Julius Genachowski, chairman of the US FCC, outlined the regulator's ambitions for broadband in 2020 in a speech in Washington. These include 100Mbps broadband for 100 million Americans by 2020, and at least 2Mbps for the remaning 200 million people. Broadband penetration is expected to reach 90 percent, and all school graduates should be 'digital literate'. The current broadband penetration is around 65 percent, and according to Akamai, the US was number 18 on the global list of average download speeds (as of Q3 2009). South Korea leads the rankings with 14.6Mbps, while the US is at 3.9Mbps.
Genachowski calls his plans ambitious, and given the current market environment, that's clear. However, applying the law of Nielsen (the offered download speed increases an average 50 percent per year), shows that the US will already be at an average of 100Mbps by 2017 and in 2020 at more than 300Mbps. And that's just the average speed, not the maximum available. Based on Genachowski's proposals, Americans would have an average 35Mbps in 2020. With the current compression techniques, this isn't even enough to watch one 3DHD stream.
Furthermore, his proposals suggest a glaring digital divide, with the majority of the population accessing just 2Mbps. The contrast with Dutch operator Reggefiber is huge: the company targets 80 percent of the Netherlands connected to fibre-optics by 2020, and this year already it will implement 1Gbps across its network.
It's not suprising then that Google is developing its own plans to connect some 500,000 homes to 1Gbps this year. For ths US, let's hope Google's tests are successful and quickly cash flow positive, so the rest of the country also can get connected.
