The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns. The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second - a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits). ‘We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world,’ CWA President Larry Cohen says. ‘People don’t pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind.’ Speed matters on the Internet. A 10-megabyte file takes about 15 seconds to download with a 5-megabit connection - fast for the USA. Download time with a 545-kilobit connection, about the entry-level speed in many areas: almost 2½ minutes. Broadband speed is a function of network capacity: The more capacity you have, the more speed you can deliver. Speed, in turn, allows more and better Internet applications, such as photo sharing and video streaming. Superfast speeds are imperative for critical applications such as […]