The builders of the Internet, but not the fastest

When people talk about having a 1 megabit or 2 megabit connection, we consider it to be a really fast connection. Speed matters because we need a fast connection to download a multi-megabyte application, music, or media file that can be saved to a CDROM or DVD.

Today, the median U.S. download speed is about 1.97 megabits per second. It sounds cool to most of us, but if you compare worldwide, it is quite the opposite. The fastest internet connection is located in Japan where customers are enjoying about 61 megabits per second! In South Korea, it is about 45 megabits. France has 17 megabits. Our northern neighbor, Canada, has a median of 7 megabits.

We know that having a good quality broadband is essential to draw businesses and jobs. Speed gives us better Internet applications, such as photo sharing and video streaming.

Yet our bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have failed to update their definition of "high speed." According to the current revision, it is about 200 kilobits per second. That benchmark was adopted over 12 years ago. In April, the FCC opened a proceeding to redefine the meaning of "broadband Internet Service." We should get a report in the fall. Spokeswoman Tamara Lipper says "we're asking the question if the definition should be changed."

Holy crap! Was that a rhetorical question? 200 kilobits. That's like a slow modem. 3 megabits is fast, but if our Asian counterparts are enjoying at least 40 megabits of bandwidth, then we should set our sights on that as a target.

Regardless, we are definitely way behind in high-speed Internet access and we need to catch up quick.

By the way, if you compare state vs state in terms of median download speeds, in New Jersey, we are ranked 3rd in the country with a median of 3.680 megabits per second.

In Ohio, it's only 1.359 megabits per second, 40th in the country.

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