The New York Times has strangely discovered that "Surprise: America is No. 1 in Broadband" by parsing a report that a) isn't actually measuring broadband and that b) came to the same conclusion back in 2008. The only surprise here is the headline.
But the report in question, the Connectivity Scorecard 2009 (PDF), does contain plenty of good news for the US: despite numerous reports about how we're being whipped in broadband by cold, dark countries, the Connectivity Scorecard suggests that the US still remains the country best-equipped to turn its IT investment into economic growth.
The Scorecard is put together by consultancy LECG and Leonard Waverman, dean of business school at the University of Calgary and a fellow of the London School of Economics, and it's paid for by Nokia Siemens. The Scorecard doesn't therefore appear to be some kind of pro-US press release dressed up with data. The first version of the Scorecard in 2008 generated so much interest that the authors decided to run it again in 2009 with even more countries included.
Rather than looking at simple metrics like broadband speeds or penetration percentages, the Scorecard tries to puzzle out which countries are best making the link between "connectivity" and economic growth. Such "connectivity" goes far beyond wires, however; as the Scorecard puts it, "broadband lines, PCs, advanced corporate data networks and advanced use of wireless data services are certainly measures of connectivity, but so are human skills relevant to the usage of these infrastructures, technologies, and networks."
That's why Korea—which has a tremendous residential broadband network and plenty of fiber to the home—only takes the 18th spot in this year's scorecard. According to the report's authors, Korea's broadband network might be fast, but the country as a whole is "less 'usefully connected' than several other" countries, and "certainly less usefully connected than it could be." The same might be said of Japan, as well, which came in 10th despite its widespread fiber architecture and high-tech culture.
The US topped the list in 2009 (as it did in 2008), and Sweden took second place in both lists, too. Among the "resource and efficiency driven economies," Malaysia, Turkey, and Chile topped the list.
A broadband scorecard this is not, but it does serve as a reminder that making good use of technology often counts for more than mere technological dominance.