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A few words in the OECD's ear (29 October 2000) |
Eighteen months ago, in our response to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade and Industry's Inquiry into Electronic Commerce, we had harsh things to say about an OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) report, Local Access Pricing and e-Commerce. Such reports are widely quoted and taken as authoritative.
Someone was evidently listening - as OFTEL was when the Inquiry's final report savaged it - as the next similar report, 1999-2000 OECD Internet Access Price Comparison, is somewhat better. However, it is still far from perfect, and we have decided to offer our own suggestions for improvement.
Clearly, comparing Internet access costs between countries is fraught with problems; it is not possible to give a perfect comparison and simplifications must be made.
That said, we note four principal difficulties with the OECD's approach:
- It merely compares services provided by dominant operators - we presume BT with BT Internet in the United Kingdom. This is not appropriate for countries which have a wide choice.
- It compares metered and unmetered access. Doing so is poiNTLess as they are fundamentally different things.
- It uses wholly inappropriate 'baskets of calls' - for example, unmetered access is defined as 150 hours per month made up of thirty calls of five hours each.
- It compares only two types of metered access, namely 100 per cent peak access and 100 per cent off-peak access, and for too few hours of usage per month. Its general approach to metered usage is far too crude, taking no account of how people actually use the Internet.
