Several fiber optic companies in Amsterdam are testing 1 gigabit connections, internet speeds fast enough for four simultaneous HD movies at once.

The U.S. has been crawling behind Europe, Asia, and even Canada in broadband speeds and penetration.  Instead of rolling out fiber optic connections like Japan and Amsterdam, U.S. cable providers are imposing bandwidth caps.  Only Verizon offers high speed fiber optics in the U.S., which only gives speeds of 50 Mb/s, can cost almost $150, and is only available in a few major cities.

The U.S. suffers from a technological disconnect, only one part of our suffering infrastructure.  As more and more business and information moves online, countries with strong broadband infrastructures will have a competitive edge.  The Baller Herbst Law Group wrote a report on how the U.S. needs universal gigabits speeds by 2015 to stay economically competitive. But the U.S. lacks a broadband strategy like the successful seven year rollout in Japan.

In 2001, when the United States ranked 4th in the world, Japan had only a small handful of broadband lines. Spurred by the “broadband miracle” under way in nearby South Korea, Japan’s top government and private-sector leaders decided to make Japan the world’s leading broadband nation. They then developed and executed an all-hands-on-deck action plan to achieve that goal, including aggressive federal subsidies, low-interest and no-interest loans, loan guarantees, tax breaks, grants-in-aid to municipalities, targeted government purchases of services, a concerted national public education campaign, and a wide range of private-sector initiatives driven by a sense of national purpose and long-term thinking.

Today, Japan has the fastest and cheapest broadband in the world. Consumers in Japan can get broadband that is 10 times faster than the speeds available to average Americans, for prices that are less than a quarter of the prices that Americans must pay. Broadband providers currently compete at 1 Gbps, and this is expected to increase to 10 Gbps by 2010. Broadband is now available almost ubiquitously throughout Japan, and the “almost” will be removed by 2010. Today, 85 percent of households have access to fiber connectivity, and more than 35 percent of households have adopted it. Availability of fiber connective it will increase to 90 percent by 2010.

The U.S. ranks 15th in median broadband speeds at 2.35 megabits per second, behind Japan’s 63 mb/s.

To say the U.S. does nothing isn’t true.  Much of U.S. policy has hurt broadband penetration and competition.  The FCC uses provenly false methods of tracking cable competition and still pushes a 30 percent limit on cable company subscriber base.

While penalizing cable companies, the FCC lets telecommunication companies consolidate while doing away with common carrier requirements that have been vital to Japan’s success and would help increase competition.

The U.S. needs a broadband strategy that includes federal subsides and low-interest loans to encourage development.  These incentives ensure broadband will reach even the poorest areas and keep the United States competitive with the rest of the world. It will be expensive to full deploy fiber connections country wide.  Estimates in the U.K. are between $9 and $50 billion. As Japan (and Australia) have shown, results can be seen within a few years to the benefit of companies and citizens.

This is an issue unfortunately being ignored this election year.  When the next generation of Microsofts, Googles, and Apples originate in South Korea and Denmark, then the U.S. may get a clue.  But by then we might be too far behind to play catch up.