Japan 10th in Internet Diffusion Rating

The ITU (UN International Telecommunication Union) published a by-country survey on how the Internet is utilized in the dissemination of telecommunication data. Japan now ranks 10th this year - a step above the previous year.

The UN body, head-officed in Geneva, Switzerland, annually publishes diffusion ratings on the use of mobile phones, the Internet, and high-speed/high-capacity data communication.

The latest data published on November show Japan's advance in the rating with an increasing number of the Internet users and placed Japan a notch above the previous year to 10th among the 175 countries under survey. 

South Korea tops others for two years in a row; Britain came 5th, the US 15th, China 81st, etc.

The survey predicts the Internet will disseminate to some 3.5 billion people or roughly a half of the total world population by the turn of this year. It is a rather impressive increase in the number of Internet users from 2 billion or so in 2010.

There is, however, a huge difference, roughly 2:1,  in the rate of diffusion between the advanced and developing countries due to the difference in the levels of income and education.

The top 10 countries in the rating list are:

1  South Korea
2  Iceland
3  Denmark
4  Switzerland
5  Britain
6  Hong Kong
7  Sweden
8  The Netherlands
9  Norway
10  Japan

Information floods in via the Internet - often too much more for man to know what to do with. A land of scarce natural resources, Japan ought to utilize internet-based information data to its advantage. Neck-deep in the age of the elders, Japan's cutting-edge robotic technology, for instance, will find in the Internet a rich reservoir of data for its own advancement.

By the way, why is the US, the cradle of the Internet, rated so far below in the rating? (Nathan Shiga)