Fresh on the heels of the telecom industrys own announcements comes this US government report covering last years Broadband trends.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071101-fccs-data-shows-us-broadband-connections-surged-61-percent-in-2006.htmlDespite worries that US broadband speed and availability lag behind that found in other developed countries, broadband growth here continues to surge. Could the options be better? Sure, but with the Federal Communications Commission trumpeting a 61 percent growth rate in 2006, broadband is quickly becoming as ubiquitous as traditional utilities.
DSL provides the dominant broadband delivery system in Europe, but here in America, cable modems win out. 54 percent of all broadband lines were offered through cable in 2006, compared to 39 percent over DSL. Not surprisingly, the huge majority of DSL connections were asymmetric; a meager 0.2 percent of all DSL lines featured identical upload and download speeds.
One of the most controversial aspects of the FCC's data collection practices is that a ZIP code is counted as being "served" if even a single resident there can get 200Kbps broadband service. According to that measure, 99 percent of all ZIP codes can get broadband. Things aren't quite as rosy if you dig a bit deeper, but the situation has certainly improved over the last decade. While getting DSL service used to be a dicey proposition even for many urban dwellers, 79 percent of households with a local phone line could get DSL in 2006. When you consider that this includes even the most rural of residents, that's not too shabby.
Whilst wondering why its taken them so long to put these figures together its nice to see that folks are increasingly attracted to utilising online facilities and lets hope this increases exponentially to drive further infrastructure upgrades, without these we will see a degradation of the US net overall as more consumers compete with commercial interests for the same limited capacity.
