QUOTE(crackfeen @ Nov 1 2007, 05:23 PM)
that's not entirely a fair average.. how big is Japan compared to the states. if we're talking an average, then you have to take into consideration the connection per population density.. i'm sure the big cities have an overall higher connection speed, but there are many more little places that you physically can't cover as well unless you want to devote a MASSIVE chunk of money into it
That's not true. Big cities like NYC, Washington, Chicago, etc doesn't see any speed like 100mbps because the limit of choice of the ISP's, . You are lucky if you can get a choice of high speed connection from your cable or phone company. There are independent companies like Earthlink but the speed is limited by the last mile, but you will be lucky if you can get it.
Companies like Verizon is currently deploying FIOS which can support 100mbp+ speed, but chose to cripple the speed down to 20mbps download at most.
FYI, many people don't see what kind of applications we can use with high(er) speed internet. High resolution video conference calls, watching TV over the internet, online high speed file sharing, having a class over the internet, possibilities are endless...