More on the OECD Broadband Report

Tim Lee

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association blog did a series of posts back in February about the OECD study. There seems to be three basic criticisms. First, businesses in the US have a higher proportion of “special access” lines than other countries ranked, and these are not counted in the statistics, while businesses with normal DSL lines are counted. Second, the OECD statistics are focused on “connections per 100 subscribers” rather than proportion of subscribers who have an Internet connect. The result is to penalize the US, which has a larger-than-average household size (all of whom can share a single Internet connection) while giving an edge to countries with smaller household sizes. Finally, the report relies on advertised speeds and prices, which the NCTA suggests exaggerates Japan’s lead over a metric that focuses on the actual available speeds in that country. Obviously, the NCTA has an agenda to promote so it’s worth taking the criticisms with a grain of salt, but they’re interesting in any event. Thanks to reader Wyatt Ditzler for the link.

May 5, 2008 | Comments |

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Turk 7 months ago 1 point
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Thanks for the recognition of our series.

Our agenda is solely to use an accurate yardstick when measuring broadband deployment. Currently the OECD study uses metrics that we don't believe truly reflect the real state of US broadband.

The biggest trouble is the subscribers per 100 inhabitants number. If every single household and ever single business in every country measured, had a connection, the metric should show a tie for first.

Unfortunately, under those conditions, the OECD study would actually drop us 8 places from 12th to 20th. That's hardly an unbiased metric.

We're currently working with OECD on ways to improve their study. New measures will likely still show the US has work to do. However, we'll at least be confident that our nation's broadband efforts are not being discounted due to faulty metrics.

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