Keeping Score Picks Up Pace

 
You can tell how important broadband has become by the number of global score cards that keep appearing.
 
In the past we haven't looked that crash hot when it comes to straight penetration, cost and speed. For example the International Technology and Information Foundation produced a global broadband speed and cost table in 2007 that found us squarely in the middle.
 
Generally it's Korea and Japan that take home that particular prize. But maybe not so fast, so to speak.
 
A new study-the Connectivity Scorecard 2009 (http://www.connectivityscorecard.org/images/uploads/media/TheConnectivityReport2009.pdf

at "connectivity" a lot more broadly and at long last Australia is looking far healthier in comparison to many other countries.
 
In fact we came in 8th out of 25 this year - slipping from 7th in 2007 - and with the US taking out line honours two years in a row. Poor old Japan and Korea ate our dust in this global ranking interestingly enough.
 
We, and the US, did better here because things like economic outcomes, skills training and infrastructure got a lot more weight when linked to broadband.
 
No one country got 10 out of 10 and the authors made it clear that the whole world needs to do a lot better at making connectivity a real tool for innovation, and economic growth.
 
Australia can only benefit from these global assessments, but as this latest one shows, we are still some way from the perfect scorecard.