Letter: Market Clarity hits back at OECD in broadband stats battle

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 23 May 2007 17:50

IT Industry - Deals

Market Clarity believes that looking at broadband take-up by households or individuals is much more important than looking at the number of physical broadband access connections per 100 inhabitants - the measure currently used in the OECD's broadband league tables.

Indeed, one can argue that anything less than 100% household connectivity could be considered a failure in the broadband race.

Is high capacity infrastructure needed? Certainly.

However, one must also consider the full range of causal factors that impact why a household may not yet have a broadband service. Is it because of lack of broadband infrastructure? Is it because a family can't afford a broadband service? Or, is it because a family does not see the value in subscribing to a broadband connection?

There are follow-on policy implications for each of these scenarios, and infrastructure alone won't address the issues of affordability and awareness.

Another important aspect of broadband take-up is the speed at which subscribers connect to the broadband infrastructure. Are families connecting at the highest possible speed that the existing infrastructure can support? If the answer is "no" - is this because the packaging of broadband services encourages service take-up of lower speeds? This topic is also covered in our report.

We are also of the opinion that understanding what the citizens of each country have on offer for their entry-level broadband packages is just as important as broadband infrastructure related issues. In our report, we've included an examination of services from major carriers in each country, as an indicative metric describing the speed of "entry level" broadband plans.

This view is shared by the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG), who remarked on the correlation between market packaging and broadband take-up in their 18 May 2007 Newsletter.