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Measuring Broadband Usage Accurately
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"If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!"
The statistics that Oftel gathers and publishes on a quarterly basis do not measure UK broadband usage accurately. Oftel gathers only national statistics on the two major "Last Mile" types of broadband usage – ADSL and cable modem access. It then adds the usage numbers for these two together and then proclaims that total UK broadband usage is in excess of that number – a brilliant deduction! This certainly simplifies the task of collecting broadband statistics for Oftel but it does little to inform us as to what the usage for other types of broadband access (satellite broadband, Wi-Fi etc.) are or tell us how quickly or where that usage may be growing. To compound the statistics problem, Oftel is counting as "broadband usage" slower speed always-on Internet access technologies which fall short of Oftel’s defined minimum broadband standard of 256 Kbps (e.g. NTL’s 128 Kbps service which has recently been upgraded to 150 Kbps). Oftel’s explanation for this is that other European countries (and ones further abroad no doubt) do this as well so Oftel is "for the sake of statistical conformity" required to collect broadband statistics on the same exaggerated basis. The UK press has soundly criticised this practice as this article well illustrates.
ABC urges Oftel to dramatically improve the quality of the broadband usage statistics it gathers by:
- Gathering statistics by major categories of data transfer speeds. The breaking out of user numbers for the 128 Kbps to 255 Kbps range will allow Oftel and the public to determine how many "broadband" subscribers are in fact not getting true broadband. Categories for higher speeds are important as well for more accurately assessing how quickly the UK is migrating to higher speed services as compared to other countries such as Korea, Japan and Canada that are more advanced in this.
- Gathering statistics for all "Last Mile" technology categories as defined in our Technologies section. This is particularly important for monitoring the growth in rural broadband services which are likely to be offered via wireless rather than wired technologies.
- Gathering statistics by UK geographic region. This is needed to measure how widely used broadband is throughout the entire country.
- Gathering statistics by urban and rural usage categories and income levels. This is needed to more accurately measure the broadband digital divide to see what progress is being made in bridging it.
Should Oftel suggest that the above improvements would be great, but they are too difficult and expensive to accomplish, we simply point to the example set by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission which gathers and publishes more detailed broadband usage statistics than Oftel does.
News coverage of this Issue: Oftel urged to improve its broadband stats ZDNet UK News 2 June 2003
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