GENEVA —

The United States is falling behind other advanced economies in its use of—and access to—telephone and Internet technology, according to a U.N. report published Monday.
 
The U.S. slipped six places to 17th on the U.N. telecommunications agency’s ICT Development Index. It was leapfrogged by countries such as Japan (12), Germany (13) and New Zealand (16).
 
By 2007, more than 8 in 10 Americans had cell phones accounts compared with just under half the population in 2002, the International Telecommunication Union said in its report.
 
The number of households with computers and Internet access also increased, to 7 in 10 and 6 in 10 respectively.
 
But the country where Alexander Graham Bell invented the modern telephone, and which developed what has since become the Internet, lagged behind northern European countries on all fronts.
 
Sweden, which was ranked first, had more cellular accounts than inhabitants by 2007. More than 80% of households in the Scandinavian country had computers and almost as many had Internet connections.
 
South Korea was second, followed by Denmark, the Netherlands and Iceland. Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Finland and Britain completed the top 10.
 
Almost a quarter of U.S. households now have fixed line broadband accounts, while almost 1 in 5 Americans have cellular broadband accounts—a technology nonexistent in 2002.
 
In a measure of how much of people’s income went toward making phone calls and surfing the web, the United States came second after Singapore and ahead of Luxembourg. Americans, on average, pay slightly more than $15 each for monthly mobile and broadband connections, while fixed lines are priced at just under $20 a month, according to the report.
 

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3 Comments

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  Yelnats at 03:40 PM JST - 3rd March

  Those are rinky dink sized countries compared to how spread out and large America is. They should rate internet availability by cost, and then compare cell phone plans. Japan would come in last. This place has the most rediculous rates for cell phone plans in the world. I rarely use mine to talk, and it cost me more than double of what my family pay in the states and they have unlimited talk minutes.

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  imexmi at 04:58 PM JST - 3rd March

  In this interesting article, there is something umprecise , since the real inventor of modern telephone is not Graham Bell, but has been officially reckonnised that is ANTONIO MEUCCI from ITALY, He leaved in N.Y. Also you forgot to say that Italy has the largest number of cellophone, their numbers outnumber the entire population (60,000,000)

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  Badsey at 01:16 AM JST - 4th March

  I wasn't aware that people still use telephones -they must be gaining popularity again. -They must be talking Voip telephones.

  iPhone unlimited data/skype ~$50-60 a month (this is the standard). Skype has unlimited access to landline connections ~$5 a month. Voip to Voip is always free.

  Some areas still have crappy cell availability (forget about 3G). Many are getting their TV thru the Internet now (Hulu etc.)

  = this report is extremely dated.

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