Internet speed: How fast is fast enough?

[Commentary] Much has been made of the apparently woeful average speeds of United States broadband connections. Despite evidence of large absolute increases in average Internet speeds, some advocates are concerned that the US is somehow “falling behind” smaller and more densely-populated countries such as Korea, Latvia, and the Netherlands. This supposed lag has been used to bolster calls for greater federal and municipal investment in local broadband infrastructure, particularly Fiber to the Home (FTTH) networks for the 20 percent of residences currently unable to access local networks at speeds meeting the Federal Communications Commission’s definition of broadband (25 Mbps downstream, 3 Mbps upstream).

The argument is that it is somehow imperative that the US has the fastest Internet connections in the world, and that to deliver anything less is somehow a “failure” that necessitates government intervention. This line of reasoning is problematic for a number of reasons.

[Bronwyn Howell is general manager for the New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation]