The U.S. has a larger percentage of people on fiber, and Finland has a much larger proportion of people on fixed wireless. The U.S. has way more people on cable, while Finland has way more people on DSL.
94% of the U.S. has access to at least 4 mbps broadband. 59% has access to at least 100 mbps, versus 50% for Finland. According to Akamai, average connection speeds are about the same for the two countries: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/report/aka....
I have no idea where you got the idea that people in Finland use fixed wireless. The OECD graph is few years old anyway. Here are the most recent statistics from three months ago:
The access methods by popularity are: xDSL, cable, Ethernet, FTTH and others, which might include some obscure fixed wireless operators using Wimax in the 3.5 Ghz band.
Furthermore, I'd say that the broadband situation in Finland is substantially different from the US, despite the very low popularion density of Finland.
In Finland everybody that wants broadband can get broadband. In fact everybody that wants it has it. 92% of Finns have an Internet connection, either fixed only (22%), mobile broadband only (i.e. 3G or 4G at 28%) or a combination of both (42%). Source: https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/en/aboutthesector/statistics...
Fast broadband (100 Mbps or faster) is actively promoted and developed by the government. All permanent recidences shall be within a mile of an Internet backbone access point where service is available at 100 Mbps or more. This means local residents, co-ops or ISPs will easily be able to hook up anybody at 100 Mbps or more. Since a mile is the maximum distance average loop lenghts will be much shorter. Source: http://www.lvm.fi/pressreleases/4425644/broadband-for-all-20...
Funds are actually made available to provide broadband access to not-spots. The last 5% of a population is always hard to reach with fixed broadband, but subsidies are provided to hook up areas which aren't commercially viable otherwise. Source: same as above.
3G/4G mobile broadband is cheap, unlimited and uncapped with three facilities based operators and a handfull of MVNOs on top of that. 4G is actually faster and cheaper than a xDSL connection. Mobile broadband is thus actually a viable fixed broadband substitute.
If your point is, "Finland does broadband better than America," then well done you. It can join the club with just about every other first-world nation on the planet.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for anything that looks vaguely like a solution to that problem, and not merely gloating about it.
EDIT: I'm sorry for the tone, but I see no value in pointing out flaws and failings without offering solutions to them. It's plenty easy in today's world to hate on the US. Most of it is probably even deserved. But it doesn't make anything better, so I don't see what it contributes to the discussion, beyond an opportunity for smugness.
No worries, mate. I'm not that thin skinned. As to solutions, I've already pointed out the USF in a sibling comment, but using that would actually require the political will to, you know, actually do something to solve the problem.
EDIT: my actual reply to rayiner wasn't made to gloat, but to point out the substantial differences as a counterpoint to the statement that the US and Finland are statistically similar. It also contained the core problem, the lack of a properly constructed regulatory regime, which also points out the obvious thing to fix i.e. the solution required.
However if political activism isn't your thing then the only other solution is to build your own network.
If you look past the rhetoric at the actual statistics, I think it's pretty clear that at the median, the internet situation is about the same between the two countries.
Now, within the bottom 15-20% I'm fully willing to bet Internet access and speed is worse in the U.S. than in Finland, but so is pretty much everything else. We have higher income inequality and more systematic poverty. The U.S. has about 20% of children in poverty versus less than 5% for Finland. Nothing really unique to internet service.
I think we agree upon Finland being substantially different with regards to universal broadband access. Only looking at the median (which is pretty useless for assessing universal service) the US might come off better.
Broadband statistics for the US are of notorious bad quality, so any findings are to be taken with a grain of salt. The FCC statistics are useless and unless the NTIA statistics have been published in full and vetted then I'm inclined to put them into the category of wishful thinking.
The World bank data is also not comparable since it uses both narrowband and broadband access to tabulate Internet access. 92% of Finns have a broadband internet connection (see previous post for primary source). How many Americans have the same is an unknown quantity based on the data.
The key point is that Finland is inclusive with regards to broadband access while the US is exclusive.
The U.S. has a larger percentage of people on fiber, and Finland has a much larger proportion of people on fixed wireless. The U.S. has way more people on cable, while Finland has way more people on DSL.
94% of the U.S. has access to at least 4 mbps broadband. 59% has access to at least 100 mbps, versus 50% for Finland. According to Akamai, average connection speeds are about the same for the two countries: https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/report/aka....