Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Sweden Has Greatest Penetration Rate of High Speed Internet Connectivity

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 15:59:05 -0500

Sweden Has Greatest Penetration Rate of High Speed Internet Connectivity

Sweden and Denmark lead the world in high speed Internet connectivity, per
capita. International Business Machines and the intelligence unit of The
Economist studied high-speed connection rates world wide, ranking the United
States third in the world. Of the 60 countries surveyed, Azerbaijan and
Kazakhstan ranked last. Countries were ranked based on the number of
inexpensive Internet connections, the availability of software and technical
support, the supporting legal and government frameworks and the popularity of
Web surfing as a pastime. (Source: Reuters)

Survey: Sweden beats U.S. as top
Web-savvy nation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday, April 1, 2003 Posted: 11:57 AM EST (1657 GMT)

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters)
-- Sweden has overtaken the United
States as the Web-savviest nation
on the planet, a survey showed on
Tuesday.

One other European country, Denmark,
was also more aggressive in taking
advantage of the Internet than the United
States, according to research carried out
by IBM and the intelligence unit of British
magazine The Economist.

Of the 60 countries surveyed, Azerbaijan
and Kazakhstan were at the bottom of the
list with 2.37 and 2.52 points respectively
out of a possible 10.

Sweden scored 8.67, up from 8.32 a year
ago. The United States was little changed at number three with 8.43 points, on par
with the Netherlands and Britain.

The differences were small between the top 14, all scoring more than eight points
as a result of plentiful cheap Internet connections, software and technical support,
legal and government frameworks and populations which think it is cool to spend
time on the Net.

"Northwest Europe, North America and Australia are at virtually similar levels," said
Peter Korsten, European executive director at IBM's Institute for Business Value.

Absent from the top 15 were France and Italy, which were clearly second league in
"connectivity" and "consumer and business adoption." "They're laggards and that's a
bit scary," he said.

South Korea jumped from 21nd to 16th place, overtaking France, Italy, Taiwan, New
Zealand and Belgium, as it boasts the world's highest percentage of high-speed
Web households.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/04/01/web.nations.reut/index.html

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