100 Megabits or Bust!

Washington, D.C.--Today the New America Foundation's Open Technology released 100 Megabits or Bust! An Overview of National Broadband Goals from Around the Globe, a report on the successful broadband goals of Japan, Korea, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Taiwan. This report demonstrates the viability of not only reaching universal broadband access, but also reaching the speeds that will allow for continued leadership in the growth and innovation of the Internet.

"Countries that set substantive broadband speed goals have achieved far faster speeds than we have here in the United States," commented Sascha Meinrath, Director of the Open Technology Initiative.  "The lesson that should be learned is clear and has profound implications for U.S. broadband policy: countries that set their sights high have excelled.  While more and more countries are aiming for '100Mbps or bust' the United States hasn't even set a goal 1/100th as fast." 

The report highlights the broadband goals of six technology-advanced countries and their recent achievements providing universal access to broadband speeds from a low of 2 Mbps downstream to 100 Mbps symmetric speeds.

"The FCC has a five month deadline to finalize its National Broadband Plan and universal access needs to the first step," said James Losey, Program Associate with the Open Technology Initiative and co-author of the report. "Other nations have already achieved universal access and speeds of 100Mbps; with the proper commitment, so can the United States." 

"Defining broadband using higher minimum speeds is certainly one of the key factors to ensure better and higher quality of broadband services--this is one of the lessons we learned from analyzing other nations' broadband strategies and plans," explained Chiehyu Li, Program Associate at the Open Technology Initiative and the report's lead author. "The U.S. is clearly falling behind other countries in terms of broadband services. If we want to achieve high penetration rates with ultra high-speed Internet, this is the time to reconsider setting higher goals in the forthcoming National Broadband Plan."

The report,100 Megabits or Bust!, can be found online at: http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/100_megabits_or_bust
 
Please contact Kate Brown with media requests at 202-596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.

About the Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. For more information, visit, http://www.newamerica.net/programs/oti.

About the New America Foundation
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. 

Learn More About: Chiehyu Li, James Losey, Sascha Meinrath
Related Programs: Open Technology Initiative , Wireless Future Program
Topics: Telecom & Technology