VZ sez everything's peachy-keen in US broadband

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Randall <rvh40 () insightbb com>
> Date: April 9, 2010 10:28:06 AM EDT
> To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, David Farber <dave () farber net 
> >, Telecom Regulation & the Internet <CYBERTELECOM-L () LISTSERV AOL COM>
> Subject: VZ sez everything's peachy-keen in US broadband

> [[Seen on Telecom Digest]]
>
>
> Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg sat down for an on-the-record
> conversation yesterday at the Council for Foreign Relations,
> and he pulled no punches: the US is number one in the world
> when it comes to broadband. We're so far ahead of everyone else,
> it's "not even close."
>
> Given that a central piece of the National Broadband Plan was
> concerned with America's poor showing on broadband metrics,
> this was an intriguing claim to make. In essence, Seidenberg
> hauled out one of the NBP's main reasons for existence and just
> kicked it in the groin. Perhaps we don't even need a national
> plan?
>
>    Seidenberg: Anytime government -- whether it's the FCC or
>    any agency -- decides it knows what the market wants and
>    makes that a static requirement, you always lose. So this
>    FCC decided that speed of the network was the most important
>    issue. So that's all they measured.
>
>    So they will say, if you go to Korea or you go to France,
>    you can get a faster Internet connection. Okay? That could be
>    true in some companies -- in some countries. The facts are
>    that, in the US, there is greater household penetration of
>    access to the Internet than any country in Europe.
>
>    In Japan, where everybody looks at Japan as being so far
>    ahead, they may have faster speeds, but we have higher
>    utilization of people using the Internet. So our view is,
>    whenever you look at these issues, you have to be very
>    careful to look at what the market wants, not what
>    government says is the most important issue.
>
>    Let's take wireless, for example. Everybody says the
>    European system was kind of better. Well, that's very
>    interesting. If you look at minutes of use, the average
>    American uses their cell phone four times as much -- four
>    times as much -- as the average European. If you look at
>    Europe, they publish penetration rates of 150 (percent),
>    160 (percent), 170 percent meaning that people have more
>    than one phone, two phones, three phones.
>
>    You know why? Roaming rates are so high. My guess is you
>    probably have two or three different phones to carry to
>    use in different countries because your roaming rates are
>    so high. And you say, yes.
>
>    So my point is it's a fallacy to allow a regulatory
>    authority to sit there and decide what's right for the
>    marketplace when it's not even close.
>
> Article continues here:
>
> <http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/verizon-ceo-studies-be-damned-us-is-tops-in-broadband.ars 
> >
>
> The transcript of his talk at the CFR meeting is at the following
> URL along with a link to audio and video versions of it:
>
> <http://www.cfr.org/publication/21840/conversation_with_ivan_seidenberg.html 
> >



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com