Konova

Thursday, July 22, 2010

A Myth: Mobile Broadband User

It can be quite deceiving in the actual number of broadband penetration of each country. Certain countries wanted to be seen as a developed nation by declaring a high number of broadband penetration rate. What's the definition of a broadband user? For example, FCC, defined broadband as 768 kb/s download and 200 kb/s upload. If that's the definition, have we achieved this? In an attempt to declare the "number of broadband users", some telcos purposely provide the numbers below:-

  1. Migrating to 3G. In the early days of 3G introduction, it has been painfully slow to have users migrated to 3G. 2G subscribers are not willing to pay for the new 3G simcards. Thus, telcos subsidized the 3G simcards by giving out free 3G simcards. 
  2. 3G simcard but on 2G phones. But are these truly reflect "broadband" users when their 3G simcards works on the older 2G phones? 
  3. 3G simcard on 3G phone. What if they don't even subscribe to 3G data package?
  4. 3G simcard on 3G phone and subscribe to 3G data package but the speed is merely below the expected speed of 700 kb/s? Most of the time, when the telco offered them 1.2 Mb/s data package but the actual data throughput is well below 100 kb/s?
Finally, even if the telcos are able to provide the speed above 700kb/s download and 200 kb/s upload, how do we ensure that the subscribers are actually truly broadband user?

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