of rural areas with 2 Mbps broadband service, The Phoenix Center in the US notes that the value of broadband has typically been evaluated by nu-merical while both France and EU are seeking to provide universal coverage of broadband Internet access. Countries differ in whether targets are population coverage, household coverage or by locality. Targets are clearly related to arguments of ‘picking technolo-gies’ counts of its availability (e.g. subscribers) and notes that the true value of broadband access to a society varies by user, connection speed and method of access – parameters where the existing stimulus plans to date have all varied considerably. 37 In fact, taking into account the various and sizeable exter-nalities and ‘picking communities’. In reality, targets should be linked to usage for great-est associated with broadband means that the effi ciency in the use and deployment of networks social returns are likely to exceed the private returns, so the true social value of broadband is likely to be understated (Section 3.1). – see, for example, Figure 4, which relates the speed of broadband access to usage. Booz & Company (2009) note that speeds of up to 100 Mbps are needed for some telemedicine and distance learning applications, compared to 4-6 Mbps required for web-based teleconferencing. The UK’s Digital Britain plan established the speed for universal service broad-band Broadband stimulus plans have focused on provid-ing broadband (sometimes at specifi ed speeds, using specifi ed technologies) to various priority groups or communities. Countries have varied in the bold-ness as 2Mbit/s+, in part as the minimum speed of their targets in coverage and speeds, which required to deliver iPlayer, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s national TV service over the Internet (Deloitte, 2009). are obviously related to the technology/technologies chosen (Figure 5). Some countries (e.g. Finland and Germany) have set staged targets for achieving speci-fi ed levels of coverage by certain dates. Denmark has staged its targets in terms of speeds and coverage. The advantage of setting national targets for coverage and broadband speed is that it provides a clear signal by Government of its commitment towards estab-lishing Other countries have made universal service for broadband Internet a policy priority – for example, the UK’s Digital Britain Plan envisages 100% cover-age the foundations for a modern information economy with advanced infrastructure and access 40