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Thursday July 6, 11:17 AMJapan tops list of lowest monthly broadband prices(Kyodo) _ Japan came second, after South Korea, in terms of access to digital communications technology, while having the lowest monthly broadband prices, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Telecommunication Union.Denmark, Iceland and Hong Kong followed the two Asian countries in terms of the Digital Opportunity Index covering 180 economies and compiled through 11 indicators such as access to telecommunications, affordability, network penetration and the take-up of new technologies like broadband. Japan had the lowest monthly broadband prices, costing $31.19 per month, or 7 cents per 100 kilobits per second, according to the World Information Society Report 2006. Countries that have Internet access of 256 Kbps or above more than doubled from 81 countries in 2002 to 166 countries in April this year. The price of accessing the Internet fell by about 40 percent on average worldwide in the two years since 2003, it said. The number of mobile phones used worldwide has surged from around 11 million units in 1995 to 2.14 billion units in 2005. Developed countries enjoy greater and more varied data services, at faster speeds and lower cost. Economies of scale and modern infrastructure mean that telecommunications are, for a large part, cheaper in the industrialized world -- relative to income and in absolute terms in the case of flat-rate broadband offered in parts of Asia and Europe. The nature of the digital divide is changing, and strategies to promote digital inclusion must take these changes into account, if the developing world is not to be left behind, according to the report. |
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