Study Outlines Measure For Broadband Success
A new study released Monday argues that the United States should gain at least six spots in international broadband rankings if the FCC's national broadband plan and funding included in last year's economic stimulus package aimed at spurring broadband access and adoption are going to be judged a success.
The study from the Phoenix Center, a think tank focused on telecom and tech legal and economic policy issues, said the United States will likely move up from 15th place to 13th place by 2012 in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's broadband penetration rankings even without policy changes because of "historical trends." The group is critical of the OECD rankings, which it claims are flawed, but said it is using them as a measure of the success of the broadband plan and the $7.2 billion in broadband funding included in the stimulus because "policymakers continue to use the OECD's methodology as the definitive broadband metric."
"The United States must rank at least ninth among OECD countries within the next two to three years in order for the Obama administration to claim with confidence that the broadband stimulus funds and the policies recommended by the national broadband plan made a measurably positive impact on broadband adoption," according to the report. It concluded that, "If the U.S. rank falls in the future, then new policies may be condemned as failures; if the U.S. rank rises, then new policies may be propped up as successful. Neither conclusion is legitimate absent some expectation on how rank would change without any policy change."
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