FCC publishes Global Broadband Study draft

berkman center In July the FCC announced that, in the context of a its own broadband planning, it had commissioned the Berkman Center to do a study of the state of broadband development worldwide.

A draft – Next Generation Connectivity:A review of broadband Internet transitions
and policy from around the world
– has just been published. The FCC is asking for comments before Nov 16.

Specifically, the Commission seeks comment on the following:

1. Does the study accomplish its intended purposes?
2. Does the study provide a complete and objective survey of the subject matter?
3. How accurately and comprehensively does the study summarize the broadband experiences of
other countries?
4. How much weight should the Commission give to this study as it develops a National Broadband
Plan?
5. Are additional studies needed along the lines of the Berkman study?
6. Please provide any other comments on the Berkman study that you deem relevant.

About joly

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2 thoughts on “FCC publishes Global Broadband Study draft

  1. A CircleID article notes the following excerpts:

    From the report:
    “Our most surprising and significant finding is that ‘open access’ policies—unbundling, bitstream access, collocation requirements, wholesaling, and/or functional separation—are almost universally understood as having played a core role in the first generation transition to broadband [dial-up to broadband] in most of the high performing countries; that they now play a core role in planning for the next generation transition [faster and always available connectivity]; and that the positive impact of such policies is strongly supported by the evidence of the first generation broadband transition.”

    Further more:
    “We find that in countries where an engaged regulator enforced open access obligations, competitors that entered using these open access facilities provided an important catalyst for the development of robust competition which, in most cases, contributed to strong broadband performance across a range of metrics.”

  2. An Arstechnica article notes the reports’s emphasis on open access – to the extent of recommending structural separation:

    “Contrary to perceptions in the United States, there is extensive evidence to support the position, adopted almost universally by other advanced economies, that open access policies, where undertaken with serious regulatory engagement, contributed to broadband penetration, capacity, and affordability in the first generation of broadband,” it says.

    In fact, “The lowest prices and highest speeds are almost all offered by firms in markets where, in addition to an incumbent telephone company and a cable company, there are also competitors who entered the market, and built their presence, though use of open access facilities.”

    and

    “We find that in countries where an engaged regulator enforced open access obligations, competitors that entered using these open access facilities provided an important catalyst for the development of robust competition which, in most cases, contributed to strong broadband performance across a range of metrics. Today these competitors continue to play, directly or through successor companies, a central role in the competitiveness of the markets they inhabit. Incumbents almost always resist this regulation, and the degree to which a regulator is professional, engaged, and effective appears to play a role in the extent to which open access is successfully implemented with positive effects.”

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