Broadband in Greenland: How non-neutral traffic management betters society

[Commentary] At first glance, it might seem that there is little to learn from the experience of a state-owned broadband network with data caps on DSL. When it comes to delivering important social services in remote areas, however, Greenland is an interesting case study. The country’s harsh climate and dispersed population have forced prioritization in the management of the network, showing that even when resources are extremely limited, choices that maximize benefits for society can still be made. Despite its geographic challenges, Greenland’s Internet penetration rate tops 90 percent. State-owned TELE Greenland delivers unique and vital telecommunications infrastructure in an extreme environment. Traditional fixed line telephony and ADSL are available to essentially everyone on the island. 3G mobile coverage is available in all cities, and 4G/LTE is available in major cities. However, ensuring the delivery of important social service goes beyond application design. By necessity, it has required TELE Greenland to manage and prioritize Internet traffic through the use of data caps, effectively limiting transmission of less socially valuable content, like the streaming of video entertainment. As such, volume-based pricing is offered on fixed broadband.

When a subscriber hits the data limit, the connection is throttled or slowed. The cap is in place so that heavy users do not monopolize the network to the detriment of others. These practices also allow TELE Greenland to recover extremely high capital and operating costs to build and maintain networks. To be sure, users who want to stream video can pay for a package with a higher speed and data cap. The key lesson from Greenland for the US is that constraints, whether climate, cost or distance, can drive efficient application design and delivery. In order to get the most from limited network resources, we should think like the Greenlanders.

[Layton studies Internet economics at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark.]