America Lags in Broadband, Leads in Newspeak

NYT's Paul Krugman directs our attention to the Bush Administration's use of 1984-style language, this time in defense of America's 1984-style technology. The Commerce Deptartment's National Telelcommunications and Information Administration has released "Networked Nation: Broadband in America," which celebrates the success of Bush Admininistration's "largely market-oriented, deregulatory policies as facilitating a better environment for broadband adoption" [Martin H. Bosworth, "Bush Declares Broadband 'Connection Accomplished,'" ConsumerAffairs.com, 2008.01.31]. Broadband is evidently now available in 99% of U.S. ZIP code areas to 99% of Americans. How did the federal government help? Says NTIA:

1. In the technology area, significant amounts of new radio spectrum are now available for advanced wireless services, creating opportunities for new licensed and unlicensed broadband services. Also, new technologies such as Wi-Fi hotspots and broadband over power lines (BPL) have been fostered. [BPL? Leave it to the Bush Administration to take credit for a technology that hardly anyone has deployed. And companies are only considering it as a last resort since the Bush Administration won't push cable operators to share their infrastructure and allow real competition.]
   
   
2. In the regulatory arena, new broadband infrastructure was freed from unnecessary legacy rules to level the playing field among competitive platforms and promote investment.
   
   
3. In the fiscal area, the Administration led the preservation of the Internet tax moratorium and reforms for the depreciation of assets in order to reduce tax burdens and increase the flow of capital into the broadband sector. [NTIA, 2008.01.31]
   

All great and wonderful -- America awash with superfast Internet signals... or are we?

Here's the Orwellian part, or at least the very selective use of information: First, the Bush Administration has "moved the goalposts," defining broadband as any connection of 200 kilobytes per second or better. (For perspective, this UK website tells me that my Sioux Valley Wireless connection gives me 440 kbps download speed and 227 kbps upload speed.) Some casual Googling this morning finds 200 kbps is the lowest official definition of braodband out there. The OECD defines broadband as 256 kbps; The International Telecommunications Union
pegs it at 1.5 to 2 megabits per second [see Wikipedia for more].

The feds also aren't counting folks who actually have broadband; they're just generalizing from ZIP codes. If one person out in 57651 (Reva!) has satellite internet, then everybody who gets mail in Reva counts.

Whatever broadband speeds and penentration America has achieved, the Bush cheerleaders ignore the fact that America has fallen further behind the rest of the world in broadband access. in 2001, OECD data ranked the U.S. 4th in the world for broadband lines per person; in 2006, the U.S. had dropped to 15th [John Dunbar, AP, "Study: U.S. Broadband Goal Nearly Reached," 2008.01.31]. The U.S. ranks 14th in average connection speed, at 8.9 Mbps; Japan clocks in at 93.7 Mbps; those socialists in France get 44.2 Mbps; Korea gets 43.3 Mbps.

And before Russ Olson jumps up and argues that America will always lag behind the rest of the world because of low population density, consider Australia: less than one-tenth of America's population density, but ranking ninth in the world in average broadband speed at 12.1 Mbps.

The Bush Administration's policies aren't even getting us cost savings. For their super-fast connections, the Japanese, French, and Koreans pay a quarter, a third, and a half, respectively, of what Americans pay per megabit per second.

The connection that Sioux Valley Wireless brings me is still a miracle compared to what was available out here at Lake Herman ten years ago. My wife and I are thrilled to be able to blog, research, and watch Feist from the comfort of our humble home. But the NTIA's report on America's broadband "success" is just another example of the Bush Administration's willingness to ignore global reality and offer empty platitudes (not to mention support for plutocratic oligopolies) instead of real policy solutions.