Yesterday’s Charlie Rose program had Thomas Bleha on who has written an article Down to the Wire in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. From the summary:

Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life.

Much of what he describes in the article is “fiber to the home”… not just providing broadband via the cable companies or the phone companies, but actually running new fiber to each home. This provides massive bandwidth… much higher capacity than what we now consider broadband in the U.S.