OECD to Widen Broadband Survey Indicators
The U.S. kept its ranking as 15th in broadband penetration in the latest survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But the U.S. seems to have persuaded the international body to add indicators. Starting this month, the OECD will compare broadband use, coverage, prices, and services and speeds in addition to adoption. The move is expected to provide a fuller picture of broadband services in member nations. The organization also launched a broadband statistics portal (www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband).
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The NTIA said it appreciated the OECD’s use of a wider range of measurements. Besides having the largest number of broadband lines, the U.S. leads in the number of Wi-Fi spots, Internet users, Internet hubs and e-commerce revenues, said NTIA Administrator John Kneuer. He said the U.S. would continue working with the OECD to improve its methodology to “better capture the full range of broadband services” in member countries.
In April, the U.S. complained that the OECD’s analysis relies too heavily on user subscriptions. That can distort national policy decisions, the U.S. State Department said (CD April 25 p7). It urged that comparisons include population distribution, government subsidies and multiplatform competition.
The latest report shows that the U.S. remains the largest broadband market among OECD members, with 66.2 million subscribers. Despite 22.1 percent penetration, U.S. subscribers represent 30 percent of all broadband connections in the OECD, said the report, which covers the 12 months through June 2007. Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Korea and Norway lead in penetration with more than 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, the report said. The strongest proportional growth over the year was in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Luxembourg. Each added more than five subscribers per 100 inhabitants, OECD said.
The survey also examined broadband prices. It found that last month the average price of a monthly subscription in member countries was $49, with services running on fiber- to-the-home the most expensive - $51 on average -- and fixed wireless least expensive, $33. The price per advertised megabit per second of connectivity was $18 on average, and Japan, France, Sweden, Korea and Finland had the least expensive offers. Fiber connections were far less expensive per megabit than DSL, cable and wireless, the survey found.
Broadband speeds also varied. The average advertised speed was 13.7 Mbps. The highest advertised download speed, 93 Mbps, was in Japan, which also has the fastest residential download speed available in the OECD, 1 Gbps. Twenty of the 30 OECD countries impose explicit bit or data caps, at 21 gigabytes monthly on average, the report said. The U.S. is one of the 10 countries without limits.