According to a bizarre study cited by this morning's New York Times, the US is number one in broadband. Not on any standard metric, that is, such as overall speed, cost, or penetration, but on a new metric devised by Leonard Waverman, the dean of the Haskayne School of Business. The Times claims "it's meant to compare countries on the extent that consumers, businesses and government put communication technology to economically productive use."

Surprising indeed. Mr. Waverman's statistic really claims that the Internet gets better utilized here in the US--that more businesses, consumers, and government agencies take advantage of their connections. The Times article reads,

"Korea has great broadband to the house, but businesses in Korea don't use the best networks and don't have the skills and computing assets they need to take advantage of them," Mr. Waverman said.

Also, as dusty as your local motor vehicle office may seem, government use of communications technology is as good in the United States as anywhere in the world, according to Mr. Waverman's rankings.

Hey, that's super. But that's got nothing to do with broadband connectivity, a market the US SIGNIFICANTLY lags in! We pay for our access, dearly. The BBC's Ian Hardy puts it succinctly: "In Manhattan people pay about $30 a month for a download speed of three megabits per second (Mbps) via a DSL line. Many people are very happy with that, until they realise what is going on elsewhere in the world. In Japan you can get 100 megabits for $35." That final stat according to Selina Lo of Ruckus Wireless. But you're doing more with your access, right....?