{"id":56063,"date":"2013-07-11T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=56063"},"modified":"2013-07-12T01:31:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T06:31:16","slug":"do-high-prices-make-america-the-global-leader-in-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/07\/11\/do-high-prices-make-america-the-global-leader-in-broadband\/","title":{"rendered":"Do High Prices Make America the Global Leader in Broadband?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to an\u00a0op-ed<\/a>\u00a0in the Times, America is the global leader in broadband, with high speeds and great service. And it\u2019s all because the government restrained \u201conerous\u201d regulation and let companies like Verizon do what they want and charge what they want.<\/p>\n

It was written by the CEO of Verizon, Lowell McAdam.<\/p>\n

I pay Mr. McAdam\u2019s company about $115 each month for my land line, wi-fi, and cable (all FIOS).\u00a0 Mr. McAdam compares the U.S. favorably with Europe, \u201cwhere innovation and investment in advanced networks have stagnated under an onerous regulatory regime.\u201d\u00a0 I asked a friend who lives in Paris what he pays for his FIOS phone, wi-fi, and cable.\u00a0 The monthly bill:\u00a0 39.90\u20ac ($52) or half of what I pay Verizon.\u00a0 Maybe there\u2019s an upside to stagnant and onerous.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with getting what you can afford, and it occurred to me that U.S. broadband is the best because we can afford more.\u00a0 Onerous regulations or no, most other countries are not as rich as the U.S.\u00a0 What if you looked at broadband and per capita GDP?<\/p>\n

The OECD did just that with data from June 2012\u00a0(their several spreadsheets on this are\u00a0here<\/a>).\u00a0The purple bars are broadband penetration and the bumpy red line is GDP per capita. Do you see a correlation?<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Consider France: As of a year ago, the country had greater broadband penetration despite a lower per capita GDP than the U.S. ($35,133 vs. $46,588); that’s 25% more broadband on 33% less income and at half the cost to consumers.<\/p>\n

If you re-rank the OECD countries factoring in per capita GDP, the line-up changes.\u00a0 Notably, the U.S. and Luxembourg drop well below the OECD average, despite being among the wealthiest countries.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, not all broadbands are equally broad.\u00a0 Verizon sold me on fiber-optic with their assurance that it was dazzlingly faster than their DSL that I had been clunking along on. This graph breaks down broadband into its various incarnations.<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. is slightly above average on all broadband, but when it comes to a high fibre diet, we are ahead of several other countries that have greater total penetration.\u00a0 On the other hand, the Scandinavian countries are ahead of us, as are, impressively, the Asian countries.<\/p>\n

This is not to deny U.S. advances.\u00a0\u00a0TechCrunch<\/a>\u00a0summarizes more recent data from Akamai on these changes:<\/p>\n

the U.S. is currently second in the price of broadband for entry-level users. The nation is also third in network-based competition, second in the fiber-optic installation rate, first in the adoption of next-generation LTE, ahead of Europe in broadband adoption, and doing quite well in Internet-based services.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still, the U.S. lags behind other, less wealthy countries.\u00a0\u00a0InnovationFiles<\/a>, using Akamai data for different variables, has a less congratulatory view.<\/p>\n