The National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) Index ranks 14 key countries across 23 statistical indicators, with each ranking being given equal weighting for the final score.
Australia was pushed up in the rankings with the highest score for Internet access per ISP. Australia has an estimated 15,000 users per ISP, compared to the US in second place with an estimated 20,000 users per ISP. South Korea has 2.1 million Internet users per ISP.
Australia's ranking was also improved by having the lowest disparity in Internet users between different gender and age groups.
Internet connection speed was Australia's worst score, with only five percent of home Internet users having access to high speed Internet, compared to South Korea with 87 percent of home users utilising high-speed access.
Sixty seven percent of Australian households own or lease a computer, placing us second behind South Korea at 70 percent. However, only 49 percent of households were connected to the Internet via their home computer, putting us in seventh place. A further three percent of households access the Internet through other devices.
Australia ranked third cheapest for peak-time Internet usage, with 40 hours costing US$42.9. The US was ranked first at US$23.8.
Its no surprise home useage is so low.
All charges for Internet access, are based on the high bandwidth charges ISP's have to incur for
T(H)elstra backbone access.
Unless ISP's install their own earth links they have no choice. International response times via undersea cable are significantly lower than satellite. Unfortunately, all International undersea cables are owned by T(H)elstra.
Home useage will never increase, until home charges are reduced.
Broadband useage will never increase as long as
T(H)elstra has a stranglehold on ADSL deployment. Their preditory pricing policies for Internet access are no different to the policies imposed on DDS services, which never became user friendly.