ITU: 70% of all Countries have a National Broadband Plan

A new report by the ITU's Broadband Commission covers the status of Broadband services around the globe.

"Affordable broadband connectivity, services and applications are essential to modern society, offering widely recognized social and economic benefits. The Broadband Commission for Digital Development promotes the adoption of broadband-friendly practices and policies for all, so everyone can take advantage of the benefits offered by broadband".

Among other aspects, the report shows the adaptation of National Broadband plans.

Source: ITU/UNESCO

"Although in many countries, broadband deployment has been realized through the efforts of the private sector, Governments play an essential role in ensuring a stable regulatory and legal framework to foster and incentivize investments, create a level playing-field amongst the different actors present in the market, establish adequate spectrum policy and reasonable spectrum allocation, and ensure long-term and sustainable competition. Governments can also implement programmes such as e-government, digital literacy initiatives and connected public institutions and locations. 



Progress on policy leadership is relatively recent, with an explosion in the number of countries introducing broadband plans in 2009-2010 (Figure 4). Prior to 2006, most plans focused on information society issues, with broadband coming to the fore from 2008 onwards. More recently, Digital Agendas have grown in popularity, incorporating a cross-sectoral perspective. By mid-2013, some 134 or 69% of all countries had a national plan, strategy, or policy in place to promote broadband, and a further 12 countries or 6% were planning to introduce such measures in the near future (Figure 5). However, some 47 countries (or nearly a quarter of all countries) still do not have any plan, strategy or policy in place. Even if countries have plans, achieving progress in implementation may prove challenging or slow".

World Map, according to status of National Broadband Plan (NBP);
Source: ITU/UNESCO

See "The State of Broadband 2013: Universalizing broadband" - here.