After the United States, the ranking found that Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway rounded out the five most productive users of connectivity. Japan ranked 10, and Korea, 18.

And while wired and wireless broadband networks used by consumers lagged other countries, the United States ranked No. 1 in the world for technology use and skills by consumers. (This was measured by comparing countries on five measures: The penetration of Internet use, penetration of Internet banking, wired and wireless voice minutes per capita, SMS messages per capita, and consumer software spending.)

To see the full methodology, look at page 38 in this report.

Why is harmonization important? Coastal areas are vulnerable to rapid-onset, broad-spectrum hazards such as tsunamis and cyclones. Coastal areas also attract large numbers of tourists. Therefore, these disasters affect not only the nationals of the countries they occur in, but also tourists. For example, Sweden, which far from the Indian Ocean, had 20,000-30,000 tourists in the tsunami affected coastal areas of Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami occurred. It lost 543 citizens and over 1,500 Swedish tourists required emergency medical assistance and transportation home. The 2004 tsunami was one of Sweden’s worst natural disasters, even though it occurred thousands of miles away from its shores.

Cell broadcasting, which is capable of reaching almost all mobiles within the range of a base station, is an ideal vehicle for transmitting early warning (and of coordinating disaster response). However, its efficacy with tourists depends on harmonization of channel addresses. If the channels opened for receipt of warnings in a tourist’s home country are not used for the same purpose in the visited country, it is clear that the tourist will not receive locationally relevant warnings. In addition, it is possible that commercial or other messages could be received on the phones of persons travelling through multiple countries, causing annoyance and confusion.

There are over 66,000 logical channels that can be used for cell broadcasting, with a subset being marked out by ITU-T for public warning purposes. The ITU process seeks to accommodate the interests of countries such as Sri Lanka and India where warnings need to be delivered in multiple languages. Currently, only Tanzania and the Arab Block appear to be actively engaged in the standards discussion. It is time others joined.

Sweden and the Netherlands were able to be the top European broadband nations because of their efforts in “increasing investments in fiber and cable network upgrades, coupled with competition diversity, and supported by strong government vision and policy.”

Even though it’s difficult to define quality internet, regardless of how questions were reworded, Oxford University Said Business School researchers found Japan remained on top of 41 other nations in the “Broadband Quality Score.”  Latvia, Korea, Switzerland, Lithuania, Denmark, Germany and Slovenia are the nations that round out the top ten quality broadband nations, according to researchers.

Oxford University received assistance with the survey from Oviedo University and Cisco Systems.  The participating partners used collected broadband speed tests when users measured their broadband connections on Speedtest.net.

Upload speed has become increasingly important as many users want to send out data. Japan is the nation best suited for an increase in uploads, while other nations in the top ten continue to try and catch up.  Furthermore, there wasn’t a correlation found between consumer internet prices and national performance, or how widespread broadband use is in a nation, a researcher from Cisco said.

Read the full story in DailyTech here.

The next highest was Singapore at a surprisingly low 23rd, and Malaysia at 34th. The top 35 countries are otherwise dominated by Europe, Australasia and North America. 

The biggest revelation was that most Asian countries are sliding down the rankings.
Singapore was the most prominent to fall from grace, falling to 22nd from seventh position in 2005. China fell to 65 from 57, India from 87 to 113, Thailand from 46 to 62, the Philippines from 41 to 66 and Indonesia from 96 to 106.  

Other countries to slide included Maldives, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Brunei and Myanmar while Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia improved their rankings. Sweden topped the rankings followed by Denmark, Norway and the United States. Read more.

The rest of the countries need to develop their own benchmarks.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Global broadband prices revealed

According to the report, broadband prices for DSL connections across the 30 countries have fallen by 19% and increased in speed by 29% in the year to October 2006. Cable prices and speeds followed a similar trend.The least expensive monthly subscription for always-on broadband was in Sweden, where $10.79 (£5.40) per month bought a 256kbps connection. The country with the most expensive entry point for broadband access was Mexico, where it cost $52.36 (£26.18) per month for 1mbps.

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Zimbabwe, the country that leads all of South Asia according to the ITU, is not in the top- 70 that is provided. Nigeria, on the other hand, is just behind Sri Lanka, at 62. Unless some action is taken, next year, both Nigeria and Pakistan will be ahead of Sri Lanka.

PRESS RELEASE Asian Countries Advance in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2007 E-Readiness Rankings, as the Goalposts of Digital Leadership Shift

E-readiness continues to improve around the world in 2007, but achieving it is becoming more complex. To reflect this, the Economist Intelligence Unit has “raised the bar” of e-readiness by modifying its ranking methodology. This change in methodology, along with underlying improvements in individual countries, has led to changes in the league table. Several countries, particularly in Asia, have seen their positions improve, while others have experienced (mostly slight) declines. At the same time, the fundamental tenets of e-readiness remain unchanged, and the leaders in 2006 are still leaders today — nine of last year’s top ten countries remain in that bracket.Denmark and the US retain their number one and two spots in the rankings (with Sweden also tied for 2nd), but Hong Kong (4th), Singapore (6th), South Korea (16th), Taiwan (17th) and Japan (18th) have experienced a boost in 2007 in both scores and ranks. This is due in no small part to their governments’ vision and commitment in pushing digital development, and to continued progress in adoption of broadband and other advanced infrastructure.

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For those not from Sri Lanka, 1 USD = 106 LKR, just lopping off two zeros will you a good sense of what is being discussed. 

LANKA BUSINESS ONLINE – LBO

Telecom operator Suntel, a unit of Sweden’s Overseas Telecom AB, plans to spend 3.5 billion rupees next year to expand its network, officials said Friday.

Suntel which uses a combination of traditional wireless and a mobile wireless technology known as CDMA, had spent around 3.0 billion rupees this year to extend services to remote parts of the country.

On Friday, the firm signed up for a 3.0 billion rupee syndicated loan, to partly offset this year’s expansion costs and meet funding requirements for next year.