In How's That U.S. Broadband Working For You? we reported how the U.S. fell further behind in world broadband penetration and price. The OECD report rated the U.S. 15th out of 30 countries. Robert Cringely shares why that is in The $200 Billion Rip-Off: Our broadband future was stolen.

The answer is both sad and not surprising - telco monopolies and shoddy government oversight at both federal and state levels.

In the 1990s the telcos were promising 45 megabits per second bandwidth and claiming subsidies to make it happen. Fast forward to today. Ten years later we still don't have it with bandwidth at 10% of that rate. And the telcos have kept the money.

Meanwhile in Japan people get 100-megabit-per-second Internet service for $14 per month.