U.S. Tops New Tech Usage Ranking

[HardOCP News]

According to the Connectivity Scorecard, created by London Business School professor Leonard Waverman, the United States, Sweden and Japan topped a new ranking system that measures how well countries use telecommunications technologies to boost their social and economic prosperity.

The study said the top-ranking United States, which has benefited the most from ICT, was rated below 7 out of 10, mostly due to weak usage of vast broadband networks, indicating there is room for improvement for all countries.

 

[HOCP4ME]

This surprises me. Since many smaller countries with less land to cover have faster, cheaper connections than the US, I would expect them to top this ranking.

 

[Azhar]

I think the report is skewed in a way. For the longest time, Asia and Europe enjoyed better telecommunications benefits, particularly in the area of cellular technology, namely SMS texting and Bluetooth capabilities. The United States constantly kept those phones locked up tight and charged up the ass for texting and so forth.

Only recently the US started relaxing their cell restrictions, so this sudden "rise" in tech here and Asia and Europe's "stagnation" would actually put us on right about even.

A sudden rise in technology shouldn't be an indication of being better off. It could just mean we're far behind and we're trying to catch up.

 

[TechLarry]

Probably because we are behind even some third-world countries and we are starving for better capabilities.

 

[HOCP4ME]

A sudden rise in technology shouldn't be an indication of being better off. It could just mean we're far behind and we're trying to catch up.

I really don't think that's true. Native Spanish speakers have told me that people in European countries do not use the Internet every day like we do.

Either way, this is still good news. Whether we're ahead or catching up, those are both good trends.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

The US is a massive population. Even if small European nations have a higher percentage of people using tech, the US still has more overall.

I know quite a few people here in central Oklahoma who still use dial-up, despite the fact that cable and DSL are fairly cheap and widespread.