EIU e-readiness rankings

Jilm

Scandinavia takes the lead from US in fourth annual Economist Intelligence Unit e-readiness rankings, Ireland stays at 15 (of 60 largest economies).
If anyones interested, theres a press release here.

<snip>
"E-readiness", or the extent to which a market is conducive to Internet-based opportunities, takes into account a wide range of factors, from the quality of IT infrastructure to the ambition of government initiatives and the degree to which the Internet is creating real commercial efficiencies.
<snip>

spongebob

Site

zz03

Originally posted by Jilm
Scandinavia takes the lead from US in fourth annual Economist Intelligence Unit e-readiness rankings, Ireland stays at 15 (of 60 largest economies).
If anyones interested, theres a press release here.

<snip>
"E-readiness", or the extent to which a market is conducive to Internet-based opportunities, takes into account a wide range of factors, from the quality of IT infrastructure to the ambition of government initiatives and the degree to which the Internet is creating real commercial efficiencies.
<snip>

This EIU survey is hardly worthy of comment.

Putting Ireland before $20/month 8Mbits/sec half the pop on broadband Korea?

Not to mention Belgium - Europe's DSL leader?

And France which has the cheapest wholesale and retail DSL in Europe.

And Japan where they can actually put a laptop computer together unlike the rubbish foisted on the world market from certain Irish based screwdriver plants.

Above the line, Switzerland is away ahead of Britain and the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the US - particularly when it comes to well designed multi-lingual online service delivery systems.

This document is nothing more than second rate publicity seeking junk from a second rate publisher.


zz..

dahamsta

I wasn't going to post this, but hell, it fits perectly here. Reposted from IP...

---

Forwarded Message
From: Tim Onosko <tim@onosko.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 07:27:39 -0600
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Japan Broadband Update

Dave:

I got back last week from Japan, and I was again shocked at the fast pace
that broadband is making there. In my opinion, this rapid advance is at
least in part the result of Japan being somewhat shamed by the
extraordinary penetration of broadband into neighboring Korea, and that
broadband is a rare growth opportunity in an otherwise stagnant
economy. An interesting sidebar of all this is that Japan is also well on
its way to making wired telephone service a low-cost/no-cost commodity via
broadband IP telephony.

The link below is to an eye-opening Nikkei piece that debates the merits of
ADSL over FTTH (Fiber to the Home).. Some interesting facts from this
piece: ADSL is available to 95% of Japanese homes, and FTTH available to
("only") 64%! Many if not most ADSL homes enjoy 12 Mbps service, and 24
Mbps service will become a reality in 2003. And 100 Mbps FTTH service
currently costs JPY5400 per month (USD$45) and friends tell me that will
drop by almost 20% next month. It's very cool to see billboards on Tokyo's
fashionable Aoyama-Dori advertising NTT's 100 Mbps broadband service next
to ads for cosmetics and couture. By the way, this survey piece implies
that cable modem service has been left in the dust by both Fiber and DSL.

Here's the link:

http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/wcs/leaf?CID=onair/asabt/fw/239289

- Tim Onosko

NeoSlicerZ

24 Megabytes per second? for 45 US ............
/me wants to move house

BKtje

zz03, reason Korea and Japan aint on the chart there is cos its only European countries on it. Therefore no Korea or Japan.

If u meant something else, my apologies.

zz03

Originally posted by B-K-DzR
zz03, reason Korea and Japan aint on the chart there is cos its only European countries on it. Therefore no Korea or Japan.

If u meant something else, my apologies.

I was referring to the table in http://store.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=pr_story&press_id=890000689 mentioned in the root posting up top.

zz..

BKtje

o i see now, us ahead of s Korea? they must have some weird way of calculating this.

andrew163

ADSL is available to 95% of Japanese homes, and FTTH available to ("only") 64%! Many if not most ADSL homes enjoy 12 Mbps service,

:eek: 95%? 12MBPS?

*thump*

sorry i just fainted

Hannibal_12

Originally posted by andrew163
:eek: 95%? 12MBPS?

*thump*

sorry i just fainted

Utterly incredible isnt it !. I dont for one minute expect to have a 12 mbps connection but it really highlights the quagmire we are in here.

PiE

Originally posted by NeoSlicers
24 Megabytes per second? for 45 US ............
/me wants to move house

No, it's $45 for 100Mbps...

Capt'n Midnight

When you read it - it translates into
"What portion of Irish people are clued up enough and have modems such that they could book tickets on line with Ryanair if they really had to ?"
It does not ask is it easy or practicable for them to do so.

We get a score of 78% when 75% of the rating has nothing to do with Broadband...

We are one of the few countries to have a DROP in readiness - a quick look shows only Venezeula had a bigger drop !!! (sorta puts us 59th out of 60 when it comes to progress..)

==============

1. Connectivity and technology infrastructure Weight in overall score: 25%
Category criteria: Fixed-line penetration; mobile-phone penetration; Internet penetration; PC penetration; HIGH SCORE
telecoms charges as proportion of disposable income AHEM AHEM COUGH COUGH...;
level of competition in telecoms industry ABOUT ZERO ?;
quality of Internet connections; security of telecoms infrastructure. THIS COULD GET A GOOD SCORE IGNORING COST
SO WE GET A MEDIUM SCORE HERE

2. Business environment Weight in overall score: 20%
NOTHING TO DO WITH BB

3. Consumer and business adoption Weight in overall score: 20%
Category criteria: State spending on information technology as proportion of GDP; OH YEAH THATS PROBABLY THE MOBILE PHONE MASTS IN ALL THE GARDAI STATIONS...
level of e-business development; degree of online commerce; RYANAIR.COM;
quality of logistics and delivery systems DO THEY MEAN INTERNET OR THE BUY4NOW VANS ?;
availability of corporate financing. BANKS WILL LEND MONEY TO ANYONE THESE DAYS
SO WE GET A MEDIUM TO HIGH SCORE HERE

4. Legal and policy environment - Weight in overall score: 15%
NOTHING TO DO WITH BB

5. Social and cultural infrastructure - Weight in overall score: 15%
Category criteria: Level of education and literacy; level of Internet literacy; degree of entrepreneurship; technical skills of workforce.
THIS OF COURSE PUSHES THE SCORE UP

6. Supporting e-services - Weight in overall score: 5%
Category criteria: Availability of e-business consulting and technical support services; availability of back-office support; industry-wide standards for platforms andprogramming languages.
ANOTHER HIGH SCORE SEE NO. 5 ABOVE...

Capt'n Midnight

Just to put the Japanese bandwidth in perspective..

At some point last year there were 2,550 customers
50 customers per exchange = one 2Mb ADSL @ Contention Ratio of 50:1
50 exchanges wired up @ 2Mb each = ONE 100Mb connection.

Obviously they can now roll it out at half price 'cos they replaced the single 10/100 with a gigibit card (I expect it cost them more than €77 inc Vat - 'cos they didn't shop around)

What happens when they hit 25,500 customers and have to buy a second NIC ?????

You can't really call it country wide broadband when all of both Telco's consumers have less bandwidth than you can pump through a single gigabit card......

zz03

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
When you read it - it translates into
"What portion of Irish people are clued up enough and have modems such that they could book tickets on line with Ryanair if they really had to ?"
It does not ask is it easy or practicable for them to do so.

We get a score of 78% when 75% of the rating has nothing to do with Broadband...

It seems to me that both you and the EIU are missing the big issue!

The world is moving to an IP infrastructure and quaint categorizations such as "fixed line penetration" and "mobile phone penetration" are irrelevant. How many steam engines do we have per capita? How many horse drawn trams?

The majority of the population will use a printed phone book (or 118) rather than looking up a number online if they don't have a broadband connection. It is like trying to go from point A to point B on public transport in Ireland - one has to be really committed because it is so difficult and disintegrated.

One can create any internet based service in, for example Korea, because the infrastructure is there and the population have bought into it as a result. Adoption follows automatically because the foundation to deliver a meaningful benefit to one's lifestyle is already installed.

Ireland has traditionally been a word of mouth society. A nerd will tell another nerd that even dial-up access is OK because s/he can get certain insight over narrowband that is useful to them. Someone who is interested in horses and has no interest in the internet will only be impressed by timely, high resolution images of horse matters perhaps from far away places (which requires broadband bandwidth).

The internet will not enter the realms of mainstream society big time (like cash, food and cars) until broadband is widely available.

The "legal and policy environment", the "social and cultural infrastructure" and support services etc will follow automatically driven by market forces. While a country can have all the "legal and environmental" policy to support a "broadband society", if it doesn't have broadband that is economically available to the majority of its population it is surely pissing into the wind, like Ireland and the EIU?


zz..

dahamsta

Perhaps I'm missing the point here, but doesn't all of that /rely/ on fixed and mobile line penetration? Particularly in Ireland, when a cable alternative is unlikely and a wireless alternative is slow on takeoff?

adam

zz03

Originally posted by dahamsta
Perhaps I'm missing the point here, but doesn't all of that /rely/ on fixed and mobile line penetration? Particularly in Ireland, when a cable alternative is unlikely and a wireless alternative is slow on takeoff?

adam

The EIU document purports to be an international survey. The bottom line is that Ireland is ranked too highly relative to Korea, France, Belgium, Japan and others.

Their scoring methodology is deficient and has not been thought through.

If every fixed line phone subscriber in Ireland had broadband, we'd be flying. Over 80% of Irish households have an eircom copper pair feed.


zz..

Capt'n Midnight

On reflection I have to agree with the report,

a) It says Ireland is in a very high state of E-readiness, this is true !
We are ready to use the full potential of the internet - BUT ONLY when it arrives at a resonable and fixed price.

b) It also shows that despite all the noise and pomp of the various internet rollouts over the previous year our eCommerce competitiveness has fallen compared to 58 out of the 59 other countries in the survey.

Note: This survey obviously uses the definition of a customer as "having needs & wants and is willing to spend money on them" so anyone who could never use eCommerce would be excluded.

BTW: Everyone in Ireland knows someone who has a Nerd as a relation. And rather than look up horses themselves they usually get the Nerd to bring home the printouts.. True or what ?
People are ready for the internet - they just won't accept the WorldWideWait.

dahamsta

I was referring specifically to your suggestion that the 'world is moving to an IP infrastructure and quaint categorizations such as "fixed line penetration" and "mobile phone penetration" are irrelevant' zz03. Of course we'd be flying if every fixed line subscriber (and every mobile subscriber for that matter) had broadband, however, as Capt'n Midnight points out, that makes penetration all the more relevant.

It's not really a right or wrong thing anyway, so it doesn't matter. The bottom line is the same.

adam

Capt'n Midnight

From the totally impartial CIA .. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ve.html

"Current concerns include: an embattled president who is losing his once solid support among Venezuelans, a divided military, drug-related conflicts along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations"

"Nevertheless, a weak nonoil sector and capital flight and a temporary fall in oil prices - undercut the recovery. In early 2002, President CHAVEZ changed the exchange rate regime from a crawling peg to a free floating exchange rate, causing the bolivar to depreciate significantly."

".. large quantities of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana transit the country from Colombia bound for US and Europe; significant narcotics-related money-laundering activity, especially along the border with Colombia and on Margarita Island; active eradication program primarily targeting opium; increasing signs of drug-related activities by Colombian insurgents on border" not much chance of ADSL up there methinks

And all that on top of a failed CIA sponsored coup...

Meanwhile we've had "stable government", FF in power for most of the last 15 years, stable currency - linked to the euro, the North is a lot quieter and we've got loads of low paid immigrants to do all the low paid work .. and the world price for our exports does not fluctuate wildly or depend mostly on the buying power of a superpower that want to destroy our way of life.

The more I think about this report the worse it looks for us - and those responsible will use it to vindicate their policies..