Bruce Mehlman, from the Internet Innovation Alliance, which is a lobbyist group in D.C., had some interesting statistics on the state of broadband in the U.S. today. He spoke this morning at the Broadband Properties Summit.
293,000 new jobs are created with every 1% increase in broadband availability in the United States. This is a statistic that you might want to pass on to local economic developers and elected officials who may be skeptical about the benefits of broadband. It is easy to do the math to calculate how many new jobs would be created in your community from a community-wide commitment to universal broadband access.
About 66% of the homes in the U.S. are using the Internet, and 50% of those have broadband. This means two-thirds of U.S. home still have no broadband.
There is a $580 billion dollar global market for IT services, indicating there are lots of job and business opportunities for U.S. companies if they have affordable broadband infrastructure.
Think your local economy would benefit from a steel plant? It turns out that the number of people making a full time living from selling things on eBay exceeds the employment of the entire U.S. steel industry. Note to rural communities: this is a work from home opportunity that requires broadband.
Broadband is a green technology. By one estimate, universal access to broadband in the U.S. could create a billion ton reduction in greenhouse gases over a ten year period. Broadband is a net energy saver.
Another study estimates that the healthcare industry could cut costs by as much as 25% by making better use of broadband and IT. Note to rural communities: broadband may cut healthcare costs.
Skeptics of the demand for Internet-based video take note. YouTube did not exist four years ago, and today has 100 million viewers per day.
Broadband will not be affordable in most areas without a business model that creates and sustains competition.