U.S. broadband lags Asian nations

[Heracles 417]

South Korea edges out Japan for providing top quality broadband service in 2009 study. The U.S. didn't even make the top 10.

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer

Last Updated: October 1, 2009: 11:06 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- South Korea leads the world in providing broadband services, according to a study released on Thursday. The United States did not make the top 10.

South Korea dramatically improved the speed, quality and availability of its Internet service in 2009, pushing past Japan, the former worldwide leader, according to a team of business students from the University of Oxford in England and the University of Oviedo in Spain.

The study, sponsored by Cisco (CSCO, Fortune 500), examined 66 countries and 240 cities. Broadband leadership was measured by various factors, including the number of wired households, where South Korea scored 97%. Hong Kong, which was rated number three in overall broadband leadership, had an even higher penetration, at 99%.

In terms of overall leadership, Hong Kong was followed by Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Singapore, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway.

The United States did not make the list's top 10, even though it made "significant, above average improvements" in quality, the study said.

In terms of broadband Internet quality, the U.S. lags behind not only Sweden, which leads Europe, but the island nations of Malta and Iceland, and the former Soviet Bloc country of Lithuania.

The top three cities with the best overall broadband services -- Yokohama, Nagoya and Sapporo -- were all in Japan, the study said.

Japan also led the way for providing quality services outside major cities. But the study showed that the biggest digital quality divide between urban and rural areas was in Lithuania, Russia and Latvia.

"The Broadband Quality Study shows us which countries have made real moves towards the Internet of the future," said Professor Maria Rosalia Vicente of the University of Oviedo, in a written statement. "It also provides fresh evidence of the urban-versus-rural quality divide. The challenge for countries now is to bridge this quality divide."

The study's researchers judged broadband quality by measuring upload and download speeds, network latency and capacity. For their benchmarking, they tested out typical applications used today such as video streaming, Web browsing and social networking.

But they also took a look at which countries have the broadband quality necessary for handling future applications, like high definition Internet television and video communications, which they expect to become common in the next three to five years.

That list features nine countries, including the leaders South Korea, Japan and Sweden, as well as former Soviet nations Lithuania, Bulgaria and Latvia. The U.S. didn't make the cut. To

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Edited October 1, 2009 by Booyah!

[Niels Bohr 72]

Cambodia DSL monthly rate, is about $25 for like 128k dl/96 up....And, it's only unlimited between the hours of 6pm to 6am.

[mawilson 2,133]

Huge country... impossible to provide broadband services everywhere.

Canada is #17.

Aus is #13 - not getting any international awards.

You're barking up the wrong tree on this one, Boo.

[Heracles 417]

Huge country... impossible to provide broadband services everywhere.

Canada is #17.

Aus is #13 - not getting any international awards.

You're barking up the wrong tree on this one, Boo.

You took the article in the wrong way. It's was more a swipe at Matt. Yet again, illustrating that no government intervention has failed.

The country is huge but that does not explain the slow speeds or lack of competition around cities. Australia's building a national fiber to the home network, at a cost of $43 billion. Once that is up and running, they will rapidly move up those ranks too. All while I am stuck with concast.

Edited October 1, 2009 by Booyah!

[Darnell 8,478]

For the USCitizen -

Have you thought about moving to where the broadband IS ?

[BishopMnA 0]

I lived in S. Korea and visited Japan alot, since they are so close. I was amazed at their tech, and without a doubt it far surpasses USA...same can be said for most of Asia...but then again...Japan and S.Korea are small countries...seems like it's a much larger challenge to string up 48 contiguous states...so, I always thought that it was more of an 'economy of scale' thing as to why S. Korea & Japan are so much more advanced on this front...

[Heracles 417]

For the USCitizen -

Have you thought about moving to where the broadband IS ?

Where is that? Unless you have FIOS, you're SOL.

[Heracles 417]

I lived in S. Korea and visited Japan alot, since they are so close. I was amazed at their tech, and without a doubt it far surpasses USA...same can be said for most of Asia...but then again...Japan and S.Korea are small countries...seems like it's a much larger challenge to string up 48 contiguous states...so, I always thought that it was more of an 'economy of scale' thing as to why S. Korea & Japan are so much more advanced on this front...

Quite true. The only issue I have with this logic is that it does not explain the lack of competition or speed in large US metro areas. I had about 30+ providers in Melbourne, from two cable companies, to Wimax, to aDSL 2+ and so on. I have one here, Comcast.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

I lived in S. Korea and visited Japan alot, since they are so close. I was amazed at their tech, and without a doubt it far surpasses USA...same can be said for most of Asia...but then again...Japan and S.Korea are small countries...seems like it's a much larger challenge to string up 48 contiguous states...so, I always thought that it was more of an 'economy of scale' thing as to why S. Korea & Japan are so much more advanced on this front...

Quite true. The only issue I have with this logic is that it does not explain the lack of competition or speed in large US metro areas. I had about 30+ providers in Melbourne, from two cable companies, to Wimax, to aDSL 2+ and so on. I have one here, Comcast.

So go back to Melbourne and stop whining.