OECD Broadband Stats
The 2008 OECD Broadband stats have mounds of data. To save you opening several dozen spreadsheets, I’ve done it for you. Some interesting aspects:
- NZ is one of only four countries that only has data capped broadband. In 16 countries there are no data capped plans at all. And in 10 countries there is a choice of plans with and without data caps.
- NZ’s average data cap is 20.3 GB and average cost over that is US$7/GB
- The time it takes to reach a data cap at advertised speeds is almost the worst in the world – ranged from 6.8 minutes to reach the monthly cap on Telecom Basic to 25 hours on Woosh.
- Our average advertised download speed is 13 Mb/s (actual is a different matter)
- 14 countries now have over 1% fibre penetration – we are still on zero. OECD average is 10% penetration.
- NZ had the third highest growth in broadband connections in 2008 – up 3.77 connections per 100 homes.
- NZ now in 18th place out of 30 – continuing the gradual improvement from No 23.
This graph shows nicely how far behind we were compared to the OECD average in the early 2000s. And the telecommunication reforms of 2006 have, I believe, been partly responsible for the very significant closing of the gap. However as Australia shows, we still have a fair way to go.