If You Stand On One Leg, Twist Yourself Around And Squint Into This Light... The US Is #1 In Broadband. Maybe

from the sorta dept

Well, US telcos who are sick and tired of people pointing out how far behind the US is in broadband, is certainly happy to hear about a new report that claims the US is actually #1 in broadband. But, of course, the devil is in the details and the details look pretty ridiculous. Apparently, the guy behind the study built a bizarre and somewhat meaningless "connectivity scorecard," where he measured five different factors in a variety of countries, from overall internet penetration to online banking usage to voice minutes (both wired and wireless) to SMS usage per capita and, finally, consumer spending on software. From that, he ranked the countries with the US being number one.

Of course, looking over those factors, it's difficult to see why those specific factors should be the ones measured. Or how the relative weights of those factors should be measured to have any say at all in overall connectivity. SMS usage per capita? Does that really say anything about broadband connectivity? I actually use SMS less when I'm around a broadband connection. And, consumer software spending? That would mean that a hypothetical country that relies mostly on open source technologies is considered less connected than one that buys Microsoft. Even worse, as we see more and more free "cloud" offerings, it would mean those that use something like Google Docs, rather than paying for Microsoft would be seen as less connected, even as it likely means they're more connected.
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Filed Under: broadband, us


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  • identicon
    some old guy, 24 Feb 2009 @ 6:28am

    depends greatly on location of head

    If you stick your head in the sand, or up your arse, your perspective can change greatly.

    This guy was paid to make a study that showed US as #1 in broadband by any means necessary. He found a way to show it, and the results just further illustrate how stupid anyone is that actually believes our telcos aren't harming our future.

    Pull your heads out people. We NEED broadband competition to survive the future economy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      :Lobo Santo, 24 Feb 2009 @ 6:29am

      Re: depends greatly on location of head

      The internet is for porn.

      Better broadband means more and better porn.

      This is obvious, we NEED better broadband!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Rick, 24 Feb 2009 @ 8:49am

      Re: depends greatly on location of head

      We need more than just competition - we need universal broadband availability first. It's embarrassing to know that our rural citizens are still not able to use anything other than 22k dial-up....
      Satellite broadband should also not be included in any broadband definition, as the horrendous lag involved makes it unusable for many applications.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    fatcat, 24 Feb 2009 @ 6:34am

    BS

    this study is complete BS, if the U.S. is 1st in broadband I'm the king of the world, bow now you surf's!!!!!!


    FC

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      uh oh, 24 Feb 2009 @ 6:36am

      Re: BS

      Serf.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Spelling Nazi, 24 Feb 2009 @ 6:38am

      Re: BS

      Surf: Waves that break on an ocean shoreline; To ride a wave, usually on a surfboard; To browse the Internet.

      Serf: A peasant, especially in medieval Europe; a person who worked on a feudal estate and passed with the land from one owner to another.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2009 @ 6:56am

        Re: Re: BS

        add to this the REALLY ANNOYING, incorrect use of the apostrophe.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          some old guy, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:27am

          Re: Re: Re: BS

          King's don't need to worry about minor details like spelling and grammar. There are lesser beings to fix that for them.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2009 @ 8:04am

            Re: Re: Re: Re: BS

            Surf = pun?

            No chance of that, but it makes sense for the King of the Internet at least.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dr.A, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:08am

    No SMS in japan

    Here in japan virtually no SMS is send. Everyone is using mobile email. He should count guns/capita too!

    100Mb/s optic fiber @ 40$/month? Is that much ?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:37am

      Re: No SMS in japan

      So jealous! (American says weeping)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2009 @ 8:06am

      Re: No SMS in japan

      You must have a typo in your numbers there sir. 100 or 10? If it's actually 100, America is so far behind we won't ever catch up.

      I can't get 10 MB/s here if I paid $100 a month.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Chronno S. Trigger, 24 Feb 2009 @ 9:02am

        Re: Re: No SMS in japan

        No Typo, 100Kbps. I had a link to an article about it but I must have deleted it because it made me physically ill. If I remember correctly it was 100 down, 80 up, and it was only $30US per month.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Chronno S. Trigger, 24 Feb 2009 @ 9:03am

          Re: Re: Re: No SMS in japan

          Crap, now I typoed. I meant 100Mbps download.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Nipponese, 24 Feb 2009 @ 9:08am

        Re: Re: No SMS in japan

        Actually, it's no typo. My parent's house in the burbs of Tokyo get 160Mbps up and 20Mbps down for roughly $65 a month. And they pretty much only use it for email.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Nipponese, 24 Feb 2009 @ 9:10am

          Re: Re: Re: No SMS in japan

          Sorry, that's the other way around. 160 down and 20 up. But you knew that already.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    sf suave, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:48am

    UK prices

    We have it ok over here in terms of competition from service providers, the problem is that most of the infrastructure is monopoly owned so you end up paying extra that way.

    In terms of pentration: I'm not to sure how they have it in rural areas, I live in a relatively small city and there are still some areas around here that have only one option, British Telecom, available.

    Still for £60 per month I get 10Mb broadband, cable TV and landline phone from my SP - it's more than I'd like to pay but it's reliable.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      sf suave, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:50am

      Re: UK prices

      oh yeah, meant to say that mobile broadband (3G with HSDPA) is getting to be pretty popular too. On a good day you can get 3-4Mb that way too. Caps are awful on mobile tho.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Joe, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:54am

    I wonder

    How much the telco's paid this guy to figure out a way to get the US labeled as #1 in broadband. Seems pretty out there to me.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Michael, 24 Feb 2009 @ 7:57am

    SMS is stoneage

    SMS is pretty much pager service for cell phones. I had to get one of those plans because it's what the corporations shove everyone in to here, but why wouldn't I want an Internet connection and a CHOICE of service instead? We still have this broken model of not separating platform and service.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    mynameisruben, 24 Feb 2009 @ 9:01am

    Devil in the details indeed...

    I have to say, while I'm usually spot on with TD, I have to offer a dissenting opinion here (or play Devil's Advocate, if you will).

    The story here is a bit more complicated than anyone is admitting. If you read through the link and then browse the report, you'll realize quickly the original blogger has adopted several misconceptions about what the report signifies. The report admits broadband penetration in the US is lagging in consumer circles, and also admits it has run this scorecard previously and adopted alternative methodologies to include a greater scope of countries.

    the fact of the matter is, the report is not meant for use by the countries on the high end, but rather for those on the low end to know what areas to focus on for further development. It's actually a pretty interesting analysis, albeit a very subjective one. According to the reoport itself, the US doesn't score well in overall connectivity so much as it excels in "productivity" (their terminology) in the business sectors. The consumer end is still lagging. What this serves to prove for the US is that our businesses are making decent use of broadband as a revenue generator and income-growth tool, and the area we should focus on to continue improving interconnectivity is residential availability and penetration.

    Another interesting fact is Japan's ranking at number 10, which the testers also explain. They said the methodology excludes certain proprietary services that Japan has access to which could not be measured in relation with other countries (because the services are not available there). This fits with my overall impression of brand loyalty and proprietary innovation found in Japan's technology sectors; they have a lot of really innovative, but also really closed, systems of service which people use almost compulsively; by comparison, their usage of SMS and other measured technologies is very low, so you might say they're so ahead of the cut as to render them appearing backwards in this research, which again, the researchers admit. This is a necessity because, as I said, the scorecard is most beneficial to developing countries and countries interested in expeanding their interconnectivity solution offerings.

    Lastyl, I have to point out the entire report was not based on the values outlined above. this wasn't an error on Mike's part, but rather an error the original blogger seems to have made in the analysis of their report (which Mike was reacting to). The measurements he discusses were used to measure only consumer usage. The US's usage scores were good, but the consumer infractructure (what we all talk about when we say we're behind on broadband) scored worse than all other categories, and only in the "average" range, well behind the leaders. I'll finish with a direct quote from the scorecard's website (http://www.connectivityscorecard.org/):

    United States Takes Top Spot On The 2009 Connectivity Scorecard
    The United States leads more categories than any other nation on the 2009 Connectivity Scorecard. PC penetration of businesses is excellent, and the country is first overall in terms of secure server deployment. A large proportion of companies buy and sell online, business spending on IT is high, and enterprise telephony also enjoys good penetration. The percentage of revenues generated by IP and Ethernet is the one business area where the U.S. actually falls behind other nations in the sample.

    Consumer infrastructure does not score as highly for the United States as their other metrics do. Both broadband and 3G penetration are average. Fibre is being deployed on a much wider basis than in most other countries in the survey, but is still significantly behind the leaders in this area. Mobile usage is extremely high and SMS usage has also begun to grow at a rapid rate. Online government services are rated as very good.

    U.S. Connectivity Performance by Scorecard Component

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    jayharish, 6 Mar 2009 @ 11:33am

    hi

    jayharish This is interesting but more complicated.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jawad, 13 Mar 2009 @ 6:10am

    yup

    pretty smart articles nice one

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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