The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) released a new study today on broadband policy at the National Press Club in Washington. The report, titled “Explaining International Broadband Leadership”, looks at policies in nine nations and finds that, while we shouldn’t look to other nations for silver bullets or assume that practices in one nation will automatically work in another, U.S. policymakers should look to broadband best practices in other nations.  Learning the right lessons and emulating the right policies will enable the United States to improve our broadband performance.

The broadband leadership study, which I co-authored with ITIF’s Daniel K. Correa and Julie A. Hedlund, put forth a number of key lessons for American policymakers:

• Leadership matters. Nations with robust national broadband strategies fare better than those without.

• Incentives matter.  Because it is expensive for operators to deploy broadband networks, many countries have provided financial incentives.

• Competition matters.  In contrast to those who promote unbundling of networks as the key factor in national success, the report finds that different forms of competition have their strengths and weaknesses and national environments largely influence which mode of competition is best for a specific country.

• Demand-side policies matter.  Given that only around two-thirds of Americans have a computer at home, even the most robust supply-side policies will not produce universal broadband usage.

• Speed matters.  With broadband take-up rates increasing in most nations and with the advent of a host of next-generation applications that demand faster networks, broadband speeds are important when assessing a nation’s progress. 

While our report finds that policies are important in determining nations’ broadband performance, it also finds that “environmental” factors play a role.  For example, the fact that over 50 percent of South Koreans live in large, multi-tenant apartment buildings makes it easier for them to deploy high-speed broadband than it is across the vast geography of the United States.

We point out in the report that too many advocates in the broadband debates look overseas for the perfect broadband model to import.  But given the significant differences in economic, social, geographic and political factors between nations, many of these experiences are not readily transferred from one nation to another.

For example, a major reason why Japan leads the world in high speed fiber-optic deployment is that its companies, in particular the partially government-owned incumbent telecom provider Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, face significantly
less pressure from capital markets for short-term profits. As a result, unlike in the United States, it’s easier to invest in expensive fiber deployments. So while we can and should learn from other nations’ broadband policies and performance, in the end we have to find our own way and develop policies that fit U.S. needs and conditions.

Finally, the report argues that it is time to focus public policies on the primary goal of getting as many American households using high-speed broadband networks to engage in all sorts of online activities, including education, health care, work, commerce, and interacting with their government. 

This new report on broadband leadership concludes that nations that make broadband a priority, coordinate across agencies, put real resources behind promoting both supply and demand – fare better than those without.

About Us
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is a nonprofit, non-partisan public policy think tank committed to articulating and advancing a pro-productivity, pro-innovation and pro-technology public policy agenda internationally, in Washington and in the states. Through its research, policy proposals, and commentary, ITIF is working to advance and support public policies that boost innovation, e-transformation and productivity.