Another attack on Market Clarity's critique of OECD broadband stats

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 17 May 2007 16:42

IT Industry - Deals

Research company Market Clarity's widely publicised critique of the OECD's six monthly reports comparing broadband in member economies has come in for a second attack, following the OECD, claiming that Market Clarity had made significant errors in its analysis.

The latest assault comes from another consultancy, New Zealand based Network Strategies and focuses purely on Market Clarity's analysis of the New Zealand market. However Network Strategies says it intends to examine Market Clarity's numbers for broadband in other OECD economies.

Earlier this week Market Clarity published a report  in which it went back to official national sources to compile broadband statistics and compare these with the OECD's findings. It concluded that "the OECD's broadband rankings, while providing an interesting snapshot of broadband adoption are not sufficiently rigorous or accurate to inform the basis of national policy making, nor should perceptions of national prestige be founded on the fine detail of a country's standing in the OECD's broadband rankings."

The OECD responded with a lengthy rebuttal, published on iTWire  as a letter to the editor in which it said that Market Clarity's analysis had "serious methodological and factual errors".

Now New Zealand-based telecommunications consultancy, Network Strategies has accused Market Clarity of "incorrectly [using] New Zealand data, leading to erroneous conclusions on the availability and penetration of high speed broadband connections in New Zealand."

Network Strategies was unable to say conclusively whether these errors had impacted Market Clarity's conclusions on the OECD's reporting of New Zealand broadband. It said "This error may have an impact on its subsequent conclusions concerning the validity of the OECD reporting of the New Zealand broadband market." It added "At this stage, it is not clear if these similar misunderstandings extend to Market Clarity's analysis of broadband markets in other countries," and said it was "undertaking a full review of the [Market Clarity] report."

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