Without any question, the latest Federal Communications Commission report on U.S. broadband is going to be criticized, even if communications availability and use are problems we are solving, globally.
Among the frequent bits of evidence raised in support of the argument that “things are not getting better” are global rankings.
“How we measure” remains problematic. Comparing broadband adoption, availability, prices or speeds on a “per capita” basis only makes sense if household sizes are the same in all countries, which is not true.
To use an old but relevant example, the United States never ranked much higher than about 15th global for teledensity--the availability or purchase--of fixed network voice services, at peak adoption rates in 2000.
And yet nobody seriously argues the United States had a voice services availability problem. In 2007 the ranked about 15th globally for broadband adoption on a per-capita basis. The point is that very-large countries with large inhabited rural areas will always face more problems supplying ubiquitous communications by fixed networks, than small countries with high density.
Some will point to Canada as proof this is not true.
In Canada, perhaps 99 percent of people live on just about 20 percent of the land mass. In other words, the coverage requirements coverage requirements to reach perhaps 99-percent coverage require wiring about 20 percent of the land area. Some 80 percent of the land is virtually uninhabited.
Conversely, though there are sparsely-settled areas across much of the western interior, the United States has much more of its population living in rural areas, and quite a lot of the country has relatively low population density.
source: Reddit
Measurement issues also are very real: it does not make sense to compare the posted retail prices for products if they are not the products most consumers buy, in any country. Nor does it make sense to pick price comparisons that do not include common discounts (such as purchases in bundles).
Even if those sorts of issues are ameliorated, one has to adjust for purchasing power differences between countries.
Nor is it clear that prices have increased, in the United States or elsewhere. The problem is that general levels of inflation result in price increases for all manner of products, over time. That is why we inflation-adjust prices when making comparisons over time.
Also, volume makes a difference. People might spend more money on fresh vegetables, over time, if they decide to eat more fresh vegetables. Prices can drop, but volume purchased can grow. And people are using more data.
Around 1995, the cost of buying a U.S. business connection supporting a kilobit per second might have been US$1.50 to $1.75. In other words, a 56 kbps connection might have cost as much as $98 a month.
By about 2006, even consumer internet access costs had dropped to about two cents per kbps. So a 10 Mbps connection might then have cost the same as the 56 kbps connection of 1995. In 2017, U.S. 100 Mbps connections cost about the same as a 56 kbps connection of 1995.
The point is that ranking countries on measures of broadband adoption or coverage can be quite misleading. That the United States ranks only about 15th globally for broadband adoption just does not mean very much.
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