Is It Important To Lead In Broadband Adoption?

from the questions,-questions... dept

USA Today is freaking out because they suddenly noticed that there are some other countries that have more broadband penetration than the US does. Of course, in most cases, these are much smaller nations where it's much easier and cost efficient to roll out broadband. The article suggests that we need more government incentives to roll out broadband, and ignores the argument that, perhaps, the market will do okay on its own. The real question is whether or not being the first to roll out widespread broadband is all that important. These arguments come up all the time. Should the government support certain industries that they believe are core to their economic survival? The US has historically gone with an open market approach - and that's worked out quite well. They don't make big bets on things that it turns out the market doesn't want. Yes, things sometimes take more time, and there are companies that fail spectacularly in the meantime - but the end results are much stronger. So, I don't think there's any reason to get too worried about US broadband rollouts just yet.