Finally! Someone upstairs get it!
marlon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Hammett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 1:12 PM
Subject: [WISPA] Broadband Baloney full text
Broadband Baloney (Opinion) FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell
Broadband Baloney
The Wall Street Journal
07/24/2007
American consumers are poised to reap a windfall of benefits from a new wave
of broadband deployment. But you would never know it by the rhetoric of
those who would have us believe that the nation is falling behind, indeed in
free fall.
Looming over the horizon are heavy-handed government mandates setting
arbitrary standards, speeds and build-out requirements that could favor some
technologies over others, raise prices and degrade service. This would be a
mistaken road to take -- although it would hardly be the first time in
history that alarmists have ignored cold, hard facts in pursuit of bad
policy.
Exhibit A for the alarmists are statistics from the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD says the U.S. has dropped
from 12th in the world in broadband subscribers per 100 residents to 15th.
The OECD's methodology is seriously flawed, however. According to an
analysis by the Phoenix Center, if all OECD countries including the U.S.
enjoyed 100% broadband penetration -- with all homes and businesses being
connected -- our rank would fall to 20th. The U.S. would be deemed a
relative failure because the OECD methodology measures broadband connections
per capita, putting countries with larger household sizes at a statistical
disadvantage.
The OECD also overlooks that the U.S. is the largest broadband market in the
world, with over 65 million subscribers -- more than twice the number of
America's closest competitor. We got there because of our superior household
adoption rates. According to several recent surveys, the average percentage
of U.S. households taking broadband is about 42%; the EU average is 23%.
Furthermore, the OECD does not weigh a country's geographic size relative to
its population density, which matters because more consumers may live
farther from the pipes. Only one country above the U.S. on the OECD list
(Canada) stretches from one end of a continent to another like we do. Only
one country above us on this list is at least 75% rural, like the U.S. In
fact, 13 of the 14 countries that the OECD ranks higher are significantly
smaller than the U.S.
And if we compare many of our states individually with some countries that
are allegedly beating us in the broadband race, we are actually winning.
Forty-three American states have a higher household broadband adoption rate
than all but five EU countries. Even large rural western states such as
Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and both Dakotas exhibit much stronger household
broadband adoption rates than France or Britain. Even if we use the OECD's
flawed methodology, New Jersey has a higher penetration rate than
fourth-ranked Korea. Alaska is more broadband-saturated than France.
The OECD conclusions really unravel when we look at wireless services,
especially Wi-Fi. One-third of the world's Wi-Fi hot spots are in the U.S.,
but Wi-Fi is not included in the OECD study unless it is used in a so-called
"fixed wireless" setting. I can't recall ever seeing any fixed wireless
users cemented into a coffee shop, airport or college campus. Most American
Wi-Fi users do so with personal portable devices. It is difficult to
determine how many wireless broadband users are online at any given moment,
since they may not qualify as "subscribers" to anyone's service.
In short, the OECD data do not include all of the ways Americans can make
high-speed connections to the Internet, therefore omitting millions of
American broadband users. Europe, with its more regulatory approach, may
actually end up being the laggard because of latent weaknesses in its
broadband market. It lacks adequate competition among alternative broadband
platforms to spur the faster speeds that consumers and an ever-expanding
Internet will require.
Europe also suffers from a dearth of robust competition from cable modem and
fiber. Cable penetration is only about 21% of households. In the U.S., cable
is available to 94% of all households. Also, the U.S. is home to the world's
fastest fiber-to-home market, with a 99% annual growth rate in subscribers
compared with a relatively anemic 13% growth rate in Europe.
In fact, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association reported
last fall that Europe is experiencing a significant slowdown in the annual
growth rate of broadband subscriptions, falling to 14% from 23% annual
growth. Growth stalled in a number of countries, including Denmark and
Belgium (4% in each country). And France -- a relative star -- exhibited
just 10% growth. Yet all of these nations are "ahead" of us on the
much-talked-about OECD chart.
Here in the U.S., the country that is allegedly "falling behind," broadband
adoption is accelerating. Government studies confirm that America's
broadband growth rate has jumped from 32% per year to 52%. With new numbers
expected shortly, we anticipate a continued positive trend. Criticisms of
our definition of "broadband" being too lax are already irrelevant as over
50 million subscribers are in the 1.5 to 3.0 megabits-per-second "fast
lane."
Our flexible and deregulatory broadband policies provide opportunities for
American entrepreneurs to construct new delivery platforms enabling them to
pull ahead of our international competitors. For instance, newly auctioned
spectrum for advanced wireless services will spark unparalleled growth and
innovation.
Soon, we will auction even more spectrum in the broadcast TV bands to spur
more broadband competition. In addition, we are in the midst of testing
powerful new technologies to use in spectrum located in the "white spaces"
between broadcast TV channels.
This is all wonderful news for our future. In a competitive market, consumer
demand compels businesses to innovate. History has proven that, just when we
think we are going to "run out" of spectrum, some brilliant entrepreneur
finds a way to use the airwaves more efficiently.
By some estimates, since Marconi's first radio transmission 110 years ago
spectrum capacity has doubled every two and a half years, while the cost of
delivering information over wireless platforms has dropped by half every 42
months.
When the Internet was just used for email and static websites, dial-up
services satisfied consumer demand. But when Napster came along, we saw a
huge spike in cable modem and DSL take-up rates -- necessary tools in the
art of stealing music. (Please obtain your music legally!)
Today, video applications are tugging hard on America's broadband
infrastructure. YouTube alone uses as much bandwidth today as the entire
Internet did in 2000. Not surprisingly, our broadband adoption rate
continues to increase concurrently with the proliferation of this latest
"killer app."
Consumers don't buy fat pipes for their own sake; they buy applications and
content that require fat pipes. As consumer demand for more
bandwidth-intensive applications and content increases, so does the
incentive for network owners to provide more bandwidth. While America is on
the right track, we can and will do more. We are creating more competition
through the construction of new delivery platforms. We are clearing away
unnecessary regulatory underbrush that may inhibit investment needed to fund
more competition. We are also creating an atmosphere of regulatory certainty
and parity.
When it comes to broadband policy, let's put aside flawed studies and
rankings, and reject the road of regulatory stagnation. In the next few
years, we will witness a tremendous explosion of entrepreneurial brilliance
in the broadband market, if the government doesn't micromanage. Belief in
entrepreneurs and a light regulatory touch is the right broadband policy for
America.
---
Mr. McDowell is a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission.
License this article from Dow Jones Reprint Service
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
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