Below, please find Rep. Markey’s opening statement:

            Good morning.  Today’s hearing adds to the series of educational, oversight hearings which began with inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and which is designed to illuminate telecommunications policy issues for the Subcommittee this year.  This morning we have several distinguished witnesses to assist us in learning about international broadband deployment, competition, and consumer adoption.  I want to particularly thank the witnesses this morning who have traveled great distances from New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Japan, to testify.

It is clearly time for us to look beyond our borders in developing our nation’s broadband strategy.  While U.S. broadband adoption is certainly increasing and deployment continues, in international broadband rankings a nation must essentially run in order to stand still.  Relative to other countries, however, it appears as if America’s broadband penetration is stalling at “dial up” speed while other nations have developed national plans and are moving ahead. 

When the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) first ranked its 30 members nations on broadband penetration in 2000 – just 4 years after initial implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 -- the United States was ranked 4th . 

By 2004, the U.S. had dropped to 12th .

And as of yesterday, newly released data show the U.S. has dropped 3 more places to the number 15 spot on the list

Now, some will argue that rankings on broadband penetration don’t tell the whole story.  That’s true, because merely looking at broadband penetration does not highlight that broadband elsewhere also tends to be both significantly faster and far cheaper. 

Others may say that our panelists’ experiences cannot be replicated here in the U.S., based on differences in factors such as geography, population density, and telecommunications infrastructure.   Certainly, no two countries are exactly alike. 

 Yet despite the fact that most of the American population lives in urban or suburban areas, which are less costly to serve, we still don’t enjoy the same broadband speeds, or prices, or the sheer number of consumer choices for broadband that are found in Japan or the U.K. 

In other words, our dilemma is that it’s not simply that fast, affordable broadband is not available in Wyoming – it’s also not available in Boston, where a 30 megabit per second fiber connection from Verizon costs about $180 per month, assuming you can even get one.  In contrast, in Japan, a consumer can get even faster service - 50 Megabit service -- for the equivalent of $30 a month.

Advanced, high speed broadband service is the indispensable infrastructure of the 21st Century.  It will be the vehicle through which countless other economic, civic, and cultural activities occur.  As we assess where we stand today, I think the way to achieve greater progress is not from more hortatory rhetoric or excuses for poor rankings – the U.S.  needs a plan. 

In my view, the United States started out on the right path.  The 1996 Telecommunications Act mandated a robust unbundling and interconnection regime designed to jump-start competition both between and among technology platforms.  The idea was that competition would reduce prices, improve service, and spur innovation – including the deployment of broadband by incumbents and competitors.  Gradually, however, we lost our way, as regulators became convinced that competition within a platform actually hindered overall broadband deployment.  As a result, we now have a residential broadband duopoly marked by relatively slow speeds and high prices.

Many other nations took one look at our broadband situation, learned from our experience, and took the opposite approach.  In Japan and the U.K. for instance, they implemented policies such as local loop unbundling and broadband resale that facilitate competition using the incumbent’s plant, regardless of technology.  As a result, Japan and the U.K. today have faster broadband, cheaper broadband, and more broadband choices. 

I believe this hearing on broadband lessons from abroad will assist the Subcommittee greatly in assessing what we consider as part of a Broadband Plan here at home.  Again, I thank our witnesses and look forward to their testimony.

Thank you.

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