"The United States is behind in broadband deployment, speed and price."

Source: "Explaining International Broadband Leadership," by Robert D. Atkinson, Daniel K. Correa and Julie A. Hedlund, The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, May 01, 2008.

Excerpt:

* The United States is behind in broadband deployment, speed and price. Despite what some advocates and analysts claim, the United States is behind in broadband performance and its rank has been falling since 2001.

* Don’t blame it all on poor policies. It is tempting, particularly for those seeking a more proactive national broadband policy, to blame all or most of the United States’ poor performance on poor or non-existent policies. In fact, our analysis suggests that non-policy factors explain about three-quarters of the difference between nations in broadband performance. For example, the fact that over 50 percent of South Koreans live in large, multitenant apartment buildings makes it signifi cantly cheaper on a per-subscriber basis to roll out fast broadband there compared to the United States, where many people live in single-family suburban homes. Likewise, the fact that the United States has the longest copper loop lengths (among 13 OECD countries where data were available) makes it more expensive to deploy high-quality and low-cost broadband here.

* Don’t ignore the role that good policies can play. What the “it’s all environment” proponents miss is that broadband policies, while not the most important factor, do matter, and nations that ignore policy, assuming that the “market” can do all the heavy lifting, will fare worse than if they had smart broadband policies.