UN report: Asia-Pacific leader in bandwidth availability

According to a recent UN report on technology, the Asia-Pacific is the world’s leader in internet connectivity. Some of the criteria used by researchers included the fact that the region is home to 39% of the broadband market and home to 42% of all Internet users. It also has the largest number of cellular phone users in the world.

Chile has 1.4 million broadband connections. This is equivalent to 8.5% of the population, well below countries like South Korea (79%) and Singapore (70%). Moreover, the difference in connection speed is almost unbelievable. While Chile averages 700 kbps, Japan offers home users 50 mbps connections.

Asia's technology leaders

South Korea leads in percentage of households connected to broadband (26%), followed by Hong Kong and Japan. These nations also have the highest proportion of fiber optic connections and next-generation Internet support. The number of broadband has quadrupled in five years. It jumped from 27 million, in 2003, to 133 million by early 2008.

Access to telephones has not lagged behind either. There are 2 billion land lines in the region, which is equivalent to 46% of the world’s connections. Cellular devices are listed at 1.4 trillion, which translates into a 30% increase over the past five years.

Another technology protagonist is the Philippines, which has the largest number of text messages per mobile user in Asia. This amounts to 650 texts per person per month. The explanation is the high cost of calls versus the low cost of texting.

Asia's technology gap

The study, published by the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, also stressed that the economic gap in the region is becoming larger. This, in turn, hinders access to the net throughout many areas in Asia.

In nations with medium and medium-low access, the Internet is limited to urban areas and is also very expensive. In Mongolia, for example, the monthly cost for a 256 kbps connection can run as high as $70 or nearly 70% of per capita GDP in that country.

Another important point is that nations which enjoy the highest per capita income levels also have the lowest average cost of Internet service. For example ISPs in nations such as Cambodia, Tonga, Laos and Bangladesh, are unable to offer what are considered minimum connection speeds in Japan and South Korea.

Technology as a democratization factor

Despite the sharp differences in access to new technologies, the UN report concludes that in many cases access to the Internet has meant significant improvements in quality of life.

Examples of this are: increased access to distance education in the Solomon Islands; job creation in business incubators in China; and, the delivery of communication services for disaster management in Myanmar.

To access the presentation of the Report in PDF format click here.

To access the International Telecommunications Union full report click here.