Only One US City Makes "Top Ten Internet Cities Worldwide" List 240
An anonymous reader writes "A new report today has ranked the Top 10 'Internet Cities' around the globe, based on a set of five criteria: connection speed, availability of citywide WiFi, openness to innovation, support of public data, and security/data privacy. One might expect high-tech cities like San Francisco and Tel Aviv to appear on a list of 'Internet Cities,' but they don't. Indeed, no Middle Eastern cities appear here at all, and — due, largely, to the United States' poor Internet speeds — the only US city to make this ranking is Seattle."
Re:American priorities (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the really important metrics are less "how fast and how easily available", but how controlled, censored, and monitored?
I'll take my 30mbps, home-bound-connection-only service without censorship or monitoring (if it existed) over 200mbps or free city-wide-wifi anywhere that content is heavily filtered or monitored any day.
Seattle? Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in Seattle. Here (at UW) our internet is pretty good, as you might expect - but the city as a whole is nothing to write home about. Of course there's a Starbucks on every corner, so perhaps the city scored well based on the availability of that AT&T free wi-fi...
Reading the article, it appears Seattle scored highly based, at least in part, on things they say they plan to do. And I must admit our local guys are very adept at talking a good game. But come on... they just killed the almost stillborn city-wide wifi network! Talking is basically all they're good at!
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
The US is no longer the worlds biggest economy. The US hasn't done anything to improve the internet in quiet some time.
Unless you count surveillance and censorship.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those countries aren't the worlds biggest economy. Those countries didn't pioneer the Internet.
Those countries don't have the belief that they are better than everyone else. For example Sweden would not be offended by finding out it didn't rate highest in some arbitrary test.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
But those nice guys in Geneva invented the WWW.
Re:American priorities (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, about these World Wars where America claims to be the conquering hero. The first one (1914 - 1918) ended in a stalemate. The well dressed and well fed U.S. arrival in 1917 demoralized the Europeans into realizing it was in everyone's best interest to have an armistice: a situation where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. The hostilities remained, it was just a cessation while attempting to negotiate a permanent peace.
Then the U.S. convinced everyone to agree Germany was at fault, requiring them to pay everyone for damages and create only industrial factories limited to non war like production. With this huge debt hanging over their heads making them feel like suckers for agreeing to the Armistice, the U.S. compounded Germany's weak economic problems by subsequently causing a world wide financial crisis 10 years later when its stock market crashed due to U.S. banks making investments with little or no assets. People in Germany, especially the warring factions of unemployed veterans, that were becoming bitter psychopaths decided the war wasn't over. This time they were going to do it right.
The second one (1939 - 1945) was lost due to bad timing on a gamble that stretched thin the German resources, either sticking with the original plan to invade and conquer the British Isles, ignoring Russia and eliminate a U.S. foothold or go into Russia a couple weeks sooner as originally planned. The U.S arrival in 1944 was enough to keep the Germans from regaining their resources while fighting the Russians. The European scientists working for the U.S. made the Japanese defeat to easy. There is a theory, like the Germans, they wanted to surrender to the Americans to avoid losing to the Russians with or without the use of the two bombs.