A large portion of my job involves developing forecasts and opinions on worldwide consumer broadband: where it’s being adopted, at what rate,  the individual technologies consumers are adopting, and how much consumers are spending.  In the past, I’ve referred to the collective measurements as the “metrics that matter” for the purposes of determining the state of broadband in a particular market.   The important metrics, in my opinion, are speed, availability, penetration and price.

And although I seem to stir up a hornet nest every time I publish a broadband rankings report, I’ll say it again: the US lags in virtually all of the metrics that matter.

Humorist Dave Barry once said that Americans think we have good customer service  I would add that we Americans think we have good, affordable broadband.  The truth is, when viewed through an objective lens, we have neither.

A quick and dirty analysis of various high speed offerings paints an interesting picture.  Compared to Korea, Japan and France, North Americans are paying a bundle for their fiber. The short answer is, the lack of true competition in the US broadband market (read ‘cozy duopoly’) means that consumers are left with little meaningful choice. 

This analysis, while not exhaustive, is representative of non-contract offers provided by major operators in each country for >50 Mbps service.