Study: U.S. ranks tops in telecommunications use

Study: U.S. ranks tops in
telecommunications use

NEW YORK — Americans may look with envy on the super-fast Internet connections available in South Korea, Japan and parts of Europe, but they can take consolation from a new study that concludes that the U.S. makes better overall use of its telecommunications.

The U.S. ranks No. 1 in a study led by Professor Leonard Waverman at the London Business School that compared 16 developed countries not just by the quality of their communications infrastructure but also how consumers, business and government use it.

By contrast, the U.S. ranked 15th in percentage of homes that have broadband in the latest survey of the 30 nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

On Waverman’s “Connectivity Scorecard,” the U.S. stood out for good use of telecommunications by businesses. Close behind are Sweden and Japan. But the survey found that much more could be done, even in the most developed countries, to take advantage of existing technologies.

Many Europeans worry
about putting stuff online

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Three out of four Europeans are worried about posting their personal information on the Internet.

Franco Frattini, the European Union’s top law enforcement official, said recently that an upcoming poll will show people were concerned about the security of their personal data and wondering what they could do to protect it.

“It is our intention to fully analyze and understand the feedback we have been given by Europe’s citizens in this survey,” said Frattini, the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner.

Europeans’ should be “a salutary lesson” for all those who handle personal data, he said. Regulators from the EU’s 27 nations are preparing a report on whether the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others comply with EU privacy law.

Associated Press