NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — South Korea leads the world in providing broadband services, according to a study released on Thursday. The United States did not make the top 10.
South Korea dramatically improved the speed, quality and availability of its Internet service in 2009, pushing past Japan, the former worldwide leader, according to a team of business students from the University of Oxford in England and the University of Oviedo in Spain.

The study, sponsored by Cisco, examined 66 countries and 240 cities. Broadband leadership was measured by various factors, including the number of wired households, where South Korea scored 97%. Hong Kong, which was rated number three in overall broadband leadership, had an even higher penetration, at 99%.

In terms of overall leadership, Hong Kong was followed by Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Singapore, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway.

The United States did not make the list’s top 10, even though it made “significant, above average improvements” in quality, the study said.

In terms of broadband Internet quality, the U.S. lags behind not only Sweden, which leads Europe, but the island nations of Malta and Iceland, and the former Soviet Bloc country of Lithuania.

The top three cities with the best overall broadband services — Yokohama, Nagoya and Sapporo — were all in Japan, the study said.

Japan also led the way for providing quality services outside major cities. But the study showed that the biggest digital quality divide between urban and rural areas was in Lithuania, Russia and Latvia.

“The Broadband Quality Study shows us which countries have made real moves towards the Internet of the future,” said Professor Maria Rosalia Vicente of the University of Oviedo, in a written statement. “It also provides fresh evidence of the urban-versus-rural quality divide. The challenge for countries now is to bridge this quality divide.”

The study’s researchers judged broadband quality by measuring upload and download speeds, network latency and capacity. For their benchmarking, they tested out typical applications used today such as video streaming, Web browsing and social networking. But they also took a look at which countries have the broadband quality necessary for handling future applications, like high definition Internet television and video communications, which they expect to become common in the next three to five years.

That list features nine countries, including the leaders South Korea, Japan and Sweden, as well as former Soviet nations Lithuania, Bulgaria and Latvia. The U.S. didn’t make the cut.

The early read on the bids is that – even given the staggering amount of funding,  $7.2 billion – it *will still not be enough* to reach all of the 20+ million rural locations targeted in government estimates nor dies it stimulate our industry with new jobs and exportable products.  And, as discussed in our last blog, the government is still uncertain about exactly how many locations are not served by broadband today. Part of the funding allocates $350 million just to map all of the unserved locations throughout the U.S.

In other words:

• The government is unsure of the amount and locations of the estimated 20+ million locations;
• The current round of funding requests greatly exceeds the $7.2 billion and cannot serve the estimated amount of locations entirely;
• The only solution seems to be to extend wireline networks or build out otherwise-unprofitable wireless networks on backbone networks lacking the capacity to support the increased bandwidth requirements.

Our company has a breakthrough technology that will obviate most of these costs, but let’s consider different  important factor in this: backbone networks. How, after extending the “last mile” to rural locations, will the DSL service providers or wireless access providers deal with the increase in backbone traffic? Consider the fact that the cellular companies today spend in excess of $2 billion backhauling cellular traffic from the 180,000 wireless base stations in the U.S. The Cellco’s are under enormous economic pressure to upgrade their backhaul and backbone networks since the explosion in digital content (think iPhones, etc.) The existing copper networks need capital intensive upgrades to fiber optics just to keep pace with demand.

Which is why the government needs to consider funding for new access and transport technologies. When you look at the formal bid process for the stimulus funds, it is set up to serve DSL and other broadband service providers. There is a small amount allocated to “technology” but it seems to have been added as an afterthought, and the rules for application are vague, at best. We believe the government is missing an opportunity here.

Funding for broadband access and transport would both accelerate the development of new technologies and encourage outside sources to fund that very underserved segment of the industry. We at Xtendwave are aware of numerous other companies like ourselves whose technologies – properly funded – might solve many of the government’s challenges in broadband. But, we need help.

We are not criticizing the government – we applaud the efforts to achieve “broadband for all,” but we want to raise awareness that there is another way to do this: fund new technologies. After all, this industry was built on – and continues to grow on – new technologies that were funded years ago, when capital was plentiful. Someone needs to step into the void created by the lack of venture capital. The government is well-positioned to do just that, and the investment will be worthwhile: new technologies, new jobs, and a return of venture funding (i.e., economic growth) to *the* most vital segment of the telecom industry – new technology.

Trenching isn’t exportable, technology is!

$100 million question: Where’s broadband in US?

• By PETER SVENSSON and JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writers
• Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:12AM EDT

WASHINGTON -

The national stimulus package passed by Congress in February may have been too enthusiastic about spending money on one particular project: figuring out where broadband Internet access is available and how fast it is.

The $787 billion stimulus bill championed by the Obama administration set aside up to $350 million to create a national broadband map that could guide policies aimed at expanding high-speed Internet access. That $350 million tag struck some people in the telecommunications industry as excessive, compared with existing, smaller efforts. The map won’t even be done in time to help decide where to spend much of the $7.2 billion in stimulus money earmarked for broadband programs.

Now it appears the final cost won’t be as high as $350 million — though just how much it will be is unclear.

To ensure the mapping money is used “in a fiscally prudent manner,” the National Telecommunications and Information Administration signaled Wednesday it would initially spend more than $100 million, and then reassess the program.

The agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, said it has received requests for $107 million in funding for projects that would map broadband in individual states over the first two years. The states want another $26 million for various purposes over five years, including steps to encourage broadband demand. On top of that, the NTIA will have to spend more money to collate the statewide maps into a national one.

But while the map should run much less than the $350 million cap set by Congress, the total still looks like it will be far higher than estimates based on the costs of smaller mapping programs in individual states.

In North Carolina, for instance, state broadband authority e-NC spends at most $275,000 per year on maintaining a map of broadband availability in the state, detailed enough to list individual addresses, according to executive director Jane Smith Patterson.

Rory Altman, director at telecommunications consulting firm Altman Vilandrie & Co., which has helped clients map broadband availability in some areas, said $350 million was a “ridiculous” amount of money to spend on a national broadband map.

Even $100 million might be high. The firm could create a national broadband map for $3.5 million, and “would gladly do it for $35 million,” Altman said.

Dave Burstein, editor of the DSL Prime broadband industry newsletter, believes a reasonable cost for the map would be less than $30 million.

The map should reveal what most individuals already know: whether their homes can get broadband, and how fast it is. Officially, the goal for the map is to help shape broadband policy and determine where best to invest government funds. It may also help consumers shopping for Internet service.

However, the map won’t be ready in time to influence the first round of broadband grants and loans funded by the stimulus package. That money will start going out this fall. And the map likely won’t be finished before February’s scheduled release of a national broadband plan being developed by the Federal Communications Commission, which is also mandated by the stimulus bill.

About two-thirds of U.S. homes already have broadband. It’s available to many more, perhaps 90 percent of homes, but the figure is uncertain because of the lack of authoritative nationwide studies. The cable industry alone says it covers 92 percent of U.S. households.

When the Pew Internet and American Life Project surveyed people who didn’t have broadband in 2007 and 2008, it found that most of them aren’t interested in it, find the Internet too hard to use, or don’t have computers. Lack of available broadband was the third most common reason.

Still, there is concern that the U.S. is falling behind other countries in the reach and speed of its Internet connections, and that this might hinder economic growth. Advocates of expanding broadband also worry that some rural areas might never get high-speed Internet because service providers don’t see a payoff in extending their lines there.

Identifying those areas will be a major thrust of the mapping project. The maps will show broadband availability, type (phone or cable, for example) and speeds for each small cluster of homes, roughly equivalent to a city block in urban areas.

Each state’s grant for mapping will go to either a nonprofit or a government agency. Internet service providers have already committed to handing over data about where they have broadband coverage, so the main job will be to collect and translate that information into a map.

Mark Seifert, who is overseeing the broadband grant and mapping programs at the NTIA, offers several reasons why the federal government may spend proportionally more on mapping than some states. For one thing, he said, most efforts that have been done in states have focused on so-called “last-mile” connections that link homes and businesses with the broader infrastructure of the Internet. The NTIA also wants extensive data on that behind-the-scenes Internet infrastructure.

What’s more, since much of the mapping data will come from phone and cable companies, the NTIA wants the information to be independently verified — which could involve knocking on doors to confirm where broadband is and is not available and conducting other on-the-ground checks.

“You can spend less money on a map … but you get what you pay for,” he said. “Data costs money.”

Although the map will not be done in time to guide this round of broadband funding in the stimulus package, it could prove useful for later broadband deployment programs. And it could help set priorities in the years ahead for huge federal programs such as the Universal Service Fund and the Rural Utilities Service, which spend billions of dollars annually to subsidize telecom services.

In addition to the NTIA’s mapping project, there’s a parallel push at the FCC to gather more detailed data on broadband subscribers. Both efforts are designed to aid the Obama administration’s goal of “data-driven decision making” in setting telecom policy, said Colin Crowell, a senior counselor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

“There is a voracious appetite for all kinds of broadband data,” said Crowell, who helped write the broadband mapping legislation as a staffer on a House subcommittee overseeing telecommunications. “Policymakers have been wringing their hands for several years that we don’t have accurate data on broadband deployment and adoption.”

-The late, lamented William McGowan, father of the U.S. Telecommunications revolution-

“We hope he is not spinning his grave!”  Mort and Ian

This is the first posting – and temporary home – of Stimulate Telecom, a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to helping revive the once-mighty U.S. telecommunications industry. A permanent home on the Net – stimulatetelecom.us - will go live in mid-October and is privately funded by our company, Xtendwave. Our goal is to help revive the now dormant U.S. telecom industry, as well as capture the stories of the people who made the Internet revolution happen.

The blog will be co-written by me, Ian Dix, a 20+ year veteran of telecom, along with  Mort Aaronson, a former MCI executive, CEO of Richocet and financier extraordinaire, and by Dr. Dennis I. Robbins, former Vice President of Manufacturing for Texas Instruments and a successful technology entrepreneur.

Mort has successfully raised money to help fund small telecom startups over the past 7 years in a difficult financing environment, after a career as top executive in telecom utilities and high technology. He is credited with starting the first efforts at providing high speed service and bundled services to rural communities, and today serves as Chairman and CEO of Xtendwave, a company whose patented technology will create a “copper rebirth” by expanding capacity on copper access and backbone infrastructure. Mort will opine on the trends in government and private equity as it relates to telecom, and provide great insights and ideas for industry revival.

Dennis spent 24 years at Texas Instruments, where he rose through the ranks to run manufacturing operations for Texas Instrument’s Analog, Mixed Signal, and Volume Products IC businesses, with 10 factories worldwide, supporting $4 Billion a year in revenue, before retiring in 2001. Dennis has also managed numerous new technology ventures, and has served on the National Science Foundation’s SBIR review panels for 6 years. Today, Dennis serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Xtendwave.  Dennis will give his insights and ideas around the new and existing technologies related to telecommunications, as well as provide updates to business and government trends affecting those technologies.

I have served as the CMO of Broadwing, Qwest, and SVP of marketing for LCI International, as well as being blessed with 9 amazing years at MCI during its heyday. Today, I serve as the CMO of Xtendwave. I will be writing about the people, places, events, and opportunities within telecom historically and today.

To understand our goals, here is Stimulate Telecom’s manifesto:

“We, the employees and former employees of the U.S. telecommunications industry, along with the regional / rural service providers and new technology/service companies, hereby declare the creation of  Stimulate Telecom, a non-profit business and social action committee aimed at reviving the once dominant U.S. telecommunications industry. Our organization exists to provide an exchange of ideas and people that will help stimulate new investment in U.S. based telecommunications jobs, technologies and services by raising awareness of these companies and workers in the private equity and government funding communities. These programs will consist of outreach and information dissemination to the funding organizations based upon the knowledge and input provided by the group’s members. The organization will strive to participate in the shaping of regulatory and sustainable broadband policies as it relates to improving and revitalizing the U.S. telecommunications industry and restoring America’s role as the world leader in telecommunications products and services.”

StimulateTelecom’s  Main Positions are:

- We believe that the U.S. Telecommunications Industry today endures a dearth in new telecommunications technologies and services due to a  lack of venture capital and government funding. The Stimulate Telecom organization is aware of numerous smaller, more innovative technology and service companies who have survived in the midst of this lack of capital, but who – properly funded – could ignite a rebirth of our industry.
-We applaud the recent efforts of the U.S. government to stimulate rural broadband rollout through the Rural Broadband Initiative, and believe that the intended goals of the government – to create “broadband for all,” will be achieved. But, we also believe that such funding should be a starting point and that government funding partnered with public and private equity would help stimulate job growth, innovation, and competition throughout the industry.

-The Stimulate Telecom organization calls upon the private equity, venture capital and public market communities and government funding organizations to collaboratively engage with us in a dialogue about how investments in these new technology and service companies would result in a revival of the U.S. telecommunications industry and a return of the industry to its former position as a world leader.

We hope you will tell your story/add insights in the comments section below, read our blogs, sign up as a member of StimulateTelecom.us  in October, and contribute your time  to this worthy undertaking. Join us here under the Info Superhighway “underpass”  and tell your story, give your ideas, lend your knowledge. Together, we can rebuild the industry that we love…one feeder road at a time!

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