Because, as we know, we’re getting trounced there. Japan’s fibre connections blow away even the speediest FiOS install you can get here, and South Korea’s percentage of homes with broadband connections makes our (albeit significantly less population-dense) country look almost third world.

Waverman’s Conectivity Scorecard, besides providing a great Flash interface to scroll through each country’s ratings, takes into account not just pure infrastructure statistics, favouring a broader look at how broadband is actually used in three main areas: at home, in businesses and by the government. And while our domestic broadband percentage may be lagging (especially in rural areas), our disproportionately high usage of the high-speed web at work and, if you can believe it, the government is enough to push us to number one.

And while Waverman could just be singing to the keep-broadband-out-of-the-Stimulus crowd, it’s an interesting way of looking at things.

AU: Australia also scores better than you would hope. The report says that strong business connectivity here in Oz holds up poor consumer offerings, which I’d mostly agree with, wouldn’t you?

[Connectivity Scorecard via Bits]

It seems unlikely that Google would go all in on the hardware end like this, but whether they partner up or not, just a rumour is enough to make companies like Cisco nervous—and send Juniper stock into a tailspin. [SD Times via Bnet via Slashdot]

Surveying the broadband landscape in this country, It’s either caps or slowdowns or filters. (Unless you’re on Comcast, then it’s a two-for-one.) Caps seem like the lesser of the three evils, if only because they’re fairly transparent—filtering and slowdowns are more insidious, since you might not be immediately aware it’s happening. They’re essentially legitimised forms of sabotage. Verizon is the only major ISP leaving traffic totally unfettered, but I wonder how long that will last.

AT&T is conducting a market trial in Reno, Nevada to evaluate a usage-based model that could potentially help address today’s trend of explosive bandwidth usage. The trial may be extended to one other market by the end of the year.

Beginning Nov. 1, 2008, new AT&T High Speed Internet customers in Reno will receive a bandwidth usage amount ranging from between 20 Gigabytes (GB) and 150 GB, depending on their broadband speed tier. Later this year, existing AT&T High Speed Internet customers in Reno will become a part of this trial if their monthly usage exceeds 150 GB in one month. These customers will receive a usage amount of 150 GB per month.

Once they’re a part of the trial, customers will receive a one month grace period the first time usage is exceeded. Thereafter, customers will be charged $1 for every GB over their determined usage amount. All customers in the trial will receive a bandwidth measuring tool so they can track their usage. We will let all impacted customers know about the trial specifics at least 60-days ahead of any overage charges. We’ll also proactively let customers know each time they reach 80 percent of their usage amount. We will not terminate service due to customer usage.

We have previously stated that some type of usage based model, for those customers who have abnormally high usage patterns, seems inevitable. A small group of customers are using the majority of bandwidth on our network. In fact, almost 50 percent of total bandwidth is used by just five percent of customers – customers, for example, who are uploading and downloading the equivalent of more than 40,000 YouTube videos or 40 million e-mails a month. This kind of heavy usage has an impact on all of our customers.

This trial will help us evaluate ways of dealing with surging usage trends while continuing to meet customer needs for a high quality broadband experience at an affordable price.

[AT&T]

Our goal, when the T-Mobile G1 becomes available in October, is to provide affordable, high-speed data service allowing customers to experience the full data capabilities of the device and our 3G network. At the same time, we have a responsibility to provide the best network experience for all of our customers so we reserve the right to temporarily reduce data throughput for a small fraction of our customers who have excessive or disproportionate usage that interferes with our network performance or our ability to provide quality service to all of our customers.

We removed the 1GB soft limit from our policy statement, and we are confident that T-Mobile G1 customers will enjoy the high speed of data access over our 3G network. The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with current customers and potential new customers.

In order to provide a consistently high-quality video service, AT&T Uverse High Speed Internet throughput speeds may be temporarily reduced when a customer is using other U-verse services in a manner that requires high bandwidth. This could occur more often with higher speed Internet access products. It may be necessary, for some AT&T High Speed Internet users, for AT&T to set a maximum downstream speed on a customer line to enhance the reliability and consistency of performance.

There’s a bunch of other changes in the updated terms of service that you should read too if you’re an AT&T customer, like regarding the settling of disputes. There are some clauses about not distributing copyrighted content, but I don’t know if those are new, I’m still checking on that. Either way, it’s another step toward crappier internet for all, and it’s not like you’re going to get anything out of it, either. [AT&T]

“Effective in 30 days, Sprint reserves the right to limit throughput speeds or amount of data transferred and to deny, terminate, modify, or suspend service if usage exceeds 5 GB/month in total or 300 MB/month while roaming off network.”

[Thanks Brett!]

The cap is being put into place to control a small number of users who have set up file sharing servers and are pumping out far more than that a day. If you’re a downloader, don’t you worry, no download cap is going to be put into place, so feel free to continue using the hell out of that gorgeous 100Mbps connection of yours.

Sure makes that Time Warner download cap of 40GB per month seem stingy as hell, doesn’t it? Stupid jerkface American ISPs. [Ars Technica]

It is more or less accepted that a minority of users use disproportionate of bandwidth, but what they’re using it for is changing. It’s increasingly video, not BitTorrent. The whole pro-BitTorrent thing is a smokescreen, because BitTorrent is less and less of an issue–video, and increasingly, HD video will be the real one. (Along with any number of other increasingly bandwidth-intensive apps.) And it’ll be more and more competitive with providers’ TV offerings–we’ve already seen Time Warner cry about it. But there’s no legitimate way to block it and protect their content.

They can, however, make it more expensive for you to download with bandwidth caps (which is conveniently net neutral). And that’s what I think this is partially about–protecting their TV business, not just curbing voracious bandwidth appetites. Regardless of the motivations, it’s definitely coming. Comcast’s tests will probably start soon, Time Warner’s are already underway and regional ISPs have been doing it for a while. It’s looking very much like the future of broadband here.

At least if we’re using it less maybe the internet won’t explode now. [Wired]