The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released its latest data on worldwide broadband access last week. For broadband penetration, the United States is in the middle of the pack, slightly above average for O.E.C.D. member countries. For a cool graph, check out the New York Times BITS Tech Blog, where they explain “perhaps this makes sense, given that the United States is in and of itself an unevenly developed country.”
As for affordability, the United States has monthly broadband subscription fees that are slightly more expensive than the average for the O.E.C.D.. Other findings include:
* The economic crisis has not significantly slowed worldwide broadband adoption. In fact, broadband growth during the last six months of the year was slightly stronger at 6.23% than in the first six months at 6.16%.
* Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Korea and Finland maintain their lead the OECD with broadband penetration well above the OECD average, each surpassing the 30 subscribers per 100 inhabitants threshold. There was no change in rankings in the past 6 months among these leading countries.
* The United States is the largest broadband market in the OECD with 80 million subscribers, representing 30% of all broadband connections in the OECD.
• Connection speeds of 20 Mbit/s were available in all but two OECD countries in September 2008 – Turkey and Mexico.
• The average advertised speed for DSL is 9.6 Mbit/s, for cable is 14.9 Mbit/s and for fibre is 65.3 Mbit/s. The U.S. is above average here at 50 Mbit/s. But Japanese providers now offer cable broadband services at 160 megabits per second.
Check all the broadband speed graphs the OECD has available and then clock your speed to see where you stand.