Cisco's Third annual broadband study - Ghana's broadband quality is ready for today's apps, but what about the rest?

CISCO released the third annual study from Saïd Business School, Oxford University, which looks at broadband quality in 72 countries and 239 cities.

Some excerpts from the press release:

• 14 countries (1 in 5) already prepared for the Internet "applications of tomorrow", compared to only 1 country in 2008
• 38 countries, 53% of the total, have conquered the digital quality divide, with less evident differences between the broadband quality inside and outside their main cities, an improvement of 58% in just one year
• Study reaffirms positive link between broadband leadership and innovation economies
• Many emerging economies are 'leapfrogging' by focusing on bringing the best broadband to their cities, acknowledging their impact on the economy

[...]

Link to socio-economic development

Broadband quality is directly linked to a nation's advancement as a knowledge economy. In order to reflect this in the results, and to see which countries were outperforming their economic group and subsequently were well prepared to make economic leaps, the researchers compared the results according to the country's stage of economic development as defined by the World Economic Forum.¹ See Fig 2: Broadband quality ranking - by economic development for the full breakdown

• South Korea topped the list of Innovation-driven economies (Stage 3) with a score of 157. Slovakia came last within this group with a score of 60
• Bulgaria topped the list of Efficiency-driven economies (Stage 2) with a score of 71. South Africa came at the bottom of this group with a score of 34
• Ghana topped the list of Factor-driven economies (Stage 1) with a score of 38. Angola came at the bottom with a score of 5
• Qatar topped the list of Stage 1 to 2 Economies with its score of 106. Algeria came at the bottom with a score of 31
• Bahrain topped the list of stage 2 to 3 Economies, with a score of 100, placing it amongst the broadband leaders of the world (rank 12 in broadband leadership albeit with a low score on BQS at 23). Russia came at the bottom of this group with a score of 50

The team repeated and enlarged the number of regressions conducted in the first edition between broadband quality, broadband penetration and broadband leadership with over 40 socio-economic factors.

The research confirmed the early findings on the positive associations between broadband and the economy. Significantly, broadband leadership is strongly associated with competitiveness, knowledge economy and innovation.
------------
Broadband Quality Score III View more presentations from Cisco Systems.


source: http://newsroom.cisco.com...