DSL Prime: Data

The fact, that many in Washington want to ignore, is that the U.S. trails even less dense nations in broadband deployment, but see policy, later, for further discussion.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV and the Web Video Summit [July 30, 2007]

Broadband by Households vs. Population
Small change in rankings

Data from Point-Topic's Global Broadband Statistics Database, skipping countries with fewer than 1 million broadband lines. Monaco, Iceland, Singapore, Macau, and Luxembourg are all ahead of the U.S. I've cross-checked the general accuracy of the data against other authoritative sources.

Since Q1 of 2004, Finland, Sweden, France, and Estonia have passed the U.S. in broadband household percentage. No substantial country has fallen behind the U.S. in three years. Germany and Italy are even lower, at 41 percent, although Germany is catching up since rates fell the last two years. New Zealand, at 37 percent, has one of the lowest household rates among affluent countries. As a result, they've fired the head of New Zealand Telecom and are splitting the company in two. They've brought in Paul Reynolds of BT, one of the best telco executives in the world, although they haven't adjusted the regs/rates to inspire him to create a great internet for the country.

The list has some small changes if reported by percent of population, because of different family sizes. Some criticize the most referenced figures, from the OECD, which use percent of population because household numbers are not as precise. The conclusions don't change very much.

Source, again, Point-Topic GBS

Since Q1 2004, the U.S. has passed Taiwan (by a rounding error) but fallen behind France and Estonia. That's not progress. None of this is news to DSL Prime readers, but I'm including it here because the press contact for one prominent official recently sent me recent remarks loaded with mistakes (below, in politics).

Copyright 2007 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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