Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 17 October 2006 07:09
Opinion and Analysis
Page 3 of 4
He went on " Even more worrying is the fact that the OECD's figures only measure the take up of entry level broadband. The lack of genuine broadband infrastructure in Australia means that the nations' take up rates of multi-mega bit broadband are even worse than indicated in the OECD's."
An appended ALP 'fact sheet' claimed that "Australia is ranked 17th out of 30 countries surveyed by the OECD for take up of to 256kbps broadband. Despite growth off a low base, Australia's relative position has not changed for the previous two years."
No. The OECD does not only measure take up of entry level broadband, it simply makes no distinction between different speeds in its statistics.
However, it did comment: " Should Koreans be worried about losing the title of the world leader in broadband penetration or have they moved to the next level of broadband development where quality is more important than quantity? Answer: Korea seems to have hit a saturation point in terms of penetration but users are now dropping their relatively slower ADSL connections for faster fibre-based technologies. As many OECD countries are still struggling to expand DSL access, Korea and Japan seem to be moving to the next step, fibre."
One of the most interesting comments made by the OECD, which Conroy would well have picked up on and used to initiate meaningful debate in Australia was this one.
