[...]“Americans pay far too much for Internet connections that are far too slow compared to consumers in other countries. This unprecedented initiative brings together public- and private-sector groups to build the political and popular will to address this critical problem.”

Today’s launch included the release of One Nation Online, an overview of the current state of broadband adoption in the United States, demonstrating that the digital divide remains vast. Half of American homes still are not connected to high-speed Internet. This poor broadband performance has dropped the United States to 15th place in international broadband rankings — down from fourth place in 2001.
Source.

Basically, we Americans are really getting shafted by Comcast and the like. Not only are they BLOCKING OUR !@%#$&*~in’ BITTORRENT CONNECTIONS¹ , but we’re paying too much for our crippled service compared to other countries. ²

1. No matter if what you’re transferring is perfectly legal like competing online television provider’s videos or if you’re downloading Britney Spear’s latest album [↩]
2. Since this is from Freepress, I’m just going to guess that they’ve already figured inflation and the economy or lack thereof in. [↩]