Brits lag Scandinavians in net access

Britain has ranked only twelfth in a list of most the wired nations, according to figures released by the International Telecommunication Union.

The ITU's Digital Access Index is the first global index to rank Information and Communication Technology (ICT) access.

European countries including Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Netherlands and Finland all rank higher than Britain.

Asian countries South Korea, China and Taiwan came fourth, seventh and ninth respectively in the Digital Access Index, which also saw Canada in tenth place.

The Index ranks countries on the basis of number of telephone lines and mobile phones per person, the cost of getting on to the internet, national literacy, how fast broadband links are and the percentage of citizens who are web users.

"The first global index to rank Information and Communication Technology (ICT) access has turned up some surprises as the top ten economies are exclusively Asian and European," states the ITU.

ITU research compared the top 40 countries in 2002 with the situation in 1998 to see the evolution.

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