In a recently published report by EDUCAUSE, a group that represents IT managers at over 2,200 colleges and universities across the US, ghe United States is facing a crisis in broadband connectivity. The demand for bandwidth is accelerating well beyond the capacity of the current broadband networks which are predominately DSL or HFC. According to the OECD the United States continues to full further behind in the percentage of connected homes and the average advertised speed.

EDUCAUSE has proposed the creation of a new federal Universal Broadband Fund (UBF) that should be used to build open, big broadband networks of at least 100 Mbps to every home and business in the United States by 2012. They estatement the construction of this network will cost approximately $100 billion, with one-third of the funding provided by the federal government, one-third by the states, and the remaining one-third by the private sector.

Its interesting the United States can build a FTTH network for $100 billion for a population about 12 times larger than Australia, yet Telstra claims it will cost us $30-$50 billion. If we work this back, $100 billion / 12 = ~$8billion. Didn't the FTTH SIG recommend that FTTH for Australia would cost only $9.8 billion?