Right, number 15, not number 1. Countries like Canada, France, South Korea, and Japan are better than we are. Better at what? That would be Internet speed and access to broadband.

For the past year, Speed Matters has been running a speed test. Speed Matters is an organization affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Speed Matters is an advocacy group supporting measures such as
* Immediate Change to FCC Definition of Broadband
* National High Speed Internet for All policy with timetable and benchmarks

* Open Internet
* Consumer and Worker Protections

The speed test covered the nation using a widget that allows users to test their own speed while participating in the survey. Here's the widget.

Perhaps you were a participant like 230,000 others and recognize the widget. It was promoted in places like The advocacy blog at OMB Watch, where it was suggested that,

The report will be released around the time of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to make sure high speed Internet access is on both parties' agendas.

You can view the survey results in a state by state PDF version of the report or read the results state by state results on the web. News sources in each state are picking up the result for their particular state and either lamenting or bragging. Bragging aside, the fact is, every state is far behind many industrialized countries. Whether you are worried about the education gap and the digital divide, national security, business opportunity, or just playing an online game, the numbers for U.S. citizens eat everyone else's dust.

The report's chief conclusion:

The median download speed for the nation was 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). In Japan, the median download speed is 63 mbps, or 30 times faster than the U.S. The U.S. also trails South Korea at 49 mbps, Finland at 21 mbps, France at 17 mbps, and Canada at 7.6 mbps. The median upload speed from the speedmatters.org test was just 435 kilobits per second (kbps), far too slow for patient monitoring or to transmit large files such as medical records.

The results of the 2008 speed test show little progress over last year. In 2007, we released the first-ever national survey of actual Internet speeds. The 2007 results showed the median download speed for the 50 states and the District of Columbia was 1.9 megabits per second and the median upload speed was 371 kbps. In other words, between 2007 and 2008, the median download speed increased by only four-tenths of a megabit per second (from 1.9 mbps to 2.3 mbps), and the median upload speed barely changed (from 371 to 435 kbps).

The CWA press release announcing the survey results points out,

At the present rate—with a gain of only four-tenths of one megabit per second—it will take the U.S. more than one hundred years to catch up with current Internet speeds in Japan.

The press release explains things in several ways. For example, you can download an entire movie in two minutes in Japan. Or, as the press release points out, the U.S. is the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote universal, high-speed Internet access.

Gadgetress pointed out in Californians not so speedy when it comes to Internet:

Rhode Island (hmmm… the smallest state) was the leader for the second year in a row with 6.8 mbps. Alaskans had the most sluggish, at .8 mbps. (That means, says the study, the same file that takes 30 seconds to download in Rhode Island,takes four minutes in Alaska.)

Being limited by broadband speed means that the U.S. is limited in what it can do about health care, distance learning, the environment, carbon footprint reduction, network neutrality, data intregity, consumer protection, energy, attracting new industry and new markets, national security, and even monetary policy. This isn't actually about megabytes per second, it's about American quality of life.

The Benton Foundation reported on the survey results, and explained why speed matters.

Why does speed matter? Speed defines what is possible on the Internet. It determines whether we will have the 21st century networks we need to grow jobs and our economy, and whether we will be able to support innovations in telemedicine, education, public safety, and public services to improve our lives and communities. Most U.S. Internet connections today are not fast enough to permit interactive home-based medical monitoring, multi-media distance learning, or to send and receive data to run a home-based business.

In an interesting article at BroadbandCensus, CWA Wants Better Broadband Data, As Does Internet for Everyone, several of the other players in the push for greater broadband access are explained. In addition to CWA, already mentioned, others involved in trying to bring change in this area include Internet for Everyone, a group led by Google and the non-profit group Free Press, and Connected Nation a nonprofit backed by entities such as cable, bell and state government funding.

If you think we need to do more to increase Internet access and speed, you can participate in the organizations just mentioned, or you can let your candidate of choice know that you think this belongs on the national agenda as a priority item.

More Resources:
BlogHer: A Parallel Internet
BlogHer: McCain and Obama on Technology
Business Week: Wanted: A National Broadband Policy
Pew Internet Reports
The Digital Divide Network
Sidecut Reports: Broadband Policy: Boring, but Important
FCC: Why is Broadband Important?