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De-Spinning the UN Broadband Report(Targeted News Service Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 -- Information Technology and Innovation Foundation issued the following news release: What the public and policymakers do not need is another poorly constructed report claiming that the United States lags behind in broadband, which advocates are already holding up as yet more evidence of America's failed broadband policy. But before jumping to this erroneous conclusion, it's important to look underneath the hood of such reports. ITIF's Senior Research Fellow Richard Bennett did that in examining (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp e=001ANj_85fZ0G6hqOIi5_C0FycvDQM0hLBR8FeicWgAjGjHCMC6jWrog2B9WzNNvvKZnK9S7xmdLN3DAHRi-4Q5JIkuZQyEXYZ2GwNxsjt3h_3EBnsYfHIotfap9avwLXlKP-pGg4saPwvJpx2sINBRRVt0MGYJwEg_) the recent United Nations Broadband Commission report and found a number of problems. First, the report measures broadband connections per capita, but in a nation like the United States which has larger average household sizes than many other nations, measuring broadband on a per-capita basis, rather than a per-household basis, will bias the results against the United States. After all, a household with four members does not have four wired broadband connections. Second, the report ignores the fact that the most important factor determining whether someone subscribes to broadband, after whether they have access, is whether they have a computer. Many Americans still lack computers at home and do not see any reason to purchase the broadband subscriptions that are available to all via satellite (to 95 percent via at least one fixed location wireline or wireless carrier, and to 90 percent from three service providers (of all types) or more). In the UN ranking of "People using the Internet," the United States is in 23rd place worldwide (at 78%), behind a collection of countries that have invested in computer ownership. The U.S. low ranking in broadband is not because of the broadband networks, it's more a result of our low level of computer ownership and digital literacy. This is an area where we can do more work, as ITIF has long argued. As such, ITIF believes our policy efforts should concentrate on expanding digital literacy, not on subsidizing redundant networks or bringing irrelevantly high-speed connections to those who are already connected. This is especially true since the UN notes that 100 percent of United States connections to Akamai servers are at 5 Mbps or higher. See Bennett's full analysis: http://www.innovationfiles.org/de-spinning-the-un-broadband-report TNS MD66 121011-4063671 61MariaDonald (c) 2012 Targeted News Service |