The United States of America, the country that drove the invention of the Internet, ranks 15th in the world for Internet speeds.

This is not recent news, but it is relevant now as I came across information about Comcast getting ready to launch 50 Mbps high-speed Internet access in the Bay Area.  Sure this is exciting news, but the speed is going to be 50 Mbps download, and only 10 Mbps upload, and this will cost you a staggering $139.95 a month.  Considering we here at StarterTech are currently paying $63 a month for 8 Mbps down/ 500 Kbps up, it’s still better deal than what I pay, but still outragous compared to the rest of the world.

I first discovered this story over at BlogD today, where Luis, an American living in Tokyo, Japan, mentions he roughly pays between $40 and $50 a month for 100 Mbps fiber optic service.  While Duncan Riley of The Inquisitr mentioned that Melbourne, Australia is getting 100 Mbps service, he lamented that the price would probably run between $66 and $100 a month USD.  Considering what we pay in the United States for service that doesn’t come close to that speed, I would say he will still be getting a deal.

The state of Internet access in the USA is a disgrace, and it is getting to a point where it is going to start costing us jobs and possible business deals as countries and corporations are begging to route the Internet traffic around the USA.  While there are certainly a great amount of problems in this country at the moment, if we do not start coming up with some form of plan to bring higher speeds to a greater portion of the country, at a price people can afford, we may not even be a shadow in people’s rear view mirrors as the rest of the Internet speeds past us to superiority.

The time has come for us to start speaking out to our elected officials and tell them enough is enough, we need higher capacity broadband at affordable pricer sooner rather than later.