Knowledge is humanity’s first and final frontier. From the Edenic exodus to flights beyond earth, our mythic narratives reveal that going where no one has gone before to learn what no one has known before drives us like no other quest. While American innovation in chips, operating systems and applications continues, the U.S. doesn’t enjoy leadership in the underlying bandwidth that fuels this virtuous cycle. No single metric captures the situation fairly, but all suggest danger ahead. Recent Ookla data says the U.S. is 34th in download speed, 42nd in upload speed and 38th in quality; an Akamai study shows that of the 100 fastest cities in the world, only … Continue reading Blair Levin *