In rural America, only 60 percent of households use broadband Internet service, according to a report released Thursday by the Department of Commerce. That is 10 percent less than urban households. Over all, 28 percent of Americans do not use the Internet at all. via www.nytimes.com
What if 40% or so of those in your organization could not communicate in real-time with the other 60%?
What if real-time communications for this 40% meant they had to go to the library for the time to have a real connection?
Hmmm?
“This is like electricity was,” said Brian Depew, an assistant director of the Center for Rural Affairs, a nonprofit research group in Lyons, Neb. “This is a critical utility.”
“You often hear people talk about broadband from a business development perspective, but it’s much more significant than that,” Mr. Depew added. “This is about whether rural communities are going to participate in our democratic society. If you don’t have effective broadband, you are cut out of things that are really core to who we are as a country.”
As a nation, 77 - 78% of households have access to broadband internet speeds. Technically...that ranks us in the top 4-5 countries worldwide. That's the good news. Internet World Stats
The bad news is that broadband access can include everything from old DSL-level speeds of 500-750 K to fiber-to-the-home of 80-90 megs.
The other point that remains a question is that with this much broadband penetration, at any speed, we should not see our rankings as a nation of innovators drop from #1 to somewhere south of #7 or #8.
And at the same time we should not see our small businesses create a smaller and smaller percentage of jobs.
On both, there are other factors. But, consider those countries where broadband penetration is 30-40-50%...and where legacy infrastructure and vested interests do not hold back innovative ideas reaching the market. Countries like...
* Brasil - 32%
* Russia - 42.8%
* India - 6.9%
* China - 31.6%
These comprise the BRIC countries whose economies generate 25% of the world's economic production now. And is projected by none other than Goldman Sachs to be the number one economy by the year 2050.
Just imagine what happens as all of their citizens are able to communicate, collaborate and create new ideas and bring them to market...very fast.
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