New Data Show U.S. Outperforming Europe in Rollout of Fast Broadband, CTIC Report Says
Despite the rhetoric and “constant drumbeat” about the U.S. falling behind the rest of the world in broadband, 25 Mbps is more readily available here than in Europe, said University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Christopher Yoo at a Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition event Wednesday. That fact argues against Title II reclassification and regulating the Internet as a public utility, as is done in most of Europe, said Yoo, an opponent of prescriptive net neutrality rules.
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The event followed an FCC request last week for comment to refresh the record on Title II and broadband reclassification (CD June 2 p9). Yoo was once a rumored top candidate for the Republican seat on the FCC that ultimately went to Mike O'Rielly (CD May 8/13 p1). O'Rielly along with Commissioner Ajit Pai dissented in a vote last month on the FCC’s net neutrality NPRM.
The center released a paper by Yoo comparing the U.S. with Europe, (http://bit.ly/1kt7mIH). “Data analysis indicates that the U.S. approach promoted broadband investment, while the European approach had the opposite effect,” the report said.
Yoo noted that as of year-end 2012, when the latest numbers are available, 25 Mbps service was available for 82 percent of U.S. households, versus 54 percent of European households. “The gap between the two is getting wider,” growing from 25 to 28 percent in just a year, he said. “You would expect as the U.S. approaches saturation that gap would get narrower, and in fact it’s not,” he said. The U.S. model of an unregulated Internet is “faring very well,” he said. The numbers demonstrate that “European-style” regulation has a negative effect on broadband deployment and the U.S. policy “of promoting facilities-based competition” has a positive effect, Yoo said.
Europeans recognize they have a problem, Yoo said. Neelie Kroes, the EU Commission vice president leading the Digital Agenda for Europe, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have “openly said” Europe may need to change policy, Yoo said. Both recognize “instead of worrying about infrastructure sharing, maybe we need to start focusing on promoting greater investment in the individual networks,” he said. Yoo said he’s tired of hearing arguments, for example, citing France as an example of a nation that is getting broadband right. France’s fiber to the premises nationally is only 7 percent, he said. “Simply put, they're trailing the rest of Europe.”
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation telecom policy analyst Doug Brake agreed. “It’s all too easy to cherry pick data from high-performing networks in very dense, rich European countries and try to compare them to the costly sprawling networks of America’s suburbs,” Brake said.
The data gathered by Yoo is important, but other studies consistently put the U.S. in the top 10 nations worldwide for broadband, said Brake. “We're improving, not falling behind.” The U.S. continues to outperform Europe despite government subsidies for broadband on much of the continent, Brake said. He credited intermodal competition. The mapping data collected by Yoo should “settle the debate” over broadband in the U.S. versus Europe, said Brake. “It’s time to start moving away from this debate.”
Blair Levin, manager of the FCC National Broadband Plan and now a fellow at the Aspen Institute, said the debate over deployment has changed little since before the plan was released, even though new data keeps coming in. “Those who said five years ago ‘we rock’ are still saying it,” he said. “Those who said ‘we suck’ five years ago I believe are still saying that.” The key question is not “where we are” but what to do “to get to where we want to be,” Levin said. “We can focus on the easy or focus on the important.” Measurement from a policy perspective is “relatively easy, constant improvement is hard,” he said.