Sony Unveils World's Fastest Internet in Japan

It is widely known that in comparison with other countries, people in the United States pay more money for slower internet connections.  Yesterday, Sony unveiled the world's fastest internet in Japan. From Engadget:

Google Fiber might be making waves with its 1Gbps speeds, but it's no match for what's being hailed as the world's fastest commercially-provided home internet service: Nuro. Launched in Japan yesterday by Sony-supported ISP So-net, the fiber connection pulls down data at 2 Gbps, and sends it up at 1 Gbps.

Why is the US lagging so far behind in this important technological metric?  You know the answer: the collusion of big business and big government.  From Reuters:

The backbone of the Internet — fiber, cables, and copper wires – sounds boring. But these physical structures enable the bits and bytes that increasingly define our lives to flow to and from computers around the world. Without them, there’s no Internet. If they’re slow or outdated, they handicap our access to the digital world. Which means these boring pieces of hardware are a new battleground for access in our digital age.

In this interview, I speak with telecom policy expert Susan Crawford about the state of this backbone. She explains the technologies involved, the players who control them, and how the U.S. has already fallen well behind other developed nations when it comes to speeds and connectivity. Finally we talk about her prescription for how America can regain its preeminence — not just as the creators, but as the leaders — of the Internet.