Courtesy of the ITU Strategy and Policy Unit blog, this new report from the World Information Society that looks at the “digital opportunity” for 180 economies around the globe.
The Society, with the help of ITU and others, calculated a composite index of indicators to determine which countries offer the biggest digital opportunities (voice, data, video, IT and so forth). Korea, Japan and Denmark top the list in terms of digital growth prospects and the U.S. is nowhere to be found on this top ten list (it’s possible just because of how the index was computed that the U.S. is already saturated with digital opportunity and therefore comparatively smaller growth is to be found). Click on the thumbnail for a closer look at these top ten countries.
Even more interesting, the report presents broadband prices around the globe and here the U.S. ranks among the top countries with the lowest broadband prices measured in terms of speed/per dollar paid. However, it looks like the Society included Comcast’s promotion $20/month rate in its calculations rather than the standard price of $42+/month.
Nevertheless, the following table shows that broadband prices around the globe, measured in terms of speed per dollar paid, are dropping.
| Lowest Broadband Prices Globally | ||||||
| Rank | Economy | Company | Speed Kbit/s | Price/Mo. US $ | US$/100 Kbit/s | Change 2005 - 2006 |
| 1 | Japan | Yahoo BB | 51,200 | $ 31.19 | $ 0.07 | -13% |
| 2 | Korea | Hanaro | 41200 | $ 40.59 | $ 0.08 | 0% |
| 3 | Netherlands | Internet Access | 20480 | $ 27.97 | $ 0.14 | -81% |
| 4 | Taiwan | Chunghwa | 12288 | $ 22.67 | $ 0.18 | 0% |
| 5 | Sweden | Bredbandsbolaget | 24576 | $ 56.08 | $ 0.23 | -7% |
| 6 | Singapore | Starhub | 30720 | $ 73.17 | $ 0.24 | -85% |
| 7 | Italy | Libero | 12288 | $ 37.23 | $ 0.30 | -74% |
| 8 | Finland | Elisa | 24576 | $ 85.64 | $ 0.36 | -51% |
| 9 | France | Free | 10240 | $ 37.29 | $ 0.36 | -90% |
| 10 | U.S. | Comcast | 4096 | $ 20.00 | $ 0.49 | 0% |
| 11 | Germany | Freenet.de | 18287 | $ 30.95 | $ 0.52 | 0% |
| 12 | U.K. | Pipex | 8128 | $ 50.89 | $ 0.63 | -54% |
| 13 | Hong Kong | Netvigator | 6144 | $ 51.17 | $ 0.83 | 0% |
| 14 | Portugal | Sapo | 8128 | $ 75.82 | $ 0.93 | 0% |
| 15 | Canada | Bell Canada | 4096 | $ 41.26 | $ 1.01 | -4% |
| Average | 18287 | $ 44.33 | $ 0.42 | -51% | ||
| Source: ITU | ||||||
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:55 PM|Comments(1)
As Cynthia notes, the ITU data appears to be using Comcast's promotional price. Using its standard price it would rank last with Canada--about a buck or so per Mbps--putting all of North America pretty far behind most of Asia and Western Europe on bandwidth per dollar. Also notable is the fact that both countries' absolute bandwidth measures are also the lowest of the group, also by a pretty sizeable gap.
Posted by: Mitch Shapiro at May 19, 2006 2:46 PM
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