Net Vitality: Identifying the Top-Tier Global Broadband Internet Ecosystem Leaders

This is the first-ever quantitative and qualitative composite analysis of the global broadband Internet ecosystem, viewed in a country comparative context. The development of this index helps identify the top-tier global broadband Internet leaders -- an elite grouping of five countries that distinguish themselves as pacesetters for future benchmarking and best practices analyses. These leaders, grouped in a leadership tier rather than rank ordered, are the United States, South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, and France.

The Open Internet as a broadband Internet goal is worthwhile, but also too narrow as a foundation for Net Vitality. Rather, the Wide Open Internet is what the United States and other countries around the world should be trying to achieve. The Wide Open Internet encompasses the broader goal of an efficient ubiquitous broadband Internet ecosystem with virtually unlimited content and applications available without government restrictions. With continuing focus on the broadband Internet ecosystem, the idea of Net Vitality can be realized through a future-oriented policy process that capitalizes on the blazing speed of Internet time that has propelled us so far, so fast, and so impactfully.