Just before all five members of the Federal Communications Commission faced off with the Senate Commerce Committee today, the agency released its biannual report on the U.S. broadband market.

On the surface — or at least in the pretty picture sure to be painted by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin — the numbers sound good. High-speed Internet lines increased by 26 percent during the first half of 2006, and broadband is reportedly available in 99 percent of all U.S. ZIP codes.

But look past those rose-colored statistics, and the broadband reality shows that the United States is still trailing the world leaders in making the Internet faster, more affordable and universally available. According to S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, here’s why:

• The FCC still uses an absurd standard of “broadband” — 200 kilobits per second — that was barely fast enough to surf in 1999 but is far below what’s needed to enjoy streaming video, VoIP, flash animation or other common Internet applications.
• Speeds are much slower than what’s available in the rest of the world. According to the FCC, half of all U.S. broadband connections are slower than 2.5 megabits per second — yet in countries like Japan and South Korea, they’re rolling out 100 megabit service.
• The FCC still uses a discredited measure of broadband availability. Using ZIP codes alone vastly overstates the availability and competition for broadband services.
• There’s no competition. Ninety-eight percent of high-speed residential lines are provided by incumbent cable or telecom companies.
• The numbers are inflated by cell phones. In fact, 60 percent of the increase in broadband connections over the past six months is due to mobile cellular wireless connections. A cell phone or Blackberry is no substitute or viable competitor for always-on cable, DSL or fiber connections. These connections are very slow, have strict bandwidth caps, and restrict users so they can’t use Internet phone service or other applications.

President Bush once pledged universal, affordable Internet access by 2007. Here we are.

Yet based on the FCC’s own data, nearly 60 percent of U.S. homes don’t subscribe to broadband service.

If, as Commerce Department officials claim, the president actually meant Internet for everyone by “the end of the year,” then there’s a lot of work to do. And it can’t be done by cooking the books or statistical sleight-of-hand.

What we need is a new national broadband policy — with Net Neutrality and an open Internet at its core. Anything less is just more smoke and mirrors.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.-->