The Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard University is a renowned research centre focused at Internet and the law. It researches the real and possible boundaries in cyberspace between open and closed systems of code, of commerce, of governance, and of education, and the relationship of law to each.
The FCC has commissioned the Berkman Institue to do a comprehensive study on "Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world". The draft version has been made available for comments recently. A hefty report of 231 pages with solid data gathering and data-analysis.
Most blogposts (like this one) have focused on what is a bombshell for most Americans: the US have lost their edge in broadband in the last decade. Part of the blame is on a historic policy change in the USA in the beginning of this decade: the telephone and cable companies were allowed to close their (access) network for competitors.
The rest of the world has chosen for a policy of unbundling of access lines and/or functional or structural separation of the access network, which turned out to be the better solution.
But there is a lot more interesting stuff in the report, if you take the time to read it fully. Some of it requires more detail, some of it needs comments.
More than can be written in one post so I will make a small series out of it.
The first observation that struck me was the way they defined "next generation broadband".
Berkman observes a very interesting dichotomy in the general mindset about next generation broadband (leading to the subtle title of the report "Next Generation Connectivity"). The primary distinction in emphasis is between a focus on high capacity on one hand (numbers) and a focus on user experience (ubiquitous seamless high capacity fixed and mobile) on the other hand. Most countries focus on capacity, the ones already ahead with deploying high capacity (with the Japanese leading the pack) focus on ubiquitous seamless (high-speed) connectivity. Most likely the difference in emphasis is just a matter of overlapping stages, first get the next generation infrastructure in place and secondly focus on innovation of services.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
That is why the data they gathered on (mobile) broadband had me worried.
The Berkman report divides broadband access speeds in 4 classes (low, medium, high and very high). The Netherlands has a high penetration level of fixed line broadband but most of it is in the low/medium range. Here you can see how far ahead some countries like Japan and Korea are because almost all of their lines are of the very high speed class. It is time not to gloat any more on the high level of (low/medium bandwidth) connectivity but to compare ourselves with others in these speed classes. (And move ahead to full FttH as fast as possible to keep up with the pack).
The penetration level of 3G mobile broadband is exceptionally low compared to other countries. See their chart.
Their analysis of other available datasets and reports on 3 G connectivity (like OECD and Ofcom) show that these datasets are not very reliable, so they used the Teleograhpy database to counts subscriptions. The number for the Netherlands is more or less the same as you can derive from the ITU reports (which number some people even think is way too high).
The only explanations why we are so behind in mobile broadband I can think of is roll-out speed, pricing strategies of operators and text messaging. The pricing strategies I have seen seem to be aimed at creaming of the top (high prices for business users) instead of going for volume. The roll-out of 3G has been relatively slow. And last but not least we have grown used to text messaging which is a fantastic cash cow. The operators have introduced bundling of text-messages and voice minutes which is attractive for youngsters who are more into texting and chatting than voice. So we see more texting than twittering over here.
The statistics got me worried. The next economic drivers are based on services which rely on ubiquitous seamless (high-speed) connectivity and great user experience and we need to be part of this market.
Let's hope the policy makers in the Netherlands are very awake and read this report.
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