Aneesh Chopra, the Chief Technology Officer for the US government, has said that growing interest in using mobile phones to access the internet could lead to a surge of investment in broadband infrastructure. Examples of that can already be seen in the growing coverage of WiMAX networks.
Mr. Chopra stressed that the growth of mobile platforms like the iPhone, and the huge popularity of mobile applications, is forcing mobile broadband to catch up with consumer demand. He also said that this could lead to a lot of investment from the government in American broadband.
These comments come right after two separate studies highlighted that America should do something to capitalise on the growing popularity of mobile Internet. The first is from comScore, reporting the massive popularity of mobiles for local search in the UK. The second was from OECD, which showed that the US has some of the slowest broadband and highest prices compared to other 1st world countries.
Source Reuters
From the story:
Aneesh Chopra, US CTO: “If you were to ask investors how satisfied were you with your data wireless network investments pre-iPhone, my gut instinct tells me, they were not delivering the revenues that one would’ve expected to justify the investments they were making.”
What we think?
America data prices have long been a point of contention to us in GoMo. For a country that should be leading the way when it comes to the mobile Web, it’s severely hampered by the fact that its prices and quality of service are both quite poor. So, rejoice! Hopefully this announcement from the government means that soon things will be getting better.
