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Free Press refutes criticisms of OECD data

On April 23, 2007, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released their latest semi-annual broadband penetration rankings, which revealed that the United States had fallen to 15th place among the 30-member nations, down from 12th place just six months earlier. This slide continued a downward trend for America, dropping from a high of fourth place in 2001. The OECD data showed other problems for America: Annual U.S. penetration growth ranked 20th, and semi-annual growth was 24th out of 30 countries.

Scott Wallsten: Everything You Hear about Broadband in the U.S. is Wrong

The supposedly poor state of broadband in the U.S. relative to other OECD countries has generated tremendous consternation. Conventional wisdom about these rankings, however, is wrong and should not be used as a basis for making policies. First, the OECD data are unreliable and misleading. More careful analyses show that the U.S. actually compares quite favorably to the rest of the world in terms of household broadband penetration. Second, comparisons of actual—as opposed to advertised—bandwidth across countries reveal that broadband speeds in the U.S. are similar to most other advanced countries.

The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment

High-speed internet access has developed rapidly in the last decade and is increasingly viewed as essential infrastructure for our global information economy. For example, as recently as mid-2000 there were only 4.1 million broadband lines in the United States and only 3.2 million of these were residential lines. Thus, in mid-2000 less than one household in thirty could access the internet at a download speed of 200 kbps or greater. Six years later, the number of broadband lines, excluding mobile wireless connections, had soared to more than 53.5 million, 49 million of which were in residences. Residential penetration had therefore risen to nearly 50 percent by the middle of last year. (If mobile wireless connections are included, total U.S. broadband lines had risen to more than 64.6 million lines.)

Scott Wallsten: Towards Effective U.S. Broadband Policies

OECD statistics show that the U.S. has fewer broadband subscribers per capita than some other countries, causing great consternation. This concern has contributed to growing calls for government intervention including open access regulations much like the failed unbundling regime that the U.S. recently ended.

FTTH Gives Homeowners a Raise

If you’ve recently placed your home on the market and are one of the lucky few in this country to be served with fiber to the home (FTTH), then you may have a little bonus headed your way. As FTTH deployments continue to escalate across the land, there is growing evidence that points to an increase in home valuation as a result of this ultra-broadband amenity. In many cases, real estate appraisals and selling prices for homes connected with fiber are outpacing their copper-served brethren. If you fall into this category and you didn’t factor an optical fiber connection into the selling price of your home, then you may need to have a talk with your realtor.

Why the US has no national broadband strategy

The OECD global broadband rankings released earlier this week showed the United States dropped further when it comes to broadband penetration. The politicized and polar response to the report is a prime example of why the nation has no broadband policy in place — we simply cannot agree on how to proceed, much less come to a common understanding that there are issues regarding rural broadband deployment in America that may need addressing. A collection of opinions from the week:

Broadband Boosts Economic Growth in Bristol

Bristol, Va., a community of 18,000 residents in southwest Virginia, is home to the Bristol Motor Speedway for NASCAR events and the Country Music Alliance Museum. The city is one of the first entities in the nation to offer voice, data and video to residents via fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) technology. All this was made possible by Bristol Virginia Utilities’ (BVU) 800-mile and growing broadband network run by the utility’s OptiNet division. The network has been funded with revenue bonds and grants from the Virginia Tobacco Commission’s technology committee.

US Falls to 25th in Broadband Penetration Worldwide

The US fell from 23rd to 25th place in worldwide broadband penetration in the last half of 2006, according to a recent survey by Point Topic. OECD data confirms the slowdown, with the US falling to 15th in broadband penetration among OECD countries surveyed. US broadband penetration grew 0.65 percentage points to 80.81% among active Internet users in March.