UK is top major European country in new web index
A new web index created by the World Wide Web Foundation, has the UK in third place globally. This new index scored countries on a number of factors including state and availability of infrastructure, education, laws, political and economic impact to name just a few. The top 10 is:
| Rank | Country | Web Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sweden | 100 |
| 2 | United States of America | 97.31 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 93.83 |
| 4 | Canada | 93.42 |
| 5 | Finland | 91.88 |
| 6 | Switzerland | 90.49 |
| 7 | New Zealand | 89.15 |
| 8 | Australia | 88.44 |
| 9 | Norway | 87.76 |
| 10 | Ireland | 87.42 |
So rather than our usual dour demeanor when it comes to the state of Internet access in the UK, we have something to celebrate. If one considers Sweden to not be a major European country (pop: 9.5m) compared to the UK, then we can stand tall and proclaim best major country in Europe.
For those curious to delve deeper into the analysis head over to thewebindex.org, where the scoring methodology and background to each metric is explained.
What we should do now, is celebrate a little, but then get back to the serious task of doing things like elevating the UK above the United States and Sweden, and clawing our way up the myriad of other net metrics that exist. The growing Digital Divide gets many column inches, but every week there are increasing numbers of projects that are erasing the Digital Divide in the hardest to reach parts of the UK, and we are told hill farmers have access to Gigabit connections just like those who live in cities. Infrastructure projects take time to deploy, and if every project delivers what it promises the UK can in a few years be held as a shining example around the world.
Update 5pm: Added live link to source data.
Comments
USA @ #2... BWAHAHAHAHAHA
'hill farmers have access to gigabit connections...'
Shame the same doesn't apply to me at 400 meters from a main road but 7km from the exchange between 2 modestly sized towns.
3G broadband is no joke to live with.
Yeah, 3G is a bit iffy but no matter, in a minute you'll have LTE over 1800Mhz!
That is if we can all somehow convince O2 to shrivel and die!
"Infrastructure projects take time to deploy, and if every project delivers what it promises the UK can in a few years be held as a shining example around the world."
Andrew for PM. :)