Australia has 23.9 fixed (wired) broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants, with the city states of Liechtenstein and Monaco ranked first and second. First real country is Switzerland, with 39.2.
The Netherlands, Denmark, Korea, Norway, France, Iceland and Belgium fill out the top ten. All have well over 30 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. Many countries, including Australia’s near neighbour Timor-Leste, have no connections at all.
The report also places Australia 20th in mobile broadband penetration, with 42.8 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants (Singapore and Korea, in the first two spots, each have more subscriptions than people). We are also ranked a lowly 21st in percentage of households using the Internet (79.0%).
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But the report also shows the effect of planned broadband targets. Australia’s NBN target, if achieved, will place us third in 100Mbps broadband penetration by 2020.
The report is the ITU’s Broadband Commission for Digital Development’s first-ever country-by-country snapshot of the state of broadband deployment worldwide. The “State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion for All” report evaluates the roll-out of broadband around the world.
It tracks progress towards achieving the four advocacy targets set by the Commission in 2011 for boosting broadband affordability and uptake. It provides country rankings across up to 177 economies on economic impact, penetration, national broadband policy, and connecting people and dwellings.
The report was released at the sixth meeting of the Commission, which was held today in New York to coincide with the 67th session of the UN General Assembly. It was welcomed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who called broadband a “transformative technology that has the potential to spark advances across all three pillars of sustainable development: economic prosperity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.”
