The United States, where just 60% of households had broadband as of last year, ranked 20th in the survey of 58 countries by Boston-based Strategy Analytics.<\/p>\n
Five of the top 10 countries or territories in the survey were in Asia and the firm predicted the broadband subscriber base in the Asia-Pacific region will grow on average by a further 15 percent a year between 2009 and 2013.<\/p>\n
Strategy Analytics said South Korea’s highly urbanised population and its government-backed broadband policy accounted for its high rate of broadband penetration.<\/p>\n
Singapore ranked second on the list with household broadband penetration of 88%, followed by the Netherlands (85%), Denmark (82%), Taiwan (81%), Hong Kong (81%), Israel (77%), Switzerland (76%), Canada (76%) and Norway (75%).<\/p>\n
Among other Asia-Pacific nations, Australia ranked 11th with 72%, Japan ranked 16th with 64%, New Zealand ranked 25th with 57%, China ranked 43rd with 21% and Malysia ranked 44th, also with 21%.<\/p>\n
Thailand ranked 51st with 7%, Vietnam ranked 52nd, also with 7%, the Philippines ranked 53rd with 5%, India ranked 57th with 2% and Indonesia ranked 58th with 1%.<\/p>\n
Strategy Analytics acknowledged that measuring broadband penetration has been a subject of controversy with arguments being made over whether it should be measured by household or per capita.<\/p>\n
“Broadband rankings are often the subject of great debate and hand-wringing,” said David Mercer, vice president of Strategy Analytics.<\/p>\n
“Though our rankings may differ from those of other organisations, it is because we are looking at the appropriate metrics,” he said.<\/p>\n
“In far too many cases, people are looking at the wrong things,” said Ben Piper, a Strategy Analytics analyst.<\/p>\n
“Residential broadband is overwhelmingly consumed on a household basis, not individually,” he said. Reporting broadband penetration on a per capita basis misses the mark, and can provide grossly misleading results.”<\/p>\n
A survey released on Thursday by the Washington-based Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project found that as of April of this year, 63% of adult Americans have broadband Internet connections at home.<\/p>\n
That was an increase of 15% from a year earlier, Pew said, and an indication that the economic recession has had little effect on decisions whether to buy or keep a home high-speed Internet connection.<\/p>\n