Six Ways to Profit From the International Broadband Boom

By Larry D. Spears

Telecommunications stocks have long been favorites among American investors, both for their sustained growth and their typically lucrative dividend payouts. What many investors don't realize, however, is that U.S. telecom giants now badly lag the rest of the developed world in one key part of the telecommunications sector - broadband Internet service.

Broadband providers in much of the rest of the world offer much faster connections at generally much lower prices. And those overseas players tend to have much more room for growth than the highly saturated U.S. market.

That's why investors who are seeking to maximize their long-term profits from the telecom sector need to start looking at the industry's emerging international players.

"The average U.S. household has to pay an exorbitant amount of money for an Internet connection that the rest of the industrial world would find mediocre," reported a recent issue of Scientific American.