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.

May Satellite Internet be Considered as Broadband Service?

      

A week ago we saw Australia's NBN selecting "Optus and Ipstar as interim satellite service providers in regional Australia as part of the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout. The contracts with Optus and IPStar are worth $200 million and $100 million, respectively" (here).

The cons and pros of using 2-way satellite service as an access method for internet are well-known - the coverage advantages vs. the inherent delay and limited capacity.

A new document by Stephen Cobb (picture) analyzes these arguments, and reaches a conclusion that "Satellite Internet is not broadband". The document was prepared for RuMBA (Rural Mobile & Broadband Alliance), and therefore focuses on rural US.

 

See "Cobb’s Satellite Internet Whitepaper Published by Rural Mobile & Broadband Alliance" - here  and the document itself - "Satellite Internet Connection for Rural Broadband: Is it a viable alternative to wired and wireless connectivity for America’s rural communities?" - here.

Cobb lists 4 service gaps "disqualify satellite Internet connection from being classified as broadband": Latency, bandwidth, Price/Performance and Service Reliability (determined by weather and atmospheric conditions).

While Mr. Cobb experienced himself the good and bad in satellite service: "I’ve had a lot of experience using satellite Internet over the last 5 years. Until recently it was the only way to connect to the Internet from the cabin in Upstate New York where I live and work IF you wanted speeds above those of an old-fashioned dialup modem". Nevertheless, I must object to some of his arguments.

Bandwidth is indeed limited (therefore increasing price/performance - so 2 of the gaps are actually one) but modern traffic management systems can optimize the service, limiting the problem only to the latency issues (inherent). Assuming that bringing fixed service to remote locations will take time and huge investments, satellite remains as the only viable option.  Mr. Cobb does not suggest an alternative. 

OOKLA: The World Cup Winner is South Korea [in Broadband Speed]

OOKLA, a broadband speed testing company, created the "NET INDEX" - "Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe. The value is the rolling average throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles."

Ookla most recent test results shows that the top 10 countries in download speeds are:  

1. South Korea                 34.19 Mbps
2. Latvia                           24.30 Mbps
3. Republic of Moldova    21.55 Mbps
4. Japan                           20.35 Mbps
5. Sweden                       19.81 Mbps
6. Romania                      18.56 Mbps
7. Bulgaria                       17.55 Mbps
8. Netherlands                 17.05 Mbps
9. Lithuania                      16.70 Mbps
10. Portugal                       14.65 Mbps

I guess nobody is surprised to see the South Korea (#1) and Japan (#4!) are in the top 10 - but certainly  having Romania and Bulgaria there while not having the USA (ranked #26, with 10.15 Mbps) is a surprise. This alone should justify the FCC's National Broadband Plan !

Complete list - here. I am embarrassed to see my "high-tech" country at #60 ..

Ookla's press release "Ookla Releases Net Index, World's Most Comprehensive Measurement of Broadband Penetration and Performance" - here.

 

FCC Annual Wireless Report: Mobile Internet Usage Information

 

The FCC published the 14th "Annual Report and Analysis of Competitive Market Conditions With Respect to Mobile Wireless, Including Commercial Mobile Services" (here).

308 pages, 50 charts and 42 tables covering every possible aspect of the US wireless market with information gathered from multiple sources - although some of the information is a bit old.

Since I am focusing on the mobile data traffic aspects, I find the following information interesting (see charts below):

• Chart 26 shows monthly data traffic generated by device type - note the difference between a blackberry, IPhone and other smartphones. and above all - laptops (source: Validas LLC)
   
• Chart 11 shows the number of devices (by the end of 2008) served by US wireless operators, by capability. At this time there were 7.2M laptops connected (source: CTIA).  

While laptop users are 8.4% of the "high speed" (Internet access at speeds over 200 kbps in at least one direction) wireless connected devices, their data consumption sets a significant challenge to the wireless data infrastructure - certainly is wireless operators like to position this service as an alternative to DSL or Cable for home users.

For the latter matter, the report quotes (P. 181) the FCC's National Broadband Plan: "while mobile wireless service currently is not competitive with wireline for those consumers who value high speeds over other attributes, advances in wireless technologies, coupled with increases in the supply of spectrum, have the potential to make mobile wireless service a more viable competitor at higher data speeds at some future date".

All this will have a major effect on backhaul capacity - and the report claims (P. 160) that "Cell site backhaul capacity is forecast to increase fourfold between 2007 and 2011" (source: Infonetics Research)
 

The FCC re-evaluates Network Neutrality

  

A post to the FCC Broadband blog evaluates the effect of the recent ruling in the Comcast-FCC appeal. Austin Schlick, the FCC's General Counsel, presents his (FCC?) view on the affect the ruling has on the recent National Broadband Plan and Network Neutrality (although Mr. Schlick does not use this term in the document).  Here.

I guess the immediate motivation behind the legal opinion was to make sure no one will this that the entire plan has been compromised. As Mr. Schlick says "The Comcast/BitTorrent opinion has no effect at all on most of the Plan. Many of the recommendations for the FCC itself involve matters over which the Commission has an “express statutory delegation of authority.”.

Nevertheless, since the ruling cannot be ignored, we get also the following statement - "At the same time, yesterday’s decision may affect a significant number of important Plan recommendations. Among them are recommendations aimed at accelerating broadband access and adoption in rural America; connecting low-income Americans, Native American communities, and Americans with disabilities".

Playing the politically correct tune ..

Bottom line:

"Does the FCC still have a mission in the Internet area? Absolutely. ... We are assessing the implications of yesterday’s decision for each one, to ensure that the Commission has adequate authority to execute the mission laid out in the Plan."