U.S. Among Five Leading Nations on Media Institute's Net Vitality Index
The U.S. and four other nations -- France, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. -- are the leadership tier of nations across 52 indices included in the Media Institute’s new Net Vitality Index study, study author Stuart Brotman said during a Media Institute event Friday. The report released Friday discusses the rankings of only the five leadership tier countries, with the full Net Vitality Index rankings set to be published in June, said Brotman, a Harvard Law School professor and member of the Media Institute’s Global Internet Freedom Advisory Council.
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The 52 indices included in the Net Vitality Index are meant to provide a holistic view of an individual country’s Internet ecosystem that can be compared with the measurements of other countries on an “apples-to-apples” basis, the study said. All nations ultimately should focus on a “wide open” Internet approach that “encompasses the broader goal of an efficient ubiquitous broadband Internet ecosystem with virtually unlimited content and applications available without government restrictions,” the study said.
The U.S. and the rest of the leadership tier nations are almost always among the top 10 nations across all 52 indices, which range from Internet freedom to mobile application availability to broadband pricing, the Media Institute study said. The U.S. ranked No. 1 on 24 indices, including access to information, the size of telecom investment and global competitiveness, the study said. The U.S. and the rest of the leadership tier nations all share an affinity for innovation, have consistently invested in innovation and have each had a regulatory structure that “catalyzes and challenges” stakeholders to continue to innovate, the study said. Data used to generate the 52 indices was collected from multiple sources, including Freedom House, the International Telecommunication Union, the U.N.’s E-Government Survey and the World Wide Web Foundation, the study said.
A future iteration of the Net Vitality Index should issue a report similar to the one issued Friday that would solely focus on the macroeconomic factors common to all emerging markets included in the index, said Sally Wentworth, Internet Society vice president-global policy development. “The countries that made it into the top tier obviously have macroeconomic conditions in common,” she said. A similar look at emerging markets “would have real power for countries that are trying to break into the cycle” that leadership tier nations participate in. “What are the things they have in common? Which ones are doing the right things?”
The U.S.’s place in the leadership tier could be threatened by the FCC’s new net neutrality rules and accompanying reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service, Brotman said in the study. The commission classified multiple types of broadband service as information services through 2007, a history of “minimalist” regulation that resulted in “dramatic” growth in U.S. broadband investment, the study said. Policymakers need to “take a more holistic view to accommodate not just one particular interest like saying ‘this is going to further competition’ or ‘this is going to further individual consumers,’” Brotman said during the Media Institute event. “Consumers are terribly important” as a factor in Internet policymaking, but so are service providers and international stakeholders, said Andy Haire, chairman of the International Institute of Communications’ U.S. chapter.
Policymakers also need to factor in longer time periods for their Internet-related policies to have an effect on the market, which typically goes well beyond the timeline for satisfying political purposes, Brotman said. The U.S. “is caught between a rock and a hard place” on policymaking, he said. “We currently have [President Barack Obama’s] administration, which we know will end on Jan. 20, 2017, so I think regulators and others essentially say ‘that is our target’ and that may not reflect the broader evolution and revolution in the marketplace.”