An Update on International Universal Broadband Goals

Last week marked the first anniversary of the National Broadband Plan’s release. The press surrounding the Planniversary included plenty of criticisms that the plan is moving too slow, even at dial-up speed. One criticism we offered at the Plan’s release is that the recommended universalization goals are underwhelming. This critique remains valid today.

One year ago we compared broadband goals from around the world and found the proposed goals for the United States to be woefully lackluster. While the U.S. works towards a universal target of four megabits per second (Mbps) downloads and one Mbps uploads by 2020, many countries are not waiting a decade for universal broadband. Here is a selection of universalization goals for European Union countries:

From: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/broadband/docs/annex_2.pdf

While these universalization targets are slower than the four Mbps suggested in the National Broadband Plan, the target dates for completion are several years ahead of the United States, leaving the U.S. behind in the quest for universal broadband

The National Broadband Plan also offers a target of 100 Mbps downloads for 100 million homes by 2020, an estimated 75% of the country.[1] Once again, this goal is under whelming when compared to those of other countries:

From: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/broadband/docs/annex_2.pdf

The United States is not a broadband leader - it ranks 14^th in the latest OECD data for broadband penetration. Recently released data visualization tools from Measurement Lab show that the United States has middle-of-the-road broadband connection speeds:

Coupled with our findings that broadband in the United States is more expensive than in other developing nations, we need a bolder vision than hoping for change a decade down the road. A continuing dilemma with the National Broadband Plan is not only implementation speed, the bar set by policy is not high enough to move the United States into the position of a worldwide broadband leader.