2010 International Broadband Data Report

On August 27, the Federal Communications Commission released its first International Broadband Data Report as required by the Broadband Data Improvement Act (BDIA). The report presents data and information on international broadband service capability.

The BDIA requires the FCC to, among other things, include in its annual broadband deployment report "information comparing the extent of broadband service capability (including data transmission speeds and price for broadband service capability) in a total of 75 communities in at least 25 countries abroad for each of the data rate benchmarks for broadband service utilized by the FCC to reflect different speed tiers." For this comparison, the BDIA directs the FCC to choose international communities comparable to U.S. communities with respect to population size, population density, topography, and demographic profile. The FCC is also directed to include "a geographically diverse selection of countries" and "communities including the capital cities of such countries." The FCC must also identify a number of specific similarities and differences in each community, including "their market structures, the number of competitors, the number of facilities-based providers, the types of technologies deployed by such providers, the applications and services those technologies enable, the regulatory model under which broadband service capability is provided, the types of applications and services used, business and residential use of such services, and other media available to consumers."