Nothing new (Score 2, Interesting)

I don't think this lag effect is limited to broadband.

My experience with any form of social or technological infrastructure here is that it takes much longer to be adopted or upgraded. London, Tokyo, Paris, Sydney all update their public transport systems much more frequently that the states. They seem to have newer airports too.

Online banking services, online bill payment, etc are much broader with British and Australian banks (haven't got any accounts in Japan so not sure how they fare).

Taxi technology (particularly with telephony and GPS services) is lacking here too.

GSM and other mobile telecommunications improvements are also years behind.

Is it that the systems here are so large that there's major financial barriers to change? Is there a mentality of "it aint broke so don't fix it" too?