Global ranking of communications technology puts U.S. at No. 11, while Sweden takes top spot

Scandinavia tops the world in access to the Internet and other communications technologies, but South Korea and other Asian countries are catching up fast, according to a U.N. agency. Sweden came in first in the Digital Access Index, followed by Denmark and Iceland, while Norway was fifth, said the International Telecommunications Union. South Korea, world leader in high-speed broadband access, came in fourth. South Koreans are heavy users of the Internet for games, chatting and other purposes. Filling out the top 10 in order were the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Finland, Taiwan and Canada. The United States was 11th, held back in part by its underdeveloped mobile phone system, said Michael Minges, author of the report. The U.S. government also has done little to encourage competition among service providers, so prices remain relatively high compared with Asia, where government-encouraged competition is strong, he added. The study measured 178 countries on a range of criteria, including the number of telephone lines and mobile phones per inhabitant, the cost of going online, national literacy, the speed of connections available and the percentage of inhabitants who are Internet users. The study compared the top 40 countries in 2002 with separate data it collected that showed the situation in 1998 to see how much change there had been. South Korea has been rising fastest, up 20 places from 1998 to 2002. Taiwan rose 13 places during the same period, Hong Kong six, Singapore five and Japan four. Britain dropped three places during the period, Canada and the United States each went down five, Australia was down eight and New Zealand nine. At the other end of the scale, most of the countries at the bottom of the list are among the least-developed African nations.The index was prepared for leaders meeting next month in Geneva to discuss the possibility of making Internet access available to everyone on the planet.