Market Clarity says it devoted close to 400 hours of analyst time scrutinising documents from more than 60 sources from all 30 OECD nations in order to try and verify the OECD data. It says it found that the OECD mis-reported broadband subscriber numbers for 28 out of its 30 member nations in its June 2006 analysis (published in September, 2006).

"We are forced to conclude that the OECD's broadband rankings, while providing an interesting snapshot of broadband adoption are not sufficiently rigorous or accurate to inform the basis of national policy making, nor should perceptions of national prestige be founded on the fine detail of a country's standing in the OECD's broadband rankings," Market Clarity concluded.

According to Market Clarity CEO Shara Evans, the OECD also fails to allow for inevitable error margins which will occur in any statistical analysis, or to provide sufficient source references to enable discrepancies between its published data and national source data to be accounted for.