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Report praises US Internet service, rebuts criticism
The United States has made "rapid progress" in expanding access and reducing costs for broadband Internet service, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.
The study rebuts the findings of the Federal Communications Commission and academics such as Susan Crawford, who argue that the U.S. lags behind other countries in providing cheap, high-speed Internet service.
The authors write that critics of U.S. Internet service cite studies that "are out-of-date, poorly-focused, and/or analytically deficient."
They argue that it is unfair to compare costs in the U.S. to countries like South Korea, which are smaller and more urban, making it cheaper to build networks.
The authors claim that U.S. consumers enjoy "robust" competition for Internet service, and the country leads the world in the adoption of next-generation 4G cellular technology.
"While some critics selectively point to some very limited high performance broadband offerings in a few scattered foreign cities in an effort to prove that the United States trails Europe in broadband, the facts strongly suggest otherwise," the authors write.
ITIF is a nonprofit foundation whose board is made up of representatives from industry as well as former government officials.
In a report issued last year, the FCC concluded that broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a "reasonable and timely fashion." The government report found that 19 million Americans, many of them in rural areas, still lack access to broadband Internet.
Crawford, a former special assistant to President Obama and professor at Cardozo Law School, has gained attention for her recent book, Captive Audience. She argues that the government has allowed a handful of cable companies to monopolize the Internet industry, leading to slow speeds and high costs.
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