just because we have access to information on the internet, doesn’t mean we look at it. I personally have a good grasp on english and much less on most European languages, but when I look at Chinese or Arabic web sites, I get almost nothing out of it. It’s very frustrating because it’s a big effort to not be local in my thinking.
August 27th, 2007
I think this is a confusion over the word “purported”. It means some believe, or have reported on such, or even perceive such, it doesn’t mean that *I* believe it. There are people who will go out in the world and say such though, and boast of our technological prowess.
As an everyday person though, when not reporting… I’ve been to Tokyo several times, I *know* we aren’t the most technologically advanced. If you were to read a brochure about this country, it would say otherwise.
January 20th, 2011
Hello, just stopped by doing some research for my Kentucky 4g website. Lots of information out there. Looking for something else, but nice site. Cya later.