Surveys contradict on Aust IT infrastructure
An American survey has ranked Australia's IT infrastructure as amongst the best in the world, in stark contrast to a recent OECD study that labelled Australian broadband, a key component of IT infrastructure, as one of the slowest and most expensive systems in the world.
Australia's information technology infrastructure ranks amongst the best in the world but the nation needs to spend more on research and development (R&D), a survey prepared by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Economist Intelligence Unit has found.
Australia ranked fifth overall in a study of 64 nations that looked at the competitiveness of global IT sectors around the world.
The report found the nation performed well in the majority of categories including overall business environment, IT infrastructure, human capital, legal frameworks and IT industry development.
The US led the list of nations with an overall score of 77.4 for its IT competitiveness.
It was followed by Japan with 72.7, South Korea (67.2) and the UK (67.1).
Australia received an overall mark of 66.5 for its IT competitiveness.
Australia ranked fourth overall on infrastructure with the report pointing to a well-established and deregulated telecommunications industry, high Internet penetration amongst businesses, and government plans to roll out high-speed broadband.
IT infrastructure was its strongest point despite the relatively sluggish broadband speeds highlighted on several other reports such as one published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The OECD report studied the average download speed for the incumbent telco -- in Australia's case Telstra -- in each of the industrialised countries and found Australia second from bottom, beaten by the likes of Poland, Belgium and Mexico.
As well as speed issues, the country is also experiencing some of the highest telecoms prices across the board, with small business fixed line bundles, SOHO fixed line bundles and some mobile phone plans found to be above the OECD average. Australians also make mobile providers more money than most other countries, generating US$634 (AU$743) per year per subscriber. The only other countries in the OECD area that spend more are Iceland at US$654 (AU$766) and Japan, at US$860 ($AU1,008).
BSA regional director, Jeffrey Hardee, said that while Australia held a good position in the Asia-Pacific region, emerging economies were fast capitalising on their IT advances to better drive their economies.
"The high levels of competition occurring across all levels of industry in Australia also apply to the IT industry, translating into a successful sector," Hardee said.
"However, Australia's strengths today are facing increasing levels of competition on both a regional and global scale."
He said other emerging economies were ramping up their continued support for R&D, addressing business environment weaknesses and skilling workers with the appropriate capabilities.
In the R&D stakes, Australia scored only 21.2, ranking 12th overall and significantly lagging behind Asia's top three performers -- Japan (84.3), South Korea (56.6) and Taiwan (54.8).
"Australia is less R&D focused than most OECD countries, spending 1.6 percent of its gross domestic product on R&D, which is about half that invested by countries such as Japan," BSA said.
In 64th place for its overall IT competitiveness rating, Iran was the lowest-ranked nation on the list.