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OECD broadband statistics (June 2009)
The OECD’s statistics on broadband in OECD countries have just been updated to June 2009. Data and charts are available at http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband
It finds that the number of broadband subscribers in the OECD reached 271 million by June 2009, an increase of 10% from June 2008. Half of OECD countries have reached 25 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants.
The statistics also show that future growth in super fast broadband is likely to come from fibre-optic networks, rather than DSL or cable. Nearly one in ten OECD subscribers currently accesses the internet over fibre. In Japan and Korea, most people do. And fibre is growing fast in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the United States.
This upgrade is important because high-speed broadband networks are increasingly seen as a fundamental infrastructure for the economy, like roads, water and electricity. Telecommunication firms have been investing heavily to upgrade older copper and coax networks to fibre to accommodate our ever increasing thirst for bandwidth.
The economic crisis has threatened to halt this investment just as consumers and businesses are using more Internet bandwidth. Many governments have stepped in to fill the gap using stimulus funds to pay for new broadband networks. But there is still a lot of debate about whether these investments make economic sense, particularly as governments are wading into an area which has recently been entrusted to the private sector.
According to a new OECD paper, government investment could be justified based on even small direct benefits in just four key sectors of the economy – electricity, health, education and transportation. The full paper is available here
For comment on broadband, please contact Taylor Reynolds of the OECD’s Science, Technology and Industry division at + 33 1 45 24 93 84.
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