ReasonedResponse.com

The Federal Communications Commission is now tasked with developing a National Broadband Plan for the United States of America.

For most of the pundits, advocates, socialists and clowns, this will mean another opportunity to shriek at the Commission for heavier regulation, stealing the infrastrucutre that broadband companies have built to give to newcomers and charlatans, and demands for legislation on "network neutrality," whatever that term means this week.

The data calls for something else.  A commitment to a national effort at Digital Inclusion.

Through the first decade of the 21st Century, much of the focus on the nation's broadband Internet capability has been on the infrastructure -- the technological platforms, wireline and wireless access, and last-mile buildout. 

As we progress in the industry's life cycle, however, we are rapidly approaching the point at which deployment of broadband to consumers will become less important to continued growth than adoption of broadband by consumers.  That is to say, the major impediment to achievement of the goal of ubiquitous broadband for all Americans will not be the buildout of infrastructure but rather finding a means to bring online the estimated 25 percent of Americans who presently choose not to have access.  In addition, it will be more critical that we begin to move the nine percent of Americans still using dialup Internet connections up to broadband. (Figures based on Pew Internet data from late 2007 and mid-2008)

It is true that in some parts of the country, covering some 8-9 percent of the population, network infrastructure is not robust enough to provide acceptable levels of broadband service.   For the most part, the population density in these areas is so low as to make it difficult to justify the investment in infrastructure.  Those areas may require specially targeted approaches to provide the needed infrastructure, as appears to be the intent of the new broadband grants programs from the Obama administration.

But it is time we stop believing that our broadband problems are infrastructure problems, or somehow the fault of evil cable and telephone companies.

Perhaps the simplest measure of the problem is this:  while the 2008 Global Information Technology Report rates the US broadband infrastructure 4th in the world and improving, the OECD data that tracks the percentage of consumers adopting broadband estimates the US to be in 15th place.  The conclusion is clear - the infrastructure deployment rate is good and improving; the consumer adoption rate is less so and stagnant.

In spite of this, broadband policy in the past decade has focused almost exclusively on issues of infrastructure -- open access, competition, network neutrality, Internet governance and network management.  Scant attention has been paid to the more critical issue of Digital Inclusion -- bringing online the one-third of the American population that chooses not to use broadband Internet today.

There is a sound basis for focusing on Digital Inclusion rather than flogging the failed ideas of the last century.  Helping to bring this one-third of the population online will yield specific benefits:

• Stimulation of adoption rates, creating demand that can economically justify the further buildout and operation of infrastructure.  This is particularly true of adoption rates among low income populations and rural populations (see the Pew data at http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Broadband%20Barriers.pdf).

• Amortization of total network costs across a larger consumer base, lowering the basic cost of broadband for all consumers and further stimulating adoption among Americans for whom the price of broadband remains an issue.

• Stimulation of new products, services and applications, in order to meet the specific needs of Americans who have not used broadband because they do not find it relevant to their lives.

This does not suggest that we that infrastructure development should cease.  The continued development of new and more efficient platforms for the delivery of broadband is essential to maintain and enhance service levels and to support continuing growth in the demand for additional capacity to support new, bandwidth-hungry Internet applications .  But it does suggest that additional attention and resources are required for programs to stimulate Digital Inclusion.

That's where we will get the biggest "bang for the buck" -- bringing online the current one-third of Americans who don't have, don't want, and don't use broadband.

And that's exactly what I will suggest to the FCC as they start their consideration of a National Broadband Plan.

So when the dust finally settles, the Broadband provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are actually pretty good.

There is some money, to be doled out by the Department of Agriculture for rural broadband projects, and by the Department of Commerce for innovation.  Not a lot of money, but that may be a good thing.

There is a requirement that the FCC develop a national broadband plan within a year.  A reasonable time frame and a good project that falls well within the mission of the FCC.  I look forward to reading what is proposed, and throwing in a few ideas of my own.

And there is a requirement for a broadband mapping project, which can only lead to better coverage of broadband.

Of course, I also like it because it dropped all of the lunatic language about mandatory open access and network neutrality (which in case you missed it, has once again morphed to mean something different than it used to).  That kind of nonsense rhetoric has no place is a serious discussion of broadband policy, something that even Google now seems to have conceded.

So I look forward to the year ahead, to the evolution of a national broadband plan, and to an improving economy.  And, if there is indeed a good in heaven, a decent wine crop worldwide to help produce the Cabernet Sauvignon I desire to drink while I read the various proposals and platforms.

Long ago and in a different war, I joined the military.  It was part of our family's tradition of service to our country, and it was a responsibility I took seriously.  Including qualifying as an expert marksman, even though it was not my job to carry a rifle.

I learned that on a military firing range, the expression "Maggie's Drawers" was used to indicate that you had completely missed the target. 

The same term can be used to describe our approach to bringing broadband to all Americans.  We have been so focused on phony issues and partisan finger-pointing that we have completely failed to even see where the real target lies.

Yet the data is consistent, clear and compelling.  This nation, which once boasted a literacy rate of 99 percent, has seen that rate falling sharply.  One in four high school students is a dropout before graduation -- one in three among black and hispanic kids.  These kids will be forever consigned to low-income jobs and lives.  And, the data says, low-income, low-education Americans don't use the Internet.

For some reason, we continue to pretend that the problem is a lack of infrastructure.  Even though we can now get a broadband signal of some kind to more than 99 percent of all homes and businesses in America.  Even though the cost of our broadband is below the world average.  Even though we continue the amazingly rapid deployment of fiber and other advanced broadband technologies.

The truth is that we can't handle the truth.  We'd rather bluster and blather about "competition" and "duopolies" and "network neutrality" than face the harsh reality that we are failing one-fourth of the American population with our bad policies and partisan bickering.

Already, the Congress is lining up to announce a new slew of bills to manipulate, regulate and complicate broadband in this country.  Not one of those bills even mentions the critical issue of Digital Inclusion, or proposes a program to help people learn the literacy and computing skills they will need in the 21st Century.

Perhaps solving this very real problem is too difficult.  Or perhaps it is not politically expedient.  Or doesn't raise money and support for re-election. 

But I have watched as we spent three years wrangling over the non-issue of "network neutrality."  I have seen a decade of repeated efforts to force broadband's square peg into the round hole of 19th-Century telephony regulation.  I have watched as greedy state treasurers lick their lips over the prospect of taxing Internet access, even though this would only make access less accessible to lower-income families.

In an industry obsessed with social networking, videos and making a fast buck, we've paid scant attention to the fact that most people who don't use the Internet are disinterested because there is nothing on the Internet they want or need.  In an industry of rock stars and overnight sensations, we've left consumers waiting by the curb.

When it comes to solving the real and tangible and proven problems that confront us, or moving toward solutions that will actually make ubiquitous Internet use a reality, we've come up Maggie's Drawers.  And until we start basing broadband and Internet policies on reality rather than political dogma and wishful thinking, we will only see our efforts continue to go astray.

Leave it to the Australians to point out -- once again -- that the emporer isn't wearing any clothes.

Or, in our case, that the whole issue of Network Neutrality is an American fiction based on a bad business model that has devalued the megabyte.  The point our that no where else in the world is "network neutrality" an issue, except perhaps among ISPs in the UK who attempt to follow the flawed American model.

A widely quoted article from ZDNet offers advice from three leading Australian ISPs, who note that the root of the problem is that our ISPs tried to offer unlimited bandwidth for a low flat price.  While this was possible in the market of a few years ago, the advent of video streaming and P2P have rendered the business model unworkable.  And the rest of the world, which has already lived with data caps, bandwidth throttling and other forms of controls, has not expectation that you can have all the bandwidth you want for next to nothing.  They live in a pay-for-what-you-use Internet world.

It doesn't take a psychic to read the subtext that labels us Americans as greedy gluttons, or the panderers of network neturality laws to be standard-bearers for entitlements and hand-outs at the expense of our Internet Service Providers.  The Aussies note that it is ridiculous to expect that our network operators should expand the networks without limit, at their own expense and with no hope of ever seeing a return on their investment.

Two other bits of data factor into this discussion.  The first is a recent survey reported over on Gigaom showing that 81 percent of consumers reject the idea of data caps, and only five percent support a pay-for-what-you-use business model for Internet bandwidth.  (The survey also found that 83 percent have no idea what a gigbyte is, or how many gigabytes of data they currently download, but that's fodder for another day.)

The second data bit is the economy.  With the current meltdown, most observers believe that we have come to the end of the era of expanding entitlements and hand-outs.  That may or may not be true to government, but the reality is that the wounded capital markets in the US won't sustain unlimited investments in bandwidth with no return on investment.  The markets simply won't have the funds to lend.

So in one sense the Australians are right.  We've painted ourselves into a corner in which we have created a consumer expectation of unlimited bandwidth based on a business model in which NO ONE PAYS.  Content owners don't pay for delivery of their content, consumers don't pay for the bandwidth they use, and network operators are prohibited from implementing any kind of new service that would foot the bill.  Instead, the whole thing is subsidized by investors and the government -- neither of which, as of today, can any longer afford to foot the bill. 

It will be interesting to see how this works out as the fairy tale of network neutrality meets the reality of a downturned market.  The whole point of network neutrality legislation seems to be to force consumers to foot the bill for the content they download, so that content providers can show a greater rate of return.  But consumers have their own voice, and their own tight pocketbooks to watch in the current economic downturn.

I'm betting that one good thing to come out of the current economic crisis is that consumers will vote their pocketbooks.  In which case the whole issue of network neutrality will slink back under the rock it came from.

Over on GigaOm, Worldwide Lexicon founder Brian McConnell has blogged about the reasons why municipal Wi-Fi has been an astounding disaster, and what can be done to fix it.

He's half right.

McConnell correctly notes that one of the biggest problems was that Wi-Fi advocates completely misunderstood who used public Wi-Fi.  He notes that "muni W-Fi proponents have misunderstood how the Internet is used in public spaces, primarily by assuming that people who can afford laptops are somehow unable to afford Internet access."

That's one of the reasons.  You can also add lack of planning, poor reception, technical obstacals, abysmal security and the "somebody else will pay for all this" mentality that seems to follow these projects, but I won't quibble.

McConnel then goes on, however, to state that the problem of serving the poor and minority could be handled by giving anyone who can't afford broadband a cell phone data plan and a data-enabled cell phone.  McConnel elegantly puts it this way:

"It seems reasonable to me to require mobile operators -- as a condition for siting cell towers throughout a community -- to provide basic service to users who can't afford it."

Pardon me for saying this, but I think most municipal governments would chew off their arms rather than give up a sheckel of the loot they extort from the cell phone companies for the right to build towers.  They are unlikely to give up the loot in particular to help poor people get cell phones.  Still and all...

McConnell should get high marks for a good idea.  He begins with the premise that public-private partnerships could be a good idea in the cell phone market, and that expanded use of data on cell phones would be helpful to some poor people.  He even takes the tech community to task -- rightly, IMHO -- for its arrogance:

"Most of us who read this site take communication for granted, and frankly, have a warped view of what people outside the tech industry need. Talk to a tradesperson or someone who falls under the category of the "working poor" and you'll get a much different view of what's important (things like an affordable place to live, basic services, the means to find work and get things done)."

But McConnell's idea suffers from the same major flaw as arguments for municipal Wi-Fi.  It's based on wishful thinking, not on data.  McConnell must know that even poor families already have cell phones, and that plans exist to help them with "lifeline" services.  Likewise, I don't think that the problem is that people can't get reasonably-priced plans for mobile communication, even if they involve pre-paid phones.

The problem remains literacy, and computer literacy.  All the infrastructure in the world won't help if Johnny can't read.  And that's the crushing problem that is holding back the national adoption of broadband, more than any other single factor.  Not deployment.  Not cost.  Not competition.

Literacy.

McConnell is on the right track -- public private partnerships, helping poor people become economically independent, and helping them to upgrade to better plans as they can afford them.  He should be encouraged to take the next steps to flesh out his ideas with more and better data.

And if they are thinking clearly, the mobile communication companies will help fund that effort.

The OECD has again released a ranking of broadband penetration worldwide, and once again the United States is ranked 15th in the world, somewhere slighly below the Grandy Duchy of Luxembourg. 

You can already hear the gears grinding.  Disreputable blog sites are gearing up to use this factoid to again attack America's broadband industry.  Pundits are pontificating, politicians are blustering, and the lunatics on the left are again DEMANDING that the government seize control of broadband -- or at least tie it up in 19th Century-style regulations.  Woe is U.S., again.

But before this nonsense goes to far, will someone please actually read what the report says, instead of simply swallowing the OECD press release?  Because even the most cursory glance at the data would make any rational person ask, "Are they just making this stuff up?"  And the answer, sadly, is "Yes."

Here's what's interesting about the OECD data:

• It measures broadband adoption, not deployment.  The data presented isn't about where broadband reaches, but rather how many people are subscribing to the services.  Even then...
• The U.S. data is not from December of 2007, as advertised, but from 2003.  Strangely, when it comes to the data for household subscriptions to broadband, the figure is frozen at the 2003 levels of fewer than 20 million.  But it gets even worse...
• It's not even data.  The U.S. figures were, according to the authors, an "OECD estimation based on company reporting."  You have to wonder what company data they used, since current US estimates are that some 60 percent of the 105 million US households now have broadband.  But then...
• They fudge the figures.  The OECD numbers allow Korea to include people whose broadband access is via cell phone, but the US numbers don't include that.  Nor do they include the nearly 12 percent of the U.S. online population -- that would be another 7-million plus Americans -- who use Wi-Fi connections.  Include some things, don't include others, and voila!  The next thing you know, lower Botswana will have better broadband penetration than the U.S.

The rest of the so-called data is equally bad.  When they compare prices from country to country, they allow some countries to use figures that include long-term discounts that don't generally apply in the U.S.  And they fail to note where countries heavily subsidize the cost of broadband to artificially make their numbers look better.

The OECD itself -- feeling bee-stung by the tidal wave of criticism for its bogus "reports," has coyly noted in the report that the information should not be used to make conclusions about public policy, and that the report may contain some inaccuracies.  But you won't find any such statements in press release touting the report, or in the "conclusions" it presents that urge governments to push for "competition" and "open access." Those latter recommendations, it may be noted, are based entirely on the political prejudices of whoever wrote the news release -- the recommendations are neither mentioned nor supported in the data.

The OECD study is junk science, but it does provide an opportunity to remind those of us working in broadband public policy of three key rules:

1. Some people just plain hate America, and will use any bogus data or flimsy excuse to humiliate this country on the world stage -- or worse, encourage us to adopt really, really bad policies -- in order to gain some advantage over us on the world stage.  I would hate to think this applies to the OECD, but one has to wonder why, year after year, they continue to flaunt phony studies with bad conclusions that make the U.S. appear to be something other than a world leader in broadband.
2. News releases announcing studies almost never match the data.  The Wall Street Journal concluded this in an article last fall, noting that in nearly 90 percent of cases they studied the data did not support the conclusions reached in the news releases. 
3. It's about adoption, not deployment.  The United States clearly has some work to do to bring the rest of our population online.  But we won't achieve that by focusing on broadband deployment, or by continuing to attack broadband infrastructure companies.  We can only do that by addressing the reasons why some people aren't using the Internet -- primarily lack of education, lack of computing skills and a lifestyle in which Internet access is not relevant.

The knee-jerk pundits and politicians who can't be bothered to actually read the studies, or who base their positions on press releases and bluster, will eventually look as silly as they truly are.  We can only hope that happens before they adopt needless, destructive and badly-written legislation that may actually make our national broadband as bad as the OECD studies try to make us appear.

I'm perplexed about Universal Service.

On one hand, it has achieved wonders in ensuring that Americans everywhere have reasonable access to necessary telecommunications service, and has helped to make our telecom the envy of the world.

On the other hand, it is a bloated, fraud-ridden, poorly designed, hidden tax on consumers that is desperately in need of reform and rethinking.  Whether we expand it, kill it, roll it up or roll it down, something clearly needs to be done.

I'm equally perplexed, therefore, about what to think of the FCC's decision to cap funding for rural cell phone support while it and the Congress mull a more permanent reform strategy.

Capping the runaway expenditures is clearly a relief for consumers -- particularly those who don't benefit from rural cell phone deployment but must nonethless foot the bill for it.  It likewise benefits telecomm companies who are busy deploying in less rural areas and shouldn't have to sacrifice their time and money to serve markets they don't serve.

But then there is the question of broadband.

Cellular service in rural areas is often accompanied by deployment of 3G broadband services, and this is creating a quiet revolution in rural broadband.  Where you still cannot get a cable modem connection or DSL, you can often get an HSDPA or EVDO signal.  And while this is still first-generation stuff, advances like EVDO Rev. A are making it better every day.

Cellular broadband is reaching the unreachable.  It is delivering higher speeds, greater competition and more reliable Internet service to rural areas in ways that can truly deliver on the promise of broadband in the very near future.  But getting there will take a lot of investment -- much of which can't easily be justified to private investors or corporate shareholders.  And that is exactly the kind of situation Universal Service was intended to address in the first place.

On reflection, I don't have a problem with capping cell phone expenditures in the short term, if for no other reason than to help keep costs from running even further away.  But in doing so, I'd like to see more acknowledgment of the value of cellular broadband for rural America, and some commitment to ensure that it gets its fair share of attention as well as scrutiny.

Here's the sad truth about the self-styled consumer groups, the "progressive" think tanks and others pushing the network neutrality agenda:  they could care less about about truth, fairness or neutrality.  They just don't want to lose their status and money.

Because if we really allow a free and competitive market to sort out possible neutrality problems, and empower consumers to think and act for themselves, what do we need those guys for?  Well, nothing.  And that's the crux of the matter.

I don't live and breath the NN debate, nor do I take time away from working on the fuel system of my 1987 Gold Wing Interstate motorcylce worrying about what outrageous blather these guys and their henchmen at FreePress.org and MoveOn.Org will do next.  What they do will be shown as nonsense in coming weeks, but the erratic fuel system on my motorcycle could prevent me from enjoying the skyline of the Blue Ridge Mountains this summer.  One has to have priorities in life.

But I am struck by some of the idiocracies that seem to come almost daily now:

• Google helped to champion the NN debate by proclaiming that no content provider's traffic should recieve special treatment by being moved over special, more reliable networks.  And yet Google does exactly that, using the private Akamai network to move its content.
• NN advocates screamed long and loud -- and demanded immediate FCC action -- over Verizon's initial decision not to carry policitical text messages related to abortion.  The media went ballistic, pundits raised a howl, FCC petitions were launched, etc.  Yet this week, when a UK group sued Google for not allowing their anti-abortion message to be advertised on Google's search engine, no one raised a peep.  Not one.  So much for their  commitment to neutrality.
• One of the foundation stones of the NN movement is that America has fallen behind in broadband deployment (though in truth, the OECD data showing the US in 14th place was based on adoption rates, which are different from deployment rates).  The OECD data was trumpeted by every left-wing, anti-American, anti-broadband web site in the galaxy.  This week, a better and truly independent study that showed the US to be 4th in the world in its broadband infrastructure and getting better every day was announced by the World Economic Forum, and few so-called tech media outlets could be bothered to mention it.  (CNet and the New York Times did, to their credit.  Not much of anyone else.)

There's a political agenda at work here, and a nasty one.  The truth is being ignored, so that "progressive" liberal sites can hold on to what little power they have and can do their best to dismantle and destroy what is universally recognized as the best and most effective broadband infrastructure in the world.

Shame on them.  They do an injustice to those liberals who truly want the best for our nation.  They do an injustice to the thousands of broadband companies and workers who have worked long hours and invested billions of dollars in this country's infrastrucutre.  And they mightily underestimate the intelligence of the Congress, the government employees and the consumers who aren't buying their smoke and mirrors.

And shame on us, for not speaking up against it more often.  

I don't much care for what passes as research these days, particularly when it relates to the Internet.  So much of it is pure hooey, sloppily manufactured in order to give credence to some political point of view -- as when the net neutrality crowd claims that consumers don't support tiered pricing, or when a report claims that there are hundreds of thousands of predators online at any given time.  The first time someone asks to see the source data that documents this nonsense, it collapses.

Other research is simply tail chasing.  That is, the survey asks people for their opinion rather than measuring fact.  There is a lot of that online today, particularly when we survey people about whether broadband is being deployed quickly enough.  One has to wonder why the answer would be the subjective opinion of someone who may or may not know anything about the subject, when we can simply apply quantitative measures.

Whatever the reasons, nearly all of the research that makes headlines is junk.  I know this because my many years of post-graduate work in education and business have included a staggering number of classes in research and statistical analysis.  But it's also not just my opinion -- it has been noted extensively by publications that include the Wall Street Journal and scientific journals.  The problem is that surveys and studies are pushed out into the blogosphere or front pages as fact -- with no peer review, no evaluation of the design of the study, and no application of statistical analysis to the results.

But sometimes there is also a glimmer of a fact that bears consideration and further research.

Last week, Burst Media reported a survey of more than 13,000 web users 18 years and older about their views on the availability of age focused online content, website design, and targeted online advertising.

The conclusion: a majority of Internet users 45 years and older believe online content is focused on younger age segments and does not meet their needs.  In fact, within this age segment only one in three (35.4%) believe online content is focused on people their own age. Few respondents 55 years and older say Internet content is primarily focused on people their age.

I do not know how good the Burst Media data is -- there is no source data provided, so it could simply be more pablum.  But I am inclined to think it may have a glimmer of fact in it, because it is consistent with data collected over the past decade by the Pew Internet and American Life project that shows as many as one-fourth of Americans avoid using the Internet because it is not relevant to their lives.  A 2007 study by Pew's John Horrigan found only about 8 percent of the population avidly uses technology in their lives, and half use it only occasionally.

Roughly one-third of the population is over the age of 45, and the median age is 36.9 years.  That doesn't bode well for an industry obsessed with youth, social networks, music downloading, television over the Internet and ads focused on young people -- particularly since the percentage of older Americans is growing.

This is awkward.  We've spent so many years assuming that the "digital divide" was the result of some greedy and nefarious plotting by network operators that we never considered that the real villain could be an Internet that is boring and irrelevant to a major chunk of the population.  If this is true, the majority of politicians and pundits working on broadband issues may have spent the better part of a decade chasing myths.  And a majority of leading Internet companies are following strategies that may lead them straight to the poorhouse.

Of course, none of this may hold up under real scientific scrutiny.  But before we rush off to craft a national broadband policy, as so many are demanding that we do without delay, we ought to find out.  Because the Internet is so closely tied to our national economy and culture that we can't afford to rush off half-cocked.  For the sake of our seniors, our minority members, and consumers as a whole, we need more research before we leap to conclusions.

If the research holds true, we'll need to do some serious re-tooling of the economic model of the Internet.  Diversify the advertising so that it appeals more to seniors and minorities.  Clean up the sloppy mess that passes for news and information.  Find out what the other half of America wants and needs from its Internet experience, and take steps to provide it to them.  Shore up security so that banking online and health online -- two areas of special interest to those over 45 -- can be done without fear of identity theft or blackmail.

We'll have to stop this incessant bickering over imaginary threats and begin to work on real ones.  We'll have to kick the money-changers out of the Temple, stop pandering to the lowest common denominator, and tell most of the self-styled consumer advocates to take a hike.

At least, that's what this doddering old guy thinks.

I grow weary of the "Woe-Is-US" crowd.  You know, the progressives and pundits so desperate to find fault with the United States that they have spent the past five years trashing our broadband deployment efforts and demanding that we mandate the kind of heavy-handed, draconian regulation that nearly killed the railroads in the 19th Century.

But as William Shakespeare noted in the Merchant of Venice: "Truth will out."

While the "Woe-Is-US" crowd was busy chasing the OECD rankings and wailing about how truly awful everything is here in America, calmer heads were working to determine where the trouble spots were occurring and how we might remedy them.  We knew that our data was insufficient to the task, and that we has best proceed with caution lest we create unintended consequences.  We also knew that with the level of private investment occurring in the broadband markets, and the number of competitors ramping up with lower costs and higher speeds, the OECD rankings couldn't possibly be painting a realistic picture of broadband in the US.

New and better data is starting to emerge, and it's not painting the doom-and-gloom scene you might expect:

• Last week, the National Telecommunications Information Administration issued its "Networked Nation: Broadband in America" study concluding that the objective of affordable access to broadband nationwide -- as stated by President Bush in 2004 -- has been realized "to a very great degree."  The NTIA report drew heavily on an FCC study showing that 99 percent of all US zip codes receive broadband service from at least one provider, and more than 80 percent have at least four high-speed providers offering service. Critics have consistently held that the zip code data is misleading, and the NTIA conceded that more work needs to be done regarding deployment, but that the broadband picture is much rosier than studies to date would have you believe.  I'll add another note that your don't see quoted much:  Maybe the zip code data isn't useless at all.  A study by the Huntington, West Virginia Department of Business and Economic Research found in 2005 that Appalachina businesses in zip code areas in which there was a broadband provider saw productivity gains of between 14 and 17 percent.  Direct correlation that validates at least some of the FCC data.
• Also last week came an analysis from John Horigan of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  Pew notes that the data showing the US lagging in broadband may not be accurate because government assessment capabilities are inadequate.  Horrigan notes that in rural areas in particular, local governments simply don't have the tools to develop a valid snapshot of broadband deployment or adoption. 
• Finally this week, Connectivity Scorecard (CS) released a report not on how countries are utilizing telecommunications technologies to improve social and economic prosperity.   CS, created by London Business School professor Leonard Waverman, measures countries on 30 different indicators. The
  US topped the rankings, followed by Japan and Canada. South Korea, which normally ranks at or near the top in any Internet study, finished in the middle of the pack. Researchers attribute this to the US usage of technology to increase productivity, while South Korea's usage is not predominantly corporate in nature but consumer applications for entertainment purposes.  The study notes that the top-ranking United States, which has benefited the most from ICT, was rated below 7 out of 10, mostly due to weak usage of vast broadband networks, indicating there is room for improvement for all countries. "These results indicate an opportunity for countries to add hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefit by rethinking how they measure and enable connectivity," the study said.
  

Finally, we are beginning to understand that the problem may not be with deployment but with adoption.  That is, publicly berating broadband providers because of low adoption rates may be a ploy to push political agendas for network neutrality, open access and mandated terms of service.  When in fact we are doing just fine deploying the infrastructure but need to focus more attention on why there are no applications that are driving greater adoption among some segments of the consumering public; on why people do not have the computer skills and literacy to make use of the Internet; and why some people just don't feel the Internet will ever be relevant to their lives.