2008 ITIF Broadband rankings (covers 30 countries)

[dhanson865]

http://www.itif.org/files/2008BBRankings.pdf

For the PDF challenged the short list is

1. South Korea
2. Japan
3. Finland

For the American perspective the notables are

11. Canada
15. United States
30. Mexico

Countries are ranked by factors of Household Penetration, Average Download Speed, Price per Mbps.

[chapmani]

Interesting link. It also seems to jive with my personal bittorrent speeds. I've noticed that the seeds/peers from whom I'm getting the fastest connections are almost always from the same countries as those at the top of the list. It tends to be not quite a much from the Japan/South Korea side -- I suspect lower bandwidth on the pacific overseas cables. But the European connections fall right in line with the above chart.

[mr. poopyhead]

while i was in france, i saw an ad for a mobile/internet/TV package that included:
ADSL2 24Mbps, mobile phone service, HD cable box and a free HDTV all for 29 euro per month... that works out to around $45 CAD. hell, we pay $40 a month JUST for internet in canada. ridiculous... we have such garbage telecom infrastructure in north america...

[Sendorm]

wow, I have the second most expensive internet in the world. Should I be proud?

[alleycat]

The "household penetration" skews the rankings a bit. Check out Japan - in speed and cost it is way in front.

Fortunately I'm well ahead of my countrymen with a 15Mbps connection.

[dhanson865]

The "household penetration" skews the rankings a bit. Check out Japan - in speed and cost it is way in front.

It's a human rights factor.

Consider that China isn't even in the top 30.

Think about what that means for control of information.

It's also worth noting that Brazil and India aren't in the top 30. I'm not sure what other large population nation is worth noting that isn't present in that list.

[dhanson865]

Top 50 by population not on the broadband report

1. China 1,321,851,888
2. India 1,129,866,154

4. Indonesia 234,693,997
5. Brazil 190,010,647
6. Pakistan 169,270,617
7. Bangladesh 150,448,339
8. Russia 141,377,752
9. Nigeria 135,031,164

12. Philippines 91,077,287
13. Vietnam 85,262,356

15. Egypt 80,264,543
16. Ethiopia 76,511,887

18. Iran 65,397,521
19. Thailand 65,068,149
20. Congo, Dem. Rep. 64,606,759

25. Myanmar (Burma) 47,373,958
26. Ukraine 46,299,862
27. Colombia 44,227,550
28. South Africa 43,997,828
29. Sudan 42,292,929

31. Argentina 40,301,927

33. Tanzania 38,139,640
34. Kenya 36,913,721
35. Morocco 33,757,175
37. Algeria 33,333,216
38. Afghanistan 31,889,923
39. Uganda 30,262,610
40. Nepal 28,901,790
41. Peru 28,674,757
42. Uzbekistan 27,780,059
43. Saudi Arabia 27,601,038
44. Iraq 27,499,638
45. Venezuela 26,084,662
46. Malaysia 24,821,286
47. Korea, North 23,301,725
48. Taiwan 23,174,294
49. Ghana 22,931,299
50. Romania 22,276,056

[floffe]

It's also worth noting that Brazil and India aren't in the top 30.

It's not a top-30 list, it's just a ranking of OECD countries. Other countries could well be ahead of primarily Turkey or Mexico.

[alleycat]

It's a human rights factor.

Sorry, I didn't realise that was the purpose of starting this thread.

[dhanson865]

It's a human rights factor.

Sorry, I didn't realize that was the purpose of starting this thread.

It isn't. I started the thread because I thought the list was interesting. You can make of it anything you like and I'll be happy do discuss it.

I am not a politically motivated poster. I was just observing why I though they included that particular column in the report (i.e. I'm assuming the report is politically motivated).

Go off on any tangent you like, tear it apart, link to other stats. This isn't a sacred cow to me...

[dhanson865]

It's also worth noting that Brazil and India aren't in the top 30.

It's not a top-30 list, it's just a ranking of OECD countries. Other countries could well be ahead of primarily Turkey or Mexico.

Thanks for letting me know. I'd never heard of OECD before. I wonder how the list would shake out if we added in some of the bigger non OECD countries?

[Erssa]

while i was in france, i saw an ad for a mobile/internet/TV package that included:
ADSL2 24Mbps, mobile phone service, HD cable box and a free HDTV all for 29 euro per month... that works out to around $45 CAD.

Just for comparison one of the cheapest similar offers we currently have is:
- ADSL2 24Mbps
- free Wippies HomeBox
- 50 Gb net storage space
- free DVB-T/C digital tuner with HDTV-support, HDMI- and Ethernet connection, 5 Tb net storage for recording TV programs, which you can watch later by video streaming, ability to record from every available channel at the same time...
- free VOIP-phone to replace landline telephone, no monthly payments, free phone calls to other phone numbers from the same operator, 0.01€/min for other landline numbers

Total 38€/month

hell, we pay $40 a month JUST for internet in canada. ridiculous... we have such garbage telecom infrastructure in north america...

No need to feel jealous (except for Koreans and Japanese). Finland is ranked third, but that ranking is probably pretty far from reality. I think I represent the average Finn pretty well, and I pay 36€ for 5/1Mbps cable. That's 55 USD.

That average download speed has to be totally bogus. Our average can be nowhere near 21Mbps. 24Mbps is normally the fastest connection available, and people mostly use slower and cheaper connections. You can get a commercial 100Mbps connection only in few places.

That lowest monthly price is also not really close to real prices. That 24Mbps for 38€ is pretty much the lowest price for probably 90% of consumers. Some don't even have access to that 24Mbps. Sure, there are few places where you can get a 100/10Mbps for 29.90€/month, but that's so rare that using such a figure in this study feels a bit stupid imo.

[Greg F.]

I am just guessing, but I wonder if those prices quoted for Finland and France are that low because the government contributes in some way. Subsidies, higher personal income taxes, or even maybe the governments own the telcom systems.
I know people in rural areas of USA that still have 56k dialup, and that is all that they get unless they get satellite internet. I am told that would be $US80 for 786k. I think that is what they told me.

[Erssa]

I am just guessing, but I wonder if those prices quoted for Finland and France are that low because the government contributes in some way. Subsidies, higher personal income taxes, or even maybe the governments own the telcom systems.

No, governments subsidies have nothing to do with it. We just have great consumer rights and competition between our service providers. I think the most important reasons is, that we were the ones who invented cell phones. Rest of the world has been playing catch-up with us on that front since the 90s. Nokia and the phone operaters, which are also our ISPs, got rich pretty quick. That money has been able to get things moving.

The single cheapest price per megabytes here is from TeliaSonera, which has 14% government ownership, but traditionally Sonera has been the most expensive ISP here. It's just that the houses, where those 100Mbps connection are available, are usually new houses/apartments with fibre-optic connections. That's probably why they can sell them for 29.90€/month. They are not widely available, you can get one mainly in few central places in couple of our biggest cities.

The way our phone operators work are a bit different compared to States, if I'm not mistaken. For example, if I have understood correctly, when you buy an iPhone, you are pretty much tied to your phone operator. Here it's super easy and convenient to switch from one phone operator to another. You can keep your old phone number and nowadays the transitions have no downtime. I have switched operators many times just so I am always using the cheapest one.

Currently the most expensive phone service is 49.95€/month. Which includes 3000 minutes of phone calls, 3000 minutes of 3G video phone calls, 3000 SMS, 3000 MMS and unlimited data transfers (1Mbit/s).

My phone bills are nowhere near that expensive. The single biggest expense in my phone bill is the 9.95€/month for my 2Mbit/s HSDPA.

I know people in rural areas of USA that still have 56k dialup, and that is all that they get unless they get satellite internet. I am told that would be $US80 for 786k. I think that is what they told me.

Finland is one the least densely populated countries in the world, but I have read that even in Lapland (our northest province similar to Alaska) you are able to have a wireless internet access that uses our old NMT450 network, it's only 1Mbit/s at best and costs around 50 euros for month, but it's still better then dial-up. The whole country should have wireless internet access by the end of 2009.