Michael Geist had a blog post with some excerpts of Canada’s performance in the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011 [pdf, 10.1MB] yesterday. I had a post this morning that uses the report to understand the breadth of issues that need to be considered in a comprehensive national digital strategy. You can contrast the full 71 point scorecard in the World Economic Forum approach with the views of others
I thought it would be worthwhile to expand on the indices that Professor Geist provided and look at how Canada ranks compared to our colleagues in the G-8.
| Issue | Canada | Canada in G8 |
US | UK | Germany | France | Italy | Russia | Japan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average cost per minute mobile phone calls | 66 | 6 | 42 | 60 | 25 | 113 | 47 | 45 | 128 |
| Mobile telephone subscriptions | 95 | 8 | 76 | 24 | 27 | 68 | 13 | 9 | 75 |
| Mobile subscriptions with data access | 68 | 8 | 16 | 28 | 32 | 31 | 22 | 40 | 4 |
| Fixed broadband Internet monthly subscription charge | 23 | 2 | 12 | 28 | 71 | 41 | 31 | 35 | 46 |
| Government prioritization of ICT | 31 | 3 | 20 | 32 | 24 | 42 | 115 | 77 | 41 |
| Government procurement of advanced technology products | 25 | 2 | 5 | 52 | 31 | 47 | 116 | 81 | 40 |
| Importance of ICT to government vision of the future | 28 | 2 | 22 | 38 | 34 | 30 | 104 | 100 | 40 |
| Household with a personal computer | 10 | 2 | 24 | 13 | 8 | 29 | 36 | 46 | 11 |
| Broadband Internet subscribers | 10 | 2 | 18 | 12 | 11 | 9 | 30 | 51 | 19 |
| Internet users | 11 | 2 | 15 | 7 | 13 | 23 | 46 | 74 | 15 |
| Internet access in schools | 13 | 1 | 14 | 18 | 39 | 41 | 85 | 62 | 40 |
| Use of virtual social networks | 6 | 2 | 12 | 3 | 23 | 37 | 51 | 102 | 67 |
| Impact of ICT on access to basic services | 23 | 2 | 22 | 39 | 24 | 26 | 78 | 101 | 45 |
Not sure why his post didn’t include this line from the tables, which might have preempted the usual voices preaching that all is doom and gloom in the Canadian telecom sector:
| Issue | Canada | Canada in G8 |
US | UK | Germany | France | Italy | Russia | Japan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed phone tariffs | 1 | 1 | 1 | 96 | 58 | 82 | 70 | 37 | 46 |
Among the interesting observations are the consistently strong measurements compared with our economic peers. Canada and the US are both at the bottom of G-8 ranking so for mobile penetration for a variety of structural reasons and the government has already taken action to advance Canada’s mobile voice and data competitiveness.
Canada’s first place standing in school internet access shows the value of targeted government programmes in achieving leadership, as I suggested this morning. Although people have observed the drop from 7th place in the previous year’s rankings to 8th place this year, an examination over a longer term shows the generally improving trend:
| Network Readiness Index Rank | Canada | Canada in G8 |
US | UK | Germany | France | Italy | Russia | Japan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 – 2011 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 15 | 13 | 20 | 51 | 77 | 19 |
| 2009 – 2010 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 13 | 14 | 18 | 48 | 80 | 21 |
| 2008 – 2009 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 15 | 20 | 19 | 45 | 74 | 17 |
| 2007 – 2008 | 13 | 3 | 4 | 12 | 16 | 21 | 42 | 72 | 19 |
| 2006 – 2007 | 11 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 16 | 23 | 38 | 70 | 14 |
In the absence of a comprehensive national national digital economy strategy, Canada’s performance has been generally improving and global leadership is within reach. Canada has been second to the US for the last three years. Following the election, clear targets should be set for Canada to lead the G-8 within two years and aim to consistently be among the world’s top three by 2017.