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broadband and the US
From: "Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 11:55:07 -0500
------- Original message ------- From: Drew Clark <drewclark () gmail com> Sent: 26/4/'05, 10:54 Dave, The stories below are perhaps of interest to [IP]. Feel free to redistribute. yours, Drew Clark Senior Writer, National Journal's Technology Daily Columnist, "Wired in Washington," every other Tuesday in CongressDailyAM and online at www.drewclark.com/wiredinwashington Blogger, www.drewclark.com Coming April 18! National Journal's Insider Update: The Telecom Act at http://www.njtelecomupdate.com "Wired in Washington" Stuck without its own cable news outlet during last year's political conventions, ABC News launched "ABC News Now," using digital technology, including high-speed Internet access, to enable gavel-to-gavel convention coverage. Read the latest column at http://nationaljournal.com/about/congressdaily/columns/clark.htm Also see my piece about Grokster. "The Battle Between Tinseltown and Techville," in Washington Post's Outlook Section on April 10 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39168-2005Apr9 tel: 202-266-7371 cel: 202-329-9517 email: drew () drewclark com The Watergate 600 New Hampshire Ave. NW Washington, DC 20037 www.drewclark.com Here are the stories from National Journal's Technology Daily | April 25, 2005 Broadband U.S. Drops Again In Global Internet Race by Drew Clark The United States has dropped even further in the high-speed Internet race. Statistics released this month by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) show that U.S. global broadband penetration dropped last year from 13th place to 16th. The ITU news log shows the United States at 11.4 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants as of Dec. 31, 2004. The percentage of subscribers is less than half of what South Korea boasts -- the global leader with 24.9 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants. The following top four nations are Hong Kong at 20.9 percent, the Netherlands with 19.4, Denmark reporting in at 19.3 and Canada at 17.6. Canada dropped two slots, from third place in 2003 to fifth place in 2004. South Korea and Hong Kong ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in both 2002 and 2003. Norway, Israel and Finland each surpassed the United States in broadband penetration for the first time. And an aggressive rollout in France almost pushed the U.S. even lower. High-speed Internet use in France doubled from 5.61 subscribers per 100 inhabitants at the end of 2003 to 11.2 per 100 last year, putting the nation at 17th, just one notch below the United States. The other major global ranking of broadband deployment is by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a more limited group of advanced economies that compiles data semi-annually. The U.S. also dropped rank in this report. In 2001, the U.S. ranked fourth among OECD member nations. In 2003, it ranked 10th. The group has not finalized its December 2004 ranking, but in June 2004, the U.S. ranked 11th. "When we finalize [statistics] to the end of 2004, it should be about 12th or 13th," said OECD telecom unit head Dimitri Ypsilanti. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Israel and Singapore are not OECD nations, so a 16th place ranking in the ITU survey would translate into a 12th place ranking in the OECD list. Telecommunications officials at the ITU and the OECD attribute the U.S. slide to the lack of vibrant competition in the broadband marketplace and the absence of an administrative policy to promote broadband. "A lot of European countries [have grown] because they have fairly vibrant local loop unbundling," said Ypsilanti, referring to the practice of requiring the dominant telecom provider to share high-speed wires. "The U.S. is basically [digital subscriber lines] from incumbent [telecom companies] versus cable from incumbents, and that doesn't seem to be generating that much competition," said Ypsilanti. Higher penetration brings faster speeds and lower prices, said Ypsilanti. In France, which he identified as traditionally a technological laggard, it is now possible to purchase 2 megabit-per-second broadband connections for about $24 a month, with unlimited Internet telephone calls for an additional $12, he said. "Those countries that have done well, have done well because of active government policies for the development of broadband," said Lara Srivastava, telecom policy analyst for the Geneva-based ITU, which is part of the United Nations. "In the U.S., they don't have active policies like Korea or Singapore, or Japan," said Srivastava. Broadband U.S. Broadband Slide Gets Mixed Reactions by Drew Clark Technology and telecommunications industry groups on Monday had an array of reactions to news that the U.S. broadband penetration ranking fell last year from 13th to 16th place globally. The 13th-place ranking played a bit part in the domestic policy debate last year between President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who last October cited the figure from the International Telecommunications Union to argue that Bush had neglected technology policy. The United States had ranked 11th at the end of 2002, falling to 13th at the end of 2003. Bush addressed the subject at a major technology speech on April 26, 2004, and set a goal "to bring broadband to every corner of our country by the year 2007 with competition shortly thereafter." "We are going in the wrong direction," said Nick Kolovos, director and counsel of government relations at the Information Technology Industry Council. He added that overseas broadband is increasingly faster and cheaper than its U.S. counterpart means that "it might even be more dismal than 16th might appear." "The risk of saying that this is going to happen without some close focused attention on the part of the government are too great to the economy and too great for our economic standing in the world." ITI and other technology groups are preparing to mount a major push for a "hard deadline" by which broadcasters much vacate frequencies currently used for analog television. "With digital television spectrum in the 700 megahertz band, you can have advanced wireless broadband in rural...areas where it might be difficult" to otherwise deploy high-speed Internet services, Kovolos said. The drop in ranking "just reinforces the urgency of the [digital television] issue." "I would view the latest rankings more as a call to action than cause for jumping off a bridge," said Bruce Mehlman, a technology industry lobbyist whose clients include the Computer Systems Policy Project, a group that is preparing to weigh in to the DTV issue. The much-cited 13th place was repeated as recently as the April launch of the group TeleConsensus by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. "This is another example of why we need to update the telecom laws to spur more competition here at home and to fully compete in today's global economy," said Allison Remsen, spokeswoman for the United States Telecommunications Association. The lobby has run advertisements in many publications, including those of the National Journal Group, asking the question: "Where does the U.S. rank in bringing broadband to families and workers?" before displaying the numbers three, five, 10 and 13. Not everyone who heard the news expressed concern. "A lot people talk about how far the U.S. is behind, and we don't necessarily concur with that opinion," said Brian Dietz, spokesman for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. "Without the cable industry's $95 billion private risk capital investment to upgrade its nationwide broadband infrastructure, high-speed Internet use would not be as far along in the U.S. as it is today," he said. URL: http://nationaljournal.com/pubs/techdaily/pmedition/tp050425.htm (subscription) or http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-QGBX1114459808856.html (free) plus, the URL of the ITU statistics is: http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/newslog/ITUs+New+Broadband+Statistics+For+1+January+2005.aspx ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- broadband and the US Dave Farber (Apr 26)