Latest OECD broadband statistics highlight NZ data caps
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Posted Sun 24 May 2009 @ 1:31 p.m. by Ernie Newman
Right at the moment when the OECD released its broadband statistics for the December 2008 year last Wednesday, I was lucky to be hearing the detail straight from the horse's mouth.
Dr Sam Paltridge, Communications Analyst at the OECD, spoke at the INTUG/BELTUG meeting I attended in Brussels. Sam is an Australian who has worked for the OECD in Paris for many years and is a world authority on broadband trends. His Aussie roots mean he takes special interest in our corner of the world.
So with the benefit of Sam's inside knowledge and interpretation I picked up several trends in the New Zealand figures, good and bad.
The best, undoubtedly, is that New Zealand's year-on-year uptake increase is among the world leaders. Only Slovakia and Greece increased their penetration faster than we did last year - we went up by 3.77% against the OECD average of 2.56%. Sure, late starters like us have a statistical advantage in this kind of measure, but its still a good place to be.
Another interesting figure is the comparison between broadband uptake and GDP. As a country we are ahead of the pack on that basis. Encouraging, in that if one assumes uptake of the technology should be a predictor of the economic gain that flows from it, New Zealand is well positioned. And there's mounting evidence of such a link.
The worst indicator for New Zealand is our comparative position with data caps, a problem we share with the Aussies. As this chart shows, New Zealand remains one of just 4 OECD countries where data caps are universal. After us there are 10 countries where some plans have data caps and others don't, while in the remaining 16 countries "data cap" is not part of the vocabulary.
Sure, we can make excuses about isolation. But the reality is that the world is becoming more bit-hungry and not less. There needs to be a definitive look at the reasons for data caps, possibly in conjunction with the Australians. After that we need a plan to deal with it before the proliferation of high-bandwidth content goes too much further and the issue becomes a really serious deterrent to Internet usage.
All in all though, this is an encouraging report. It's so good these days to be able to sit through a presentation like that as a Kiwi without having to cringe! We are starting to punch in accordance with our broadband weight, if not yet ahead of it.
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