Microsoft’s chief strategic thinker, Craig Mundie, believes the United States’ situation with broadband access represents a “total policy failure.” In an interview with the Washington Post, Mundie decries the fact that, by some measures, the U.S. ranks 14th in the world when it comes to rolling out broadband Internet service. He says Internet access in Tokyo is much faster, and much cheaper, than it is in Seattle. (That fits with last month’s report from Cambridge, MA-based Akamai that said Washington state has the largest percentage of slow Internet connections in the U.S.—Eds.)