U.S. VERY CLOSE TO BROADBAND SATURATION,SAYS REPORT

摘要

The U.S. will reach a broadband saturation point in 2011 if current household adoption trends keep up, said Technology Policy Institute Senior Fellow Scott Wallsten, updating his 2008 report on international broadband comparisons. The U.S. is doing better on broadband than OECD rankings would lead one to believe, he said. Wallsten thinks countries' broadband penetration should be measured per household, rather than per capita as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development does, because the U.S. on average has larger households than do several higher-ranked OECD countries. The OECD ranks the U.S. 15th in adoption, but if measured per household, the U.S. would likely be between 8th and 10th place among OECD countries, Wallsten said. U.S. household penetration jumped to 63 percent in April 2009 from 47 percent in March 2007, he said. That's the same percentage that broadband leaders Canada and Norway had in December 2007, he said. "In other words, to the extent that the U.S. is behind the leaders in broadband penetration, it is behind only by months."