Our Edge Keeps slipping

I must keep pinching myself to see how far we’ve come. When I first started talking to teachers about e-mail and then the Internet in the late 1980s and early ’90s, the U.S. had an undeniable and unchallenged superiority in all things related to information and communication technology (with the possible exception of France’s Minitel.

This morning I read, from Andy King’s Web Site Optimization, and brought to my attention by Edward Vielmetti through Interesting People, this piece about the changing shape of the broadband graphs.

At its current growth rate of over 90% per year, China will pass the US in total broadband subscribers by late 2006 to become the largest broadband country in the world. The US has fallen to 19th overall in household broadband penetration, and is in danger of being passed by Slovenia in early 2007. Israel leads all Middle Eastern and African countries, and is the third country overall in broadband penetration. Hong Kong leads the Pacific Rim, with a broadband penetration rate of over 73%. Meanwhile, in December 2005 the US passed 65% in broadband penetration among active Internet users.

Our edge keeps slipping as we keep looking backward!