A report from the US has revealed Australia has become the Third World of broadband developed nations, ranking 26th out of 30 countries for its transfer speeds.
Sydney households pay an average $2.65 per month for one megabyte of service at a speed of 1.7 megabytes a second, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's broadband rankings.
By comparison, users in Japan have the world's fastest broadband and pay a paltry 29c a month for one megabyte at a blistering 61 megabytes a second.
Ranked behind Slovak Republic
On a scale of speed, Australia is even ranked behind the Slovak Republic, which separated from the former Soviet country Czechoslovakia in 1993.
The next fastest countries behind Japan are Korea (45.2mbps) and Finland (21.7mbps).
In terms of broadband penetration into the number of households, however, we rank much higher.
Report author Daniel Correa puts Australia's level of penetration, 0.5 subscribers for every household, down to 93 per cent of the population living in urban areas.
"Broadband penetration increased in Australia by 5.5 percentage points last year," Mr Correa said in the report.
On the overall rankings of subscribers, speed and cost, Australia is ranked 14th out of the 30 countries.
Turkey, which is ranked last, still has faster broadband than Australia (2 mbps) but it is charged at a rate of $128.50 per megabyte.
Labor's communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said an acceptable broadband network was essential to the future of e-education, e-health, and telecommunications.
Mr Conroy claims that the Howard Government's $958 million broadband plan for rural and regional Australia will have more limited coverage than is claimed.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Justin Vallejo
Quelle/Source: NEWS.com.au, 20.10.2007
