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 PRESS RELEASE (final)
High-Quality Broadband Essential to Growth of the World’s KnowledgeEconomies
 New Study Evaluates Nations´ Readiness to Support Next-Generation Video and Web Services
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, Sept 12, 2008 – The results of a new study into the quality of broadband connections experienced by consumers in 42 countries were released today to highlight eachnation’s current ability to benefit from next-generation web applications and services. The study,focusing on countries in Europe, North America, theOrganization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment(OECD), Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs), was conducted by a team of MBAstudents from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo’sDepartment of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco.Sweden and The Netherlands had the best performing broadband connections in Europe, a result of increasing investments in fiber and cable network upgrades, coupled with competition diversity, andsupported by strong government vision and policy. Over half of the 42 countries studied enjoyedbroadband connections at the level of performance required to deliver a consistent quality experiencefor most common web applications today, but some major countries such as the UK, Spain and Italy onaverage fell just below this threshold. Japan, a nation that made an early commitment to investing inbroadband as a source of competitive advantage, had by far the highest Broadband Quality score of the42 countries studied and was the only country currently prepared to deliver the quality required fornext-generation web applications over the next 3 to 5 years.“The Broadband Quality study was developed on the premise that the new generation of webapplications will rely on a higher level of performance of broadband connections,” explained AlastairNicholson from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. “Average download speeds areadequate for web browsing, email and basic video downloading and streaming, but we are seeing moreinteractive applications, more user-generated content being uploaded and shared, and an increasingamount of high-quality video services becoming available. Moreover, because the study also foundsignificantcorrelation between a nation’s broadband quality and its advancement as a knowledgeeconomy
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, policy makers may need to consider how to create an environment to improve keybroadband performance parameters in the future.”
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Based on the World Bank’s Knowledge Economy Index which measures how each country uses knowledge efficiently todevelop its economy
 
“The broadband gap can no longer be seen as a penetration divide,” Professor María Rosalía Vicentefrom University of Oviedo pointed out. “It is also a quality and capacity divide, and therefore, a dividein the range of services people can access and use.”Using nearly eight million records from actual broadband speed tests conducted by users around theworld during the month of May throughwww.speedtest.net, the research team calculated statisticalaverages for each country of several key performance parameters used to determine the quality of abroadband connection. The team concluded that broadband experience is mainly affected by broadbandspeeds in both directions, latency, network oversubscription, and packet loss. These parameters weregrouped into three major categories:
download 
and
upload 
throughput, and
latency
. The BroadbandQuality Score (BQS) for each country was determined using a formula that weighted each categoryaccording to the quality requirements of a set of popular applications now and in the future. Typicalapplications for today include web browsing, social networking, music downloads, basic videostreaming and video chatting, standard definition IPTV, and enterprise-class home offices. Futureapplications include consumer telepresence for communications, healthcare and education, high-qualityvideo file sharing and streaming, high-definition IPTV, cinema-quality live event broadcasts andadvanced home automation.“By using actual broadband-quality test results, the research team has given us a fresh insight into whatusers around the world are really experiencing and whether they can look forward to enjoying newapplications,” said Fernando Gil de Bernabé, managing director at Cisco’s Internet Business SolutionsGroup. “A nation’s leadership in broadband was typically determined by its ranking on penetration,and now we know that this will not be enough. This study gives broadband stakeholders, fromgovernments through to telecom and cable operators and vendors like Cisco, as well as consumers, abetter understanding of the importance of quality broadband connections. Without high-qualitybroadband, we will not be able to take full advantage of the next wave of productivity, collaborationand entertainment that can be gained from the web.”Fig. 1: Summary of Broadband Quality scores by country.
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