www.bbc.com/news/technology-19478298

www.webfoundation.org/projects/the-web-index/

thewebindex.org/

Sweden has topped a new global index evaluating the state of the web in 61 countries, with the US coming second and the UK third.

Compiled by Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web Foundation, it ranked both the social and political impact of the web.

It found that only one in three people are using the web globally and fewer than one in six in Africa.

It highlighted censorship and high broadband prices as barriers to a "web for all".

Using data from the past five years, it scored nations in seven different categories.

These were: communications infrastructure - the state and availability of web-enabling infrastructure; institutional infrastructure - education, laws, regulation and censorship; web content - what relevant and useful content is available; web use - the extent to which the web is used in a country; political impact; economic impact and social impact.... Continued on links above.

Well I don't see Japan on there and the state of their internet access makes the UK look like a joke.

Thats just their broadband coverage and speed.
The web index takes account of how much political impact it has and economic impact in each country along with coverage etc and then produces an overall score.

Japan ranks #20 by the way, south korea #13 for example.

thewebindex.org/data/all/webindex/

The sites getting hit to death at the moment by the way, you gotta laugh

andyh wrote:

When i moved to Japan in 2004 almost everyone had broadband:
Every mobile, even the cheapest,mobile in 2004 had direct internet access. My previous phone had been in black and white with no camera, no video camera, no internet access.

And as for cultural impact: from mange to games to anime, Japan has an enourmous web presence.

Sweden does it and Sweden comes out on top. Followed by their best current best pals, Uk and US.

Bollox and totally Anglophone-centric.

mikey mikey wrote:
I wouldn't say that.
Both Japan and S.Korea score highly for broadband, its the impact it has which is where they score weakly.
Thats not anything intentional on Berners-Lee's part, its just that its obvious the western nations will have much higher economic and impact scores.

Your stats above basically show Japan had approx 26% (half of 52 mentioned) broadband coverage in 2004, which is impressive for 2004 but perhaps not now.

4g will tip the scales radically in the coverage department by the way. We'll probably see ADSL and landlines disappear in a decade imho.

mikey mikey wrote: Call me old fashioned and a Luddite but I have no desire to own a device which gives you mange.

andyh wrote:
They have had almost a decade too.
gigaom.com/broadband/japans-newest-mobil...s-lte-seem-sluggish/

news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57477593-94/so...-wireless-broadband/
And then there is China..

mikey mikey wrote:
As I said, Japan scores well on broadband, Sweden and Iceland have almost 100% coverage and incredibly low latency too.

China for example has heavy censorship, so the scores are based around a wide range of issues.

There's some separate charts for broadband speeds and coverage

Here's some broadband SPEED rankings Mikey

Broadband leadership table (top 30) with scores and progress from 2008 to 2010:

Thanks andy. editing problems.

I am not having a go but i am very suspect of Swedish studies making Sweden number 1
news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57477593-94/so...-wireless-broadband/

Sweden with a population of a small province and Iceland with a population of a town is not really suprising.

feather wrote:


manga

but do teddy bears get mange?

mikey mikey wrote:
Exactly yep, you got it.

South Korea has long had the best broadband infrastructure and use of technology imho.

However...its broadband is not put to good use imho.

Its a bit like the quality of life rankings for each country, remember that? lol
That causes no end of arguments for sure.

Iceland and Sweden rank highly on that again, as does Ireland oddly enough :p

Some of the most amazing of places though have high levels of happiness, Cuba for example.
Yet Cuba does not rank highly on the official quality of life rankings if you see what I mean.

andyh wrote:
Absolutley

While Sweden is number one from bullying related suicides.

And there you have Japan's suicide rate topping the comined traffic related deaths and cancer put together.

mikey mikey wrote:
If I had to say which country has the best setup overall I'd probably plump for Iceland.