The Internet….now there is something we can all agree on….it has changed the way we see the world and helps form our opinions on….well…everything.  We all have had our problems with our internet provider, right?  I am sure that we could exchange horror stories for hours….but that is not why I write.

What do you pay for your cel service or your internet?  I ask this because I have some disturbing information….but before that let me rant a moment…..

Remember a couple of years ago, back in the Arab Spring?  The story is that the massive protests and such were fueled by social media, like cell phones and Facebook, now I ask how does a country like Egypt, for instance, when the average annual income is around $10,000 afford service to drive the protests?  Apparently it is a whole lot cheaper elsewhere than here in this country.  Would think that a free market would drive this to be cheaper than a country that has one provider, right?  Then why have the free market if it cannot accomplish this one service right?

With that rant out of the way……let me now ask……have you experienced slow downloads?  How about a service that drops in and out?  Ever ask why?

I was reading an article awhile back and discovered a few things……

according to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. The leaders in the world are Hong Kong at 72.49 Mbps and Singapore on 58.84 Mbps. And America? Averaging speeds of 20.77 Mbps, it falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

Its upload speeds are even worse. Globally, the U.S. ranks 42nd with an average upload speed of 6.31 Mbps, behind Lesotho, Belarus, Slovenia, and other countries you only hear mentioned on Jeopardy.

So how did America fall behind? How did the country that literally invented the internet — and the home to world-leading tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Facebook, Google, and Cisco — fall behind so many others in download speeds?

The 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was meant to foster competition — allowed cable companies and telecoms companies to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly, allowing them to charge customers higher and higher prices without the kind of investment in internet infrastructure, especially in next-generation fiber optic connections, that is ongoing in other countries. Fiber optic connections offer a particularly compelling example. While expensive to build, they offer faster and smoother connections than traditional copper wire connections. But Verizon stopped building out fiber optic infrastructure in 2010 — citing high costs — just as other countries were getting to work.

Just think for a moment…….we are behind some third world countries…..is that what American Exceptionalism is all about?