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New report: U.S. has a lot to learn about high speed Internet

We've been saying for a long time now that the United States lags behind the rest of the developed world in high speed Internet access, and that it's costing us in today's globalized economy.

Now, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has provided an in-depth look at the lessons we can learn from other nations about boosting high speed Internet access here at home. In a report released today called Explaining International Broadband Leadership, ITIF analyzes the reasons the U.S. continues to slip in international high speed Internet rankings -- and what we can do to reverse this troubling trend:

Gaining a better understanding of what contributes to broadband deployment and adoption is important, because nations with more and better broadband are better positioned than other nations to reap significant economic and social benefits. If we can identify policy factors that have spurred broadband performance in other nations' higher ranks, U.S. policymakers will have better information on which to base their decisions.

First, the authors note how far the U.S. has fallen. In the most recent rankings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, out of the 30 OECD countries the U.S. is 15th in high speed Internet penetration, 15th in average speed, and 18th in price per megabit. ITIF's alternative rankings -- which take additional factors into account -- also show the U.S. suffering from slow and expensive Internet.

The report then provides a comprehensive look at the high speed Internet policies of nine other countries and identifies some important lessons to learn from them:

Leadership matters. Nations with robust national broadband strategies fare better than those without. For example, leadership from the very top of the Japanese government and corporate world, including Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and Sony Chairman Nobuyuki Idei, helped craft and implement a strategy to make Japan the "world's leading IT nation" by 2005.

Incentives matter. Because it is expensive for operators to deploy broadband networks, many countries have provided financial incentives. For example, the Swedish government allocated more than $800 million to spur broadband deployment, particularly in rural areas of the country. For the U.S. to match this investment as a share of GDP, it would need to invest more than $30 billion, a far cry from the minimal public investments made to date.

It's high speed networks, stupid. With broadband take-up rates increasing in most nations and with the advent of a host of next-generation applications that demand faster networks, broadband speeds are becoming just as important when assessing a nation's progress in broadband. In some countries fiber to the home is responsible for a large and growing share of connections (for example, 36 percent in Japan and 31 percent in South Korea).

Finally, the report lists 11 specific policy recommendations -- similar to those in its "Framing a National Broadband Policy" paper released earlier this year -- that would help the United States improve high speed Internet access. Among the recommendations:

  • Enact more favorable tax policies to encourage investment in broadband networks, such as accelerated depreciation and exempting broadband services from federal, state, and local taxation.
  • Reform the federal Universal Service Fund program to extend support for rural broadband to all carriers, and consider providing the funding through a reverse auction mechanism.
  • Fund a national program to co-fund state-level broadband support programs, such as Connect Kentucky or North Carolina e-NC Authority.
  • Promote the widespread use of a national, user-generated, Internet-based broadband mapping system that would track location, speed, and price of broadband.

Implementing these kinds of policies is essential for achieving universal high speed Internet access and reaping all the benefits that come with it. As the report says,

Overall, at the broadest level nations with robust national broadband strategies -- that is, those that make broadband a priority, coordinate across agencies, put real resources behind them, and promote both supply and demand -- fare better than those without. In particular, South Korea, Japan and Sweden established robust national strategies that not only shaped their broadband policies but also helped gain widespread political support for them.

Building that public and political support is exactly what the Speed Matters campaign is all about.

International Competition (Speed Matters)

Explaining International Broadband Leadership (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation)

Poor showing for U.S. in latest high speed rankings (Speed Matters)

Report: U.S. Internet is Slow and Pricey (Speed Matters)

What a national high speed Internet policy should look like (Speed Matters)