Stacy Curtin posted an excellent article on how the United States sucks for Internet and media access. This has been one of my issues for a long time, and it’s been damned hard to get the point across to the “USA! USA!” crowd who assumes we’re the best at everything.

In fairness to the telcos, it is true that wiring up the United States is a hell of a lot bigger project than most countries. A proper expense comparison should be to the whole of Europe. That said, most of us are clustered in highly dense population centers, so we should stop letting the last mile argument cloud the fact that the best we can get is still pretty damn bad—and expensive as hell.

When I need wicked fast Internet access, I go to Penn campus, where I get alumni Net privileges. That only cost me $80,000, but hey, it’s a lifetime membership.