US Broadband Better Than Reflected in OECD Study, Says FCC Commissioner

A study about broadband adoption by the Phoenix Center is a better gage of United States deployment than the higher-profile reports of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Communications Commission member Deborah Taylor Tate said. The Phoenix Center study, unlike those of OECD, Commissioner Tate noted, considered the availability of wireless technologies known as Wi-Max and Wi-Fi, and hence provided more complete data about broadband. The US boasts more than 66,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, more than any other nation in the world, Commissioner Tate said. The Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies is an academic research organization supported in recent years by Bell telecommunications companies. In addition to failing account for the wireless technologies, the OECD does also not appropriately consider household sizes and broadband investments by schools and libraries within its figures, Commissioner Tate said. Although critical of OECD numbers, which show that America is in 15th place for broadband deployment among OECD member nations, she agreed that the U.S. has "room to improve."