High Fiber
[Source: Need to Know, by Betsy Rate and Rick Karr, May 13, 2011]
The United States is where the Internet was born. But we’re falling behind in the race to the online future. Most of us go online these days using a service that’s called broadband – faster than old-fashioned dial-up, and always on. But broadband service in the U.S. lags behind a dozen or more industrialized countries – and we’re doing worse every year. Need to Know correspondent Rick Karr traveled to the U.K. and the Netherlands – with support from the Ford Foundation and in collaboration with the website Engadget – to find out how these two countries have jumped ahead of us online. This is a story about capitalism, competition, dynamism and innovation in what is arguably the most important industry of the 21st century. Old-fashioned American values, right? Then why are we being left so far behind?
