Hope and Change and Broadband

I am looking forward to viewing the presentation that Joe linked to in the previous post, and I am thrilled that the BWJ revival post involves the perennial favorite issue campaign financing. I hope to comment more on the state of Supreme Court jurisprudence in the coming days.

For now, however, I wanted to draw attention to a recent report from Nokia Siemens Networks entitled the Connectivity Scorecard (h/t Talking Points Memo). There is no question that America lags many other developed countries on infrastructure, as reflected in key measures such as broadband speed and penetration. But the report argues that the notion of connectivity should be expanded beyond basic infrastructure to encompass how the network is used (such as time spent online, take-rate of internet-based services, and usage of websites by businesses). And under this broader understanding of connectivity, the Connectivity Scorecard puts United States second behind only Sweden. (The U.S. was #1 in the previous two years that the report had been published. Fucking Swedes had to rain on our parade.)

I recognize there is a lot of subjectivity built into a report such as this. And it does not diminish the importance of continued investment in broadband infrastructure--nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider, and only 35 percent of homes with annual incomes less than $50,000 subscribe to broadband. But perhaps we don't suck that bad. I bet Americans have more Facebook friends than other comparable countries. And probably more trolls per capita too. Seriously, though, my point is that Americans as a whole are pretty Internet-savvy, and that should count for something.