The United States is still behind other countries in the world in terms of bringing broadband Internet access to its citizens. That"s the results of a new study announced on Friday by the Federal Communications Commission. The study says that the US is 12th out of 33 countries that have households with broadband connections. It"s also ninth out of 29 countries for mobile broadband adoption.
The reports claims that 26 million US citizens still do not have access to broadband Internet services, mostly in rural areas. However more interesting is the fact that a third of US citizens still don"t subscribe to broadband Internet services even though such access might be available to them. The FCC states, "This suggests that barriers to adoption such as cost, low digital literacy, and concerns about privacy remain too high." There"s also a limited amount of broadband access in schools and libraries in the country, according to the report. The FCC says this situation is a "further indicator that broadband is not being reasonably and timely deployed and is not available to all Americans."
There is good news on this front, however. The FCC report states, "Despite the difficult economy, the private sector continues to invest tens of billions of dollars in broadband infrastructure each year - $65 billion in capital expenditures in 2010 alone - expanding capacity, increasing speeds on fixed networks and rolling out next-generation mobile services like 4G." Having more and better broadband access can help generate more jobs, according to the report. The FCC states that over 200,000 jobs can be created "through investment in 4G wireless technologies alone"