In today’s Washington Post, Blaine Harden tells us that the United States isn’t connecting as rapidly as you might think. The article’s worth a read, not least for nuance (shorter distances in Japan; the benefits of having to rebuild its telecomm structure after World War II; the “regulated competition” that gave Japan such high speeds has ended up giving NTT near-monopoly status in fiber optic), but for a quick reality check, there’s this chart (which is also a link to the Post article):

I’ll be interested to hear phone and cable company spokespeople explaining why our current setup is better for us in the long run.