China to Top U.S. in Broadband Subscribers

An anonymous reader writes "China already is rapidly approaching the United States as the country with the largest number of broadband subscribers, according to the El Segundo, Calif.-based firm, and by the end of the year, China is expected to have 34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States. By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow."

i would hope so

[hsmith]

considering they have 4x as many people than us in an are that is a bit more densely populated

Re:i would hope so

[SeventyBang]

Regardless of how many of them there are, how many (a percentage will do as an alternative to headcount) of them get to see an unfiltered Internet?

It's well-documented there are watchers in chat rooms who redact material real-time which is "against policy", some horrendous filters which screen practically everything but spam, and I'll bet the only address they're allowed to connect to with FTP is 127.0.0.1.

Sheer numbers and population percentages mean nothing when there's nothing to look at. Trust me: t

Re:i would hope so

[Waffle Iron]

and I'll bet the only address they're allowed to connect to with FTP is 127.0.0.1

That's not so bad; it's a kickass site. Lightning fast, too.

Re:i would hope so

[Lord Kano]

That's not so bad; it's a kickass site. Lightning fast, too.

And whoever runs it likes all of the same pr0n that I do.

LK

Re:Breed Geeks, breed!

[Vombatus]

Geeks do your partiotic duty.

Go forth and multiply?

Where did I leave my pocket calculator?

1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier to have more subscribers/anything when you have almost 4 times the population.

This isn't very interesting news at all.

Next on slashdot: China Tops US in rice consumption.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[Anonymous Coward]

Followed by US tops China in arrogance

fucking retart!

[KZigurs]

You will not get away with this!!!

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[bombadier_beetle]

You people need to calm down. China and the US have very little to fight about, militarily speaking. The CCP and the GOP have very compatible global agendas - not that there's anything good about that.

And for the specific point raised about military capacity, China claims that it could take on one or possibly two US carrier groups in battle. The US has 12 of them. But so what? That kind of thing just doesn't matter anymore.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[ergo98]

For starters, China would own the US in anyway war

Are you for real? The worldwide annual military expenditures is ~$900 billion. The US portion of that is 1/2. That's right - one half of the world's militarism is the US. China is barely a blip, and is generally equipped with Russian cast-offs and cheap knock-offs.

Perhaps you're confused by the fact that China has the largest standing army - when you are dominated from the air and sea, that's what they call "cannon fodder". It's an absolutely irrelevant n

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[Dun Malg]

They have nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. That's all the really matters in this day and age. Infantry is nice and all, but no longer the deciding factor in winning a war.

Hogwash. In order to win a war, you need to have men on the ground pointing guns at the enemy's government officials. No way to do that with just nukes. You cannot name a single war which was won without occupying infantry.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[SaDan]

Yeah, but they'll NEVER beat us at BUTTER consumption!

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[jmv]

Next: China tops US in fuel consumption. That's when it's going to get really scary (I guess it's already scary that 4% of the world population consumes 25% of the energy).

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[TheKidWho]

and also produces 25% of all goods.

Makes sense doesn't it now? Turn off your selective memory.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[britneys 9th husband]

and given the huge trade deficit, probably consumes something like 30% of all goods.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[stupidfoo]

Actually the US produces closer to 29-30% of the world's goods with 25% of the world's "resources". So, we produce goods at a higher efficiency than the rest of the world (on average).

But you're right, that doesn't sound quite as sexy. It's like when people complain about the US's "record" deficits even though it, as a percentage of it's GDP, is no where near record levels and is lower than most of Europe. But again, that's not as sexy.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[gnuman99]

It is at about 5% GDP. Some European countries have more even though they said they wouldn't.. Screws up all of Europe due to single currency.

Breaking Myths

[WindBourne]

I find it interesting that so many will try to argue the record deficits are low when expressed relative to GDP, without looking at the data. Here is one [zfacts.com]
And this one includes Federal spending as a percentage of GDP. [traxel.com]
In both cases, the GWB spending is not only record on total, but nearing as a percentage of GDP. In fact, only during WWII (when we had a manufactuering base) and Regans first term has it been higher.

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[jmv]

...and consumes 25% of all goods. It's not like the US is really producing goods for other countries (yes, I've heard of exportations), since its commercial balance is negative. The environmental situation is already bad with what the US does (it's not the only country polluting, but the largest at the moment). What's even more scary is the thought of China imitating the US development and reaching the same level of production/pollution as the US _per capita_. That would mean 5 times more pollution than the

Re:1.1 Billion vs 280 Million

[gnuman99]

You are in luck! There is not enough oil production to sustain that much pollution :) We are already at peak oil.

Realy? Realy, realy? Realy realy realy???

[KZigurs]

Really? No, REALLY? Really, really, really??? Where did you get the 25% number?

1. Take a look at USA trade deficite. That is by no means an indicator that we are dealing with a country that is manifacturing 1/4 of goods producing worldwide. It was what, something like ~60BN USD when I last took a look at it.

2. Take a look at where the plants are located. Have any significant amount of manifacturing action in US? Ok, big, fuel thursty cards and overpriced medicaments, but anything else?

3. USA dollar is fa

heh

[KZigurs]

If I had a good english skills (without help from a pirated copy of a certain software from a certain software marketing company) would I be questioning the supremacy of US?

Unless I were British, that is ;)

Not that simple.

[fm6]

1.1 billion people is just so many warm bodies --they mean nothing unless they're part of a vital economy. Fifty years the population ratio was almost as lopsided, but the Chinese couldn't even feed themselves, much less buy fancy technology. At that time, the U.S. dominated the planet in infrastructure, manufacturing base, skilled workforce, advanced, raw economic power, and a lot of other factors. Not led, dominated.

In 1955, most people wouldn't have had any notion what "Broadband Internet Access" was. But if you could make them understand that it was a key technology of the 21st century, and that it would be more available in China than in the U.S....

An American would have reported you to the FBI for spreading commie propaganda. And a Chinese would have shaken his head at your obvious dementia. The U.S. has lost its edge, and this is another sign of it.

Re:Not that simple.

[Breakfast Pants]

"and that it would be more available in China than in the U.S...."

It's not more available in China than the US. To use your "China couldn't feed itself" analogy that is like saying that while "China couldn't feed itself" it still consumed more food than the US did in 1955 and therefore food was "more availble in China than in the US." Also you conviently forget that the internet in China is not the same as the internet in the US. The US has more restrictions on it than a lot of other places, but certai

Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

High speed access to everything the government wants them to see.

Re:Great!

[refactored]

They have the Grreat Firewall of China, you have the Grreat DMCA of America.

Speaking as a person living outside both those countries, it looks like you guys are pretty even.

So?

[Raul654]

Look at a population map of china [utexas.edu]. Now look at one of the US [wisc.edu]. Half of china has a population density of less than 2.5 people per square mile, and the other half has more than 500. Getting a large section of the country wired very quickly is pretty easy. The US population, on the other hand, is spread really thin. So it's not surprising that China could overtake the US quickly.

Re:So?

[timeOday]

The reasons, or excuses, or whatever you want to call it, are not really relevant to their threat as a competitor. They are churning out engineers and other educated people in huge numbers, and their economy is growing very fast.

Some aspects of economics are zero-sum. The world has a fixed amount of minerals and fossil fuels, and only needs a small handful of semiconductor companies.

That explains Amercan interest in WiMax.

[MtViewGuy]

The big problem in the USA is that due to the sprawled-out nature of many surburban areas and the large number of people living in rural areas, trying to get broadband Internet via xDSL, cable modem or T-1/T-3 connections to these folks becomes economically unfeasible; this is unlike Europe, Japan, South Korea or eastern China, where the population density is high enough to hardwire every residence and/or small business for broadband access economically despite the exorbitant construction costs involved.

No

Re:So?

[Raul654]

City dwellers tend to vote democratic. People in rural areas tend to vote republican. I don't mean any disrepect, but is that supposed to be a revalation?

Re:So?

[bleckywelcky]

People who live in rural areas are typically conservative ... they are self-reliant and feel they are accountable for their own actions and only get out of life what they put into it.

City dwellers are typically liberal ... they want a government handout and want everyone else to solve their problems for them. It's always someone else's fault, or their non-ideal upbringing, or their job stress.

So what's new? Rural votes conservative, urban votes liberal?

You know what's pathetic? Presidential elections are

Re:So?

[Peyna]

. But in these big cities, you get a bunch of poor people grouping together who want the rest of the country to give them handouts.

The poor have the lowest voter turnouts in the country. So, nice try, but you're theory doesn't float.

If every eligible person in the country voted, the more liberal candidates would win by a landslide. Minorities, poor, and other marginalized groups tend to be very unlikely to vote for a wide variety of reasons. These groups overwhelmingly support liberal candidates.

Re:So?

[Peyna]

You know what's pathetic? Presidential elections are basically determined by only a handful of people. Los Angeles and New York City. Their numbers barely tip the scales for California and New York, who subsequently barely tip the scales for the rest of the country. If you left out LA and NYC, conservatives would have won all the elections back to the 1980s by land slides.

We have a thing called the Senate which protects the rights of the smaller states from being trampled upon by the larger states.

Re:So?

[anactofgod]

Riiiight.

So, you posit that rural dwellers are self-reliant and accountable for their own actions, while city dwellers want government handouts.

Well, actually, the real data shows that the opposite is true. Let's talk taxes. Consider this study [ohio-state.edu] of the 2000 Bush-v-Gore election results, as mapped against states that receive net benefits from federal spending. If you want more recent data, you can map the raw facts yourself against the result of the 2004 Bush-v-Kerry election using this data [taxfoundation.org] published by taxfoundation.org [slashdot.org].

I'm come from plain talking folk, so let me just say it how it is. How red staters can keep posing about their hardy self-reliance while simultaneously sucking so hard on the public teat provided by the blue staters strikes me as being, at the very least, impolite. I don't mind contributing my fair share of taxes - I view it as an investment in my country for all that it provides to me- and for some of those taxes to go to support the undereducated, indigent or unfortunate, be they rural or urban. I don't even expect the recipients to say "please" or "thank you" when they take the money given to them. But do expect not to have my hand spit when I'm trying to give you the handout.

So, pass this around to your fellow self-reliant, hardy, accountable red staters -- Strut around and pose all you want, but if you can't be polite, give us back our taxes.

Thanks a bunch.

Re:So?

[bleckywelcky]

That study is actually a bit misleading, because much of the spending in the small western states can not be offset by their comparatively small populations. Example: Let's look at Wyoming. Wyoming has less than 0.5 million people. Yet, they have 3 major interstate highways running clear across their state: I80, I90, and I25. These are major routes of passage that states all across the nation use to transport goods from north to south, from the east coast to the west coast. With a population of less than 50

Re:So?

[anactofgod]

Yeah...well, we now have executive and legislative branches dominated by those who ran on a platform to end those subsidies. Even though those in my state and in my tax bracket may get more cash back from the Feds, how much do you want to bet that subsidies to the red states will actually *increase* over the next four years? I'm willing to bet that fiscal irresponsibility will abound in order to keep the red staters fat and sassy.

Instead of giving the money back, I'd appreciate it if the red states would spend some of it on their educational systems. The US going to need a better educated workforce if we're going to stay competitive. That, or keep recruiting the top foreign talent in place of the brains we're not willing to train at home.

Continuing the discussion of the disconnect between red state political ideals and realities. Guess which ten states have the highest bankruptcy rates? Utah, Tennessee, Nevada, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi and Idaho - all red states. Nice, huh? What an incredible demonstration of fiscal responsibility and self reliance! Still, I like that your representatives are willing to put the screws to you with the change in bankrupcy laws they are trying to enact.

Once red staters stop drinking the Kool-Aid and realize that they were never as self-reliant as they think they are, and that the Republican elite DON'T have their best economic interests at heart, they're going to switch. It might kill them to join up with gay-loving baby killers, but they'll do it anyway when they can't feed their families. And they'll be begging for those safety nets that are being slowly stripped away.

Don't worry. We blue staters are an understanding and tolerant lot. Comes with the territory, so to speak. *grynn* You'll be welcome back into the mainstream fold.

But most of the content is unavailable...

[binaryspiral]

So what if more people in China have broadband... most of the content of the Internet is monitored and filtered by the Chinese government.

Score one for the rest of the free world.

Re:But most of the content is unavailable...

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Amen brother. Having broadband with nothing critical on it (as is the case with China) is like.... CABLE TV!!!!

RS

Congruity

[PktLoss]

Doesn't the article title contridict what the summary says.

Could the title be 'China soon to topple US...'?

Re:Congruity

[PktLoss]

Now either 'to' was added to the title, or I need to get some more sleep.

Great firewall

[mrogers]

Now they can fail to find information about democracy, Falun Gong, Christianity or encryption software at blazing 2 megabit speeds! Hooray for broadband!

Further Developments

[Capella or Bust]

In other news, reports indicate that the China has far surpassed the US in terms of the number of households that contain "lungs." These "lungs" are being used by the Chinese to breathe "air," and it is widely fear that the Chinese may very well breath more "air" than any other civilized nation on earth, followed closely by India.

Yes, but who'd got MORE access?

[joetheappleguy]

A big chunk of the Internet is denied to people behind the Great Firewall of China.

Good or bad our 54 million broadband subscribers get the WHOLE Internet, even the crazy North Korean bits

Now when is China going to beat that?

Of course...

[carambola5]

Of course for China, that's 2.9% while for the US, it's 13.5%.

Check for yourself: http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wp02/tabA-04.pdf [census.gov]

Hooray for manipulating statistics!

Even Canada is higher..

[Quickfry]

Canada is higher than the US, per capita (which is what counts) I mean hell, our country is made up of lots of ice, mountains, and trees, and even our eskimos have a fat pipe!

Re:Even Canada is higher..

[Wicked187]

...even our eskimos have a fat pipe!

I am not sure that is what they are speaking of.

Re:Even Canada is higher..

[Quickfry]

Ah. You have obviously heard about Canadians and their 'fat pipes' It's all true.

Re:Even Canada is higher..

[THotze]

Its funny you'd make that point... like China, Canada is a really big nation with a very densely populated area and an area that's not at all densely populated, although the difference between the two regions is obviously greater.

Its easy to wire major metropolitan areas in Canada for broadband, they're relatively large and not too spaced out. the region from Québec City, through Montréal, Ottawa and heading to Toronto is the population equivalent of the US's northeast, the centre for industry a

Could we proof-read the cut'n'paste blurbs, pls?

[rco3]

The summary says,

"...according to the El Segundo, Calif.-based firm..."

Er... according to WHICH El Segundo, Calif.-based firm? There must be more than one firm in El Segundo, Calif. Or is this the teaser that's supposed to entice me to read the fine article?

Dishnet aims for India-wide WiFi coverage in 2 yrs

[anandpur]

Other news by 2007 every Indian can be Subscribers of Broadband

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=tech nologyNews&storyID=8386370 [reuters.com]

Is there a Free Software community in China?

[LionKimbro]

I frequently wonder: "What are the Chinese doing with their broadband? Are they writing Free Software with it?"

I look at the Planet Gnome [gnome.org] map, [gnome.org] and I see like: 4 GNOME developers in China.

Is there a Free Software community in China?

Are they working on stuff we don't know about?

I'm having visions of like: One day, we discover there's a third pillar, in addition to just KDE and GNOME. And we didn't even know about it, because everything was worked on in Chinese, which we never searched for.

And thats a fair comparison how?

[powerlinekid]

34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States. By the end of 2007, China is expected to have 57 million broadband subscribers, compared to 54 million in the United States, with an even wider lead in the years to follow."


39 million... out of 300 million total people.
34 million... out of 6 billion total people.

So 1/9 verse 1/20th of the overall population... hardly seems so bad now. I will say the US is slipping, but that has more to do with our geography and population spread than a

Re:And thats a fair comparison how?

[mithras the prophet]

It's ``fair" because raw numbers matter. Which is the same reason the U.S. is a very important market, as opposed to say, Iceland. If you want to make a bunch of money selling services to broadband subscribers, who cares what the overall population is, if there's a bigger market in absolute terms?

Chinese economic growth

[NickHydroxide]

I believe some people are missing the point, and aren't looking at the underlying issue. The relative disparity between economic growth, 'market' (I use the term loosely) functionality and political stability over the past 50 years has meant that while the US has enjoyed sustained and profitable economic growth, China has only turned around a number of its economic policies in the last decade or so; it is thus only recently beginning to develop technologically.

The essence of a comparison is that while t

Just another symptom.

[stealth.c]

Within a decade, China's going to be "it." Not the USA. I know it's blasphemy to most Americans to say so, but it's a plain and simple fact.

At least when that happens, maybe we can get our manufacturing jobs back. Maybe we won't have to live in this stagnant consumer culture and it'll be fashionable to NOT be up to your earlobes in debt. Maybe sunshine will burst out of our asses.

I, for one, welcome our new Sino-Overlords.

Re:Just another symptom.

[Shamashmuddamiq]

It's not blasphemy, it's just common sense. If China has 4 times the population of the US, then it should be 4 times as productive as the US. The real question is, why has it taken this long for these countries to "catch up" to their potential? From an economic point of view, it's inexcusable. Think of the cancer treatments we would have, the incredibly stable world economy, the competition that would drive product costs down and job satisfaction up...We should have had all this hundreds of years ago.

Re:Just another symptom.

[Lu Xun]

I, for one, welcome our new Sino-Overlords.

That is, of course, until their tanks interrupt your shopping trip.

Re:Just another symptom.

[xenocide2]

When (if) China becomes a economic supercenter, it won't be at the direct expense of the American lifestyle. Economics isn't a zero sum game, after all.

Re:Just another symptom.

[killjoe]

" When (if) China becomes a economic supercenter, it won't be at the direct expense of the American lifestyle. Economics isn't a zero sum game, after all."

No it will be at the expense of natural resources. The economy IS a zero sum game but not the way most people think. Economic advancement comes at the cost of natural resources. Since there is not an infinate amount of natural resources the economy is a zero sum game.

Actually the only way for the economy not be a zero sum game would be for there to be a

Re:Just another symptom.

[Pros_n_Cons]

I know its "in" to hate the USA (certainly on this site) but this story shows the desperation of people to show how the "USA is losing it" and this is the best they can come up with? That is testement to just how darned strong the USA still is. While the rest of the world is trying so hard to show up the americans, the US is busy working on the next technology that will leave half of the world in the dust. Cars were suppose to be the end of the US, but little did they know about this TCP/computers thingy being worked on. Now the rest of the world fights over broadband while we're up on mars studying the water we just found. Think about it.

firewall?

[karpediem]

With THAT many people on high speed connections, how does Big Brother intend to censor them from that evil word, *democracy*? I imagine they could use their Great Wall of China as a hardware firewall if push comes to shove!

Slashdot fearfactor...

[NullProg]

Name any five major Chinese cities and you have a greater population than the United States as a whole. In the future, internet access will be 10 to 1 in favor of China. Will it be un-censored? Look up the population of India and see what it's internet access will be once the infrastructure is in place.

Does it mean anything? No. Considering most of our rural population still has multiple choices for dial-up/satellite internet access. Hell, my sister is in Nebraska with no choice of broadband, but she has

Ooooff

[Kenrod]

Here's a better article [com.com], with some statistics:

How exactly do they collect this information? It's not like the Chinese are real forthcoming with reliable info.

BTW, This is just another excuse for slashdot editors to kick the US in the crotch.

pick a metric

[Dun Malg]

China is expected to have 34 million subscribers, compared to 39 million in the United States.

So, we measure broadband penetration by percentage of total population when we compare the US to Korea, but for China we just look at the straight population numbers? Well so long as the US lools bad, right?

Communism at work..

[going_the_2Rpi_way]

Not surprising really, since most 'broadband' sharing type setups are very socialist in nature. I wonder just how 'broad' that band really is.
I mean, I've heard Cuba touted as having the 'best' healthcare system in the world (honestly!)... , but I don't think you'd have easy access to a CAT scan unless your name was Fidel. It might be the most 'even' perhaps in that almost everyone has the same lack of access.
Any bandwidth figures?

Yeah!

[TheRealStubot]

And that was with ONE Linksys wireless router, strategically placed in Bejing.

Where the hell can you go?

[BubbaTheBarbarian]

Great, i can get my fill of propoganda FASTER now.

Who do these fucks think they are kidding. Just like SARS was under control and the bridge over the river that was DAMMED, this is in line with everything else. The only music download that does not include your closest relative paying for the bullet is "Dance Like Mao".

Just wait, they will get close, then fall away like every other US wannabe. Maybe they can have a cross between commie and rep, get everyone included, stop acting like the barbarians th

Head in the sand

[travellerjohn]

More broadband, more people, booming economy, bigger army.

When the US going to wake up and realise that China is big and powerful and growing?

A quick trip around some of the major Chinese cities and and you can see a booming economy, new cars, lots of construction, retail and manufacturing. The Chinese are catching up quick. And I dont think most Chinese are too worried about censorship so long as they can make money.

Meanwhile the US is mucking about in Iraq, and lecturing other people on how to run their own countries. (Something that doesnt go down too well.)

It is only a matter of time before the Chinese economy catches up with the US, and I dont think they will be too well inclined towards the US. Then perhaps we will be wishing we paid a little more attention and were a little less arrogant.

Broadband is only one of many indicators that the USA's economic dominance might be shortlived.

Oh come on...

[RobinH]

I see this all the time, only usually like, "there are as many MRI machines in New York State as there are in all of Canada". That's shocking, but have you ever compared the populations?

What a stupid story. You can compare some things based on actual numbers, like military figures, but this kind of stuff has to be per capita.

General consumption...

[zxflash]

America is pretty good at consuming goods/services but with the population advantage China has theye's no doubt they'll have more broadband, doctors, sell more Big Macs, and have bigger political problems...

Uhhh....Missing Something?

[walters5]

I think the more important aspect of there being more Chinese with broadband than Americans has a lot less to do with what Chinese citizens can find on Google. Broadband is a catalyst for business and information services. It's even a catalyst for change in culture. Look at the other asian countries that have spent millions on broadband spending. If South Korean teens consider online gaming to be as everyday as more 'conventional' sports like soccer, how much will making computers and the internet a common

Re:Dialup

[red5]

I had to help my sister figure out some computer related things at work this morning. They had AOL dial-up internet. I didn't even know they made that anymore.

Re:Percentages

[Anonymous Coward]

China has 1,298,847,624 [google.com] and USA has 293,027,571 [google.com]

So China has about 4% and USA has 18%.

Re:Percentages

[Anonymous Coward]

And 18% is nothing to brag about, really. At least, not when compared to other countries. [yahoo.com]

Re:Percentages

[YrWrstNtmr]

So, according to that article, 80% of Americans have access to broadband, if they want it. 18% currently have broadband. That means 62% choose not to, or can't afford it. Let's be really generous and split that 62% down the middle.

Almost 1/3 of Americans who do have access to broadband choose not to. If that 30% were to sign up, the US would be at almost 50% penetration.

Re:Percentages

[ramblin billy]

Plus how many of those 62% are members of households that do have broadband? How many have access at work? I travel to towns of all sizes and geographic distribution and have yet to find one without public high speed access, usually for free. The only problem I've had was one cybercafe in Berkeley where the only box available had an OS in Korean. I didn't understand everything the folks there were saying, but I'm pretty sure they were ganging up on me at Unreal Tournament.

billy - respawning means never hav

Re:Percentages

[h4x0r-3l337]

So, according to that article, 80% of Americans have access to broadband, if they want it

Two comments about that:

• what is considered "broadband" in the US is considered laughably slow and outdated in places like Japan (you can get 22 megabits/sec for about $22 a month in Japan)
• in the US, "access to broadband" means "there is at least one location in this zipcode that can have broadband", hardly a fair and accurate measure.

Re:Percentages

[dtfarmer]

18% isn't bad considering the logistics. The US is nearly 100x larger in area than South Korea...

South Korea - http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/skorea.html [doe.gov]
Population 48m
Area 38k sq. miles (about the size of Indiana or Kentucky)

US - http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.s html [enchantedlearning.com]
Population 293m
Area 3.5m sq. miles (2.9m continental)

I wonder what the percentage would be if we only accounted for metro areas like Seattle, New York, LA... while I'm sure it's nowhere near 73%, I bet it's well above 1

Re:Percentages

[NemoX]

Don't forget to take into account land mass. The US is the third largest, while China is the forth largest. With the thought that, the smaller area there is to cover, the easier it is to connect your citizens. So, we have a 14% higher boadband usage AND a larger land mass, therefore, I think we are well not to consider this any pressing news.

Data gathered from:
http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us. h tml [cia.gov]
http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.h tml [cia.gov]

South Korea has the highest percent

[krunk4ever]

According to Lessons from South Korea: When Broadband Meets the Mass Market [bcg.com], South Korea has over 50% (8.5 million) of their population on broadband.

Countries like Korea and Japan are densely populated so rolling out broadband technology is going to be a lot easier than rolling out broadband technology out in Montana or North Dakota.

If both percentage and actual count aren't good measurements, what exactly is then?

% * n / density?

Re:South Korea has the highest percent

[rodgerd]

Whatever measurement allows the grandparent to chant, "USA! USA! USA! Number One! Best country in the history of history!"

Seriously, the contortions some people will go to rather than think about whether they ought to be concerned about the state of their nation.

Population

[Corpus_Callosum]

China's middle class is quickly rising and is currently approximately twice the entire U.S. population (a bit more than 600 million middle class people in China).

Think about that for a moment...

Re:Population

[grumpygrodyguy]

China's middle class is quickly rising and is currently approximately twice the entire U.S. population

Yep, and our middle-class is on the floor after getting it's nuts kicked repeatedly over the last 5 years.

Re:Population

[grumpygrodyguy]

that is nice coming from a non US citizen who called us the US of Asshole's in a previous post.

Actually, I _am_ a US citizen living in Atlanta, GA. Born and raised US, white, middle-class, etc. And I meant what I said in that post.

Re:Newsflash!

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Except "Lesser amount of people" we've got the most least amount of people.

Re:Mmmmm....

[mrogers]

Nah, I hear they have a great firewall.

Re:chinese democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they would trade their broadband for US' democracy.

Is that the same democracy that has a US president and Congress making laws that apply to single individuals?

Is that the same democracy that holds people indefinitely without charge and without representation in cuba?

Is that the same democracy that give governments the right to spy on you without court orders and without your knowledge?

Is that the same democracy that executes juvenile offenders and the mentally impaired?

Is that the same democr

Re:chinese democracy

[amliebsch]

Is that the same democracy that executes juvenile offenders and the mentally impaired?

This is no longer true. See Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) and Roper v. Simmons, 125 S. Ct. 1183 (2005). Please update your canned talking points.

Re:chinese democracy

[magarity]

Like all good talking points, yours extract a pound of FUD from an ounce of truth.

1. I assume you're referring to that flap over Schiavo, in which case, the "laws that apply to single individual" was not reviewed because the SC said it WASN'T about one person.
2. These non-US citizens who were caught in a foriegn country while actively fighting uniformed US soldiers deserve exactly what kind of representation under what US law?
3. What the heck is this babbling about? Every law regarding spying on indiv

Re:chinese democracy

[jericho4.0]

"2. These non-US citizens who were caught in a foriegn country while actively fighting uniformed US soldiers deserve exactly what kind of representation under what US law?"

See, it's the "foriegn country" bit that that kind of bugs us foriegners....

Re:chinese democracy

[ramblin billy]

Yep - the same one where you can say shit like that all you want. Hell, you don't even have to post as anonymous coward. We know we got problems. We bitch about 'em more than the rest of the world combined. Oh, by the way, any Americans ever get killed protecting your country?

billy - America...love it or change it

Re:chinese democracy

[ScentCone]

So as long as they are going in the right direction this is a good thing

Right! Threatening Taiwan, that's a good thing. Lying about how much independence they'd allow to thrive in Hong Kong, that's a good thing. Controlling the information that people in the country can read (like filtering out this site!), that's a good thing. So, how many years of inching forwards and backwards towards the right thing makes it OK?

powerful oligarchies which run big business and government

What? China is completely

Re:chinese democracy

[updog]

I bet most people wouldn't. Everyone I've met while in China is generally content, they're much better off than a generation ago. Prosperity abounds and the future looks bright - they are generally happy with their government, and probably wouldn't want to screw things up.

I'm personally a huge fan of democracy, but don't assume that everyone else in the world agrees with us, and certainly don't be lead to believe they want democracy forced upon them.

Re:chinese democracy

[rsborg]

I bet they would trade their broadband for US' democracy.

Gee, I wonder, is this the democracy that we call a "catastropic success" [politicalwire.com], oh, say that Iraq [comedycentral.com] is having right now? Or maybe you're talking about the our wonderfully successful policy of spreading democracy [socialaffairsunit.org.uk] that doesn't work? I'm sure China would love to get some of that action...

Re:chinese democracy

[hoferbr]

No. It's the democracy that did us a favor and won this [wikipedia.org] war. I'm not even american, but I know when to respect a country.

Re:chinese democracy

[TummyX]

WTF? How was that racist?

If anything, YOU ARE BEING RACIST for thinking implying that democracy is incompatible with the Chinese way of thinking.

Re:It's the weekly....

[AstrumPreliator]

"USA is a technological backwater because people aren't getting broadband" thread. Maybe we should force more people to get it so that we can stop hearing this over and over and over at /.?

Or perhaps we can look at the percentage of subcribers out of the whole population instead of just the number of subscribers. We're ahead percentage wise and will still be ahead percentage wise in 2007 (according to the prediction). They might have more subscribers in 2007, but they also have roughly four times the p

Re:It's the weekly....

[quarkscat]

Correction: "The USA is turning into a technological backwater because the regime in power would rather focus on their monopolist corporate contributors' profits instead of leveling the high tech "playing field" through uniform improvements to infrastructure and access."

Re:What good is broadband if it's censored?

[liangzai]

Broadband is good because virtually nothing is blocked the way you believe it is blocked. I sit here in Shanghai, read my daily /., download all the porn I could ever want, read articles on Tibet, human rights, etc., and it all go through. There's no fucking difference from surfing in the West.

If I one day would come across something that is blocked, I would of course go to virtualbrowser.com or use a proxy from proxy4free.com, both of which are totally unblocked in China (as is 99.9999% of the web, includ