The resurgence of Internet innovation since 2004 (”web 2.0″) has been driven by user-generated content and UI innovations. The secret ingredient for both is widespread broadband Internet access.

Unfortunately America still lags in penetration of fast, broadband Internet. Christopher Rhoads reports in today’s Wall Street Journal that local governments around America are racing to deploy municipal fiber-optic Internet networks, mostly to compensate for the failure of the big guys to serve fast Internet to small towns.

Among the 30 leading industrialized countries, the US ranks 11th in broadband-access affordability and 10th in broadband penetration. The WSJ shows just how far we lag in Average Monthly Subscription Prices for Broadband, as well as the Percentage of Households with Broadband Subscriptions.

(Source: Wall Street Journal; OECD; Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)

Just as important, broadband speeds in the United States are falling way, way behind other countries’. Check out the average broadband download speed for the US as compared to Japan, South Korea, Finland, and even France (in megabits per second, mbps):

(Source: Wall Street Journal; OECD; Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)

Filed under: video