Why Japan is Eating our Lunch–Again
Snipped from the HuffingtonPost.com.
Well, here we go again. Japan is surpassing us and this time it’s in broadband access. Compared to the U.S. Japan has access that is 30 times faster than the U.S. As a result, we are being left in the dust when it comes to “experiencing innovation and enjoying applications that Americans simply don’t have access to.” In Japan, you can watch broadcast-quality, full-screen television over the internet. All we have is grainy, wallet-sized images. With Japan’s ultra-high-speed applications, they are introducing into the market low-cost, high-definition teleconferencing and telemedicine which allows doctors to diagnose diseases remotely. And, their advanced telecommuting is helping Japan reach their target of doubling the number of people who work from home by 2010. So, what happened to the U.S.?
Unfortunately what has happened is more of corporate protectionism at work in the Bush administration. For all their talk of free trade and less regulation, the Republican administration, in effect, reduced competition. They did this by caving into huge corporate interests from the wireless and telecommunications industry. Apparently they just didn’t want to compete, so laws were enacted that kept innovation under wraps which stifled progress and better products.
What Japan did was the opposite. They opened up broadband access by mandating that phone and cable lines be available to whoever wanted access. What is interesting about this turn of events is that America invented “open access” but then abandoned it when big corporate interests didn’t like the competition.
Here’s what the article had to say about it.
If this quaint idea of “competition” seems familiar, that’s because America invented “open access” policies in the first place. And open access worked for decades to bring lower prices and more choices in long-distance phone service and dial-up Internet access.
The Japanese first adopted open access because they were worried about falling behind us. But under pressure from our own phone and cable monopolists, the Bush administration abandoned open access — and the fundamental protections for Net Neutrality along with it.
Now they’re standing idly by as America drops further and further behind the rest of the world in every measure of broadband progress.
If you would like to read the full article click the image below.
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New Scientist
The Onion
Media Matters
Newsvine
Associated Press
Solution: The U.S. doesn’t need any corrective laws or fair practices to catch up with Japan. All we need to do is drag Japan and its citizens back and down to our tech level. How? Give them our massive drug problem. That would be enough to set them back, and they may even eat that lunch by coming up with better addictive drugs for themselves.
American Drug Dealer to Innocent Japan: “Here, take this. The first one is free, then you are mine!”
Oh, something related like this has been done, but to us: China Money Man to greedy America: “Here, take this. The first dollar is free, then you are mine!”
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Amusing suggestion from Nodvik. But seriously, the comarison isn’t a fair one. We have millions of square miles of land, they have only a few thousand square miles. And Japan is pretty far out ahead of everyone else.
Besides, we can’t shortchange what’s happened here. Verzion’s FiOS is a huge broadband boost over previous service levels. AT&T’s U-Verse is coming online soon, as well. (Note: I should point out here I personally work for a coalition AT&T belongs to, but I don’t represent the company).
And what this all says about the net neutrality debate, I’m not sure. We do indeed have open access here. It’s provided by competition, not government regulation.
Hey HOTI Dave, thanks for the comment. Unfortuantely, in my opinion, we don’t have a true free market. With just a handful of overly-powerful corporate conglomerates, multi-millions spent on lobbying to keep people the people that are in control in control and a extremely unfavorable environment for competition, we will not see a true fair, free market. The other sad thing is we are taught and mind-numbingly drilled to be followers and not to question authority, so how are we supposed to operate in a free market when our minds are taught to be more of a socialist? But, I could be wrong… take care Dave.
Japan does not always steal our lunch — again” and again and again. The reason why is the lack of adventurous attitude of U.S. corporate management — the decision makers. Our CEO’s unknowingly let them. In fact, they often hand Japan a new invention on a platter. One would think that with multimillion dollar salaries and megabucks bonuses, you would have topnotch people in those positions in our big companies. Think again — imagination and greed don’t partner up that well. These fat cats cannot see beyond a dollar.
How many bad decisions not only blew a deal for the company, but might have been the death warrant for their company? We will never know. By Gawk, Japan doesn’t always steal our lunch; in fact, our //climbed to the top by stepping on good ideas//in fact, our CEO’s are brown-bag ideas for them to pick up and take away.
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