South Korea is ranked as the world’s most advanced ICT economy, followed closely by Sweden and Iceland in ICT readiness. Hong Kong, UK, NZ, Australia, USA and Singapore are ranked 6th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 17th and 19th respectively.
| Economy | Rank 2010 | IDI | Rank 2008 | IDI |
| South Korea | 1 | 8.4 | 1 | 7.8 |
| Sweden | 2 | 8.23 | 2 | 7.53 |
| Iceland | 3 | 8.06 | 7 | 7.12 |
| Denmark | 4 | 7.97 | 3 | 7.46 |
| Finland | 5 | 7.87 | 12 | 6.92 |
| Hong Kong | 6 | 7.79 | 6 | 7.14 |
| Luxembourg | 7 | 7.78 | 4 | 7.34 |
| Switzerland | 8 | 7.67 | 9 | 7.06 |
| Netherlands | 9 | 7.61 | 5 | 7.3 |
| United Kingdom | 10 | 7.6 | 10 | 7.03 |
| Norway | 11 | 7.6 | 8 | 7.12 |
| New Zealand | 12 | 7.43 | 16 | 6.65 |
| Japan | 13 | 7.42 | 11 | 7.01 |
| Australia | 14 | 7.36 | 14 | 6.78 |
| Germany | 15 | 7.27 | 13 | 6.87 |
| Austria | 16 | 7.17 | 21 | 6.41 |
| United States | 17 | 7.09 | 17 | 6.55 |
| France | 18 | 7.09 | 18 | 6.48 |
| Singapore | 19 | 7.08 | 15 | 6.71 |
| Israel | 20 | 6.87 | 23 | 6.2 |
| Macau | 21 | 6.84 | 27 | 5.84 |
| Belgium | 22 | 6.83 | 22 | 6.31 |
| Ireland | 23 | 6.78 | 19 | 6.43 |
| Slovenia | 24 | 6.75 | 24 | 6.19 |
| Spain | 25 | 6.73 | 25 | 6.18 |
| Canada | 26 | 6.69 | 20 | 6.42 |
| Portugal | 27 | 6.64 | 29 | 5.7 |
| Italy | 28 | 6.57 | 26 | 6.1 |
| Malta | 29 | 6.43 | 31 | 5.68 |
| Greece | 30 | 6.28 | 30 | 5.7 |
ITU also measures the average cost of fixed telephone, mobile cellular and fixed broadband internet services of 165 economies, which constitute the ICT Price Basket (IPB).
From 2008 to 2010, the global price of ICT services has dropped by 18%, with the largest decrease of 52% in fixed broadband internet services. Average ICT prices account no more than 1.5% of monthly per capita income in developed countries, compared with 17% in developing countries.
Monaco (Europe) has the cheapest ICT services. In Asia Pacific, Hong Kong ranks 4th, Singapore 6th, Australia 23rd and South Korea 26th. As you can see from the table below, the fixed telephone, mobile cellular and fixed broadband internet services in Australia are relatively more expensive compared to other countries in the Top 20.
The higher costs in South Korea are due to its extensive FTTH (Fiber To The Home) network, with the most number of homes connected to the fibre. In fact, East Asia accounted for more than 27 million of the world’s 32 million FTTH connections in 2009 (Ref 1), with the largest deployments in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Singapore’s all-fibre Next Gen NBN is slated for completion in 2012 (Ref 2). FTTH service will be provided by the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia.
| Rank 2010 |
Economy | ICT Price Basket 2010 |
As a % of GNI per capita in 2010 | ||
| Fixed-Tel | Mobile | Fixed-Broadband | |||
| 1 | Monaco | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| 2 | Macau | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.3 |
| 3 | Liechtenstein | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.5 |
| 4 | Hong Kong | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.7 |
| 5 | United Arab Emirates | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.8 |
| 6 | Singapore | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| 7 | Luxembourg | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| 8 | Norway | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.7 |
| 9 | Iceland | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| 10 | Denmark | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.9 |
| 11 | Austria | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.7 |
| 12 | United States | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.8 | 0.5 |
| 13 | San Marino | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| 14 | Finland | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| 15 | Sweden | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.8 |
| 16 | Switzerland | 0.7 | 0.5 | 1 | 0.6 |
| 17 | Netherlands | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.8 |
| 18 | Bahrain | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 1.3 |
| 19 | United Kingdom | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.7 |
| 20 | Germany | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| 21 | Canada | 0.8 | 0.6 | 1 | 0.7 |
| 22 | Cyprus | 0.8 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| 23 | Australia | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 1 |
| 24 | Belgium | 0.9 | 0.8 | 1.1 | 0.7 |
| 25 | Ireland | 0.9 | 0.7 | 1 | 0.9 |
| 26 | South Korea | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 1.5 |
| 27 | Israel | 0.9 | 0.7 | 1.6 | 0.4 |
| 28 | Italy | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1 | 0.9 |
| 29 | France | 1 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 0.8 |
| 30 | Trinidad & Tobago | 1.1 | 1.4 | 0.9 | 0.9 |
