Broadband Internet access is essential to the future of online entertainment, education, and access to economic opportunities for billions of people.
The OECD has just released their most recent statistics on broadband penetration. The United States isn’t doing too well–with broadband penetration only slightly edging into the top half of the most developed Asian and European economies.
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However, my thoughts are that the numbers are a bit misleading. The OECD still includes DSL within the definition of broadband–but DSL is typically much slower than cable or fiber alternatives. I’ve previously written about how Comcast is unable to offer better-than-DSL speeds in key urban areas of Cambridge, Massachusetts (where the Internet was invented). It’s time to stop thinking of DSL as a real broadband technology–or else we need a new term to describe true, high-speed Internet access.
I re-ran the OECD’s numbers with DSL removed, and one finds that the United States–along with Japan, Canada and Korea–are leading the world in terms of the newer and faster technologies:
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On the other hand, the United States’ relative technology lead hasn’t manifested as a big increase in speed yet. This is where things get fairly disappointing:
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Japan leads the world in Broadband Internet speeds. The reason for their speeds is widespread deployment of fiber (I’m fortunate enough to be one of the few residential subscribers in the United States with similar speeds, thanks to Verizon FIOS). Here is some data that NTT provided as part of a response to the FCC’s study of broadband speeds:
The line labeled FTTH stands for “Fiber to the Home,” and its growth is the key contributing factor to Japan’s Internet speeds.
How is it that the USA can be leading with new technologies, yet so far behind on access speeds? One problem is that in the United States is that there is less competition than in many other countries. This leads providers to slow deployment, poor core networks, and low-speeds even in places that should have access to superior speeds. Often, “broadband” gets marketed to uninformed consumers who think they’re getting the highest speed technology available. Telecom-industry experiments with metered usage have also been disturbing.
The United States needs to pursue a public policy of promoting high-speed Internet (fiber, not simply DSL) throughout the country. Fiber deployment needs to be a priority in all urban, suburban and rural areas. Recently, Finland made broadband access a legal right; and Japan’s industry-investments have made the highest speed access very affordable. Although the Internet was invented in the United States, others are innovating and building.
The United States has a lot more geography than Japan and Finland, so it’s a harder problem to solve–but no more insurmountable than the effort to electrify the country earlier in the 20th century. Disturbingly, it is becoming a less competitive market, not more competitive; and US telecommunications providers also oppose Net Neutrality–which could impair access to capital and customers for the entrepreneurial companies creating the next wave of Internet applications.
If you care about the future of the Internet–along with the access to information, education and content that it offers–it’s time to tell telecommunications providers, your Congressman and your town/city governments that you want more competition, Net Neutrality, and a policy of promoting high-speed networks to everyone.
