US Broadband Numbers Don't Lie, Just Confuse

Ninety-five percent of Americans do have access to broadband where they live, but when it comes to adoption or actually signing up for broadband at home, the number is much lower — closer to 63 percent.

Derek Turner, research director for the public interest group Free Press, says the numbers don't lie. "For the providers to try to say that there's no problem, it's merely just a smoke screen," he says. When it comes to broadband adoption, Turner says the U.S. has fallen behind other developed countries, including such technological powerhouses as ... Estonia? "Depending on whose numbers you look at, we're a middle-of-the-pack performer," he says. "But even more alarming is the direction we're heading. We're dropping in the rankings — countries are outperforming us." The two narratives about how easy and cheap it is to get online in the U.S. are so starkly different that it's hard to believe both sides are talking about the same Internet.

But John Horrigan, who studied broadband adoption at the Pew Internet & American Life Project and now at the FCC, says the Internet of these two narratives is actually one and the same. "There are a lot of different measures that float around," he says. "So people might pick a number that makes their case and not look at numbers that might suggest a somewhat different story."