Posted on 05/04/2005 8:55:28 PM PDT by Wayne07
If the competitiveness of nations can be measured by their broadband subscriber rolls, then the United States is on the verge of losing its leadership to China, market researchers at iSuppli Corp. suggest.
China already is rapidly approaching the United States as the country with the largest number of broadband subscribers, according to the El Segundo, Calif.-based firm, and by the end of the year, China is expected to have 34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States.
By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow.
(Excerpt) Read more at reed-electronics.com ...
Why is this a surprise? A country with a population that dwarfs ours should easily pass us in broadband users. The number we don't want to loose is per capita income.
Duuuuuhhhhhh! Of course China will have more broadband subscribers - they have more people! (6 billion vs. < 300 million).
Tariff... no. Nuke, on the other hand.... ;)
"By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow."
China also has 6 to 8 times our population. This means we still have an infrastructure lead. But even if we didn't, so what? That would mean that people don't want broadband because they aren't spending on it.
No, people WANT it, but they can't get it. Companies are *not* running broadband out to the exurbs.
Right on your logic, wrong on your math.
China has about 4 times our population, 293,027,571 USA vs 1,190,431,106 China (1996 census)
Lose your absolute edge, and then you will lose you per capita edge.
Ultimately, I am not sure what this figure tells you. The Chinese government controls or tries to control the content its citizens receive..so garbage in, garbage out.
Yeah. Too bad that most of them can't get past the gov't firewalls to see anything really interesting.
I wonder how much of this is the government. I read a post the other day that said they have something like 50 Million bureaucrats in China's government.
Probably doesn't mean much anyways if the Chinese waste their time looking a porn too. Maybe broadband account numbers are a poor statistic for the productivity of a nation.
1. Luxembourg $55,100
2. Norway $37,800
3. United States $37,800
4. Bermuda $36,000
5. Cayman Islands $35,000
6. San Marino, $34,600
7. Switzerland $32,700
8. Denmark, $31,100
9. Iceland $30,900
10. Austria $30,000
Sorry! I'm hungry, and thinking of the number of hamburgers sold by a certain fast food chain...
"If the competitiveness of nations can be measured by their broadband subscriber rolls"
It would make South Korea and Finland great raging bears.
1 United States 12,486,624
2 Japan 4,663,823
3 Germany 2,730,109
4 United Kingdom 2,227,551
5 France 2,054,880
6 People's Republic of China 1,772,724
7 Italy 1,709,668
8 Canada 1,034,532
9 Spain 1,019,024
10 India 719,819
"If the competitiveness of nations can be measured by their broadband subscriber rolls"
*ahem* Which it isn't, and can't. I'm in no hurry to make the USA into a government managed technocracy, which seems to be what some IT people want, at least that's the idea I get when they complain so much about us 'lagging' the rest of the world in this or that technical category.
I personally think the kids should be turning off the CRTs and throwing the football around.
I wouldn't want the USA to be a government managed anything - but I'd say that technocracy is a liberating force from the government. I certainly don't more government involvement; the opposite in fact. Let companies free of regulation to build the last mile.
I think broadband penetration is will be significant leading (not as in top, but as in future) indicator of economic growth and competitiveness.
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