Balancing interests

Last week, I identified some of the problems with the recent broadband study released by Oxford University’s Saïd School of Business.

My colleague, Suzanne Blackwell at Giganomics identified some other problems. Most fundamentally, the study did not account for end user self selection of service delivery speeds. For example, although the service provider infrastructure may support 50Mbps download service, the user may have only subscribed to a 5Mbps service which would set a limit on the measured speeds.

A spokesperson for Cisco, the project funder, was quoted saying:

It can be a bit misleading to look at the rankings. The important thing is whether the broadband quality of a country is good enough for today’s needs and the UK falls well within this category.

We forecast the UK will improve because of things such as cable networks being upgraded and the Digital Britain report focusing on next generation access.

The same holds true for Canada.

The study contains an important message. In creating an index, the Broadband Quality Score (BQS), a report in eWeek Europe says the study examines the need to balance between penetration and the nature of the connectivity.

In that article, Cisco’s internet business solutions strategy director Fernando Gil de Bernabé said:

Penetration and quality have a different impact on socio-economic factors. Policy-makers need to make a decision based on that – and may have to choose between penetration or quality.

The errors in the data used in the Oxford report (which should have been obvious to some of the more outspoken Canadian industry critics) make the rankings more than “a bit misleading.”

But, the message about balancing interests is an important one – it is the headline that should have been picked up.

There is a need for a more informed discussion to help lead broadband policy development. Read our report [pdf, 944KB], or at a minimum, read our press release.

1 thought on “Balancing interests”

  1. To me the issue is really getting the metrics right. Why? because to the extent government considers there is a broadband gap that the private sector cannot fill then it has to consider some sort of subsidy if it wants to address it.Almost impossible with a $50 billion deficit.
    Put another way,at TELUS we increased our CAPEX by 10 percent in 2009 to upgrade our broadband infrastructure .That was unprecedented in terms of North American carrier investment and clear indication we want better ,faster networks .Not surprising since cable has the lead in market share and we needed to move to next gen wireless.
    The issue is not so much whether we are #1 (we are not) or #10 or even #20 in some studies. The issue is how do you create the right environment for continued capital investment from the private sector because regulation and subsidy cannot,and cannot afford,to do the job.

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