Recently, market research firm Omdia released a white paper on the Fiber Development Index in 2021.
Omdia's Fiber Development Index tracks and measures fiber development in 81 countries. Fiber investment is critical to the quality delivery of all data services. In addition to standard fiber home coverage and fiber home penetration, the FDI includes commercial penetration, mobile cellular base station fiber penetration, fiber backbone investment, and overall average download and upload speeds.
According to the white paper, the top 5 countries in the world in the 2021 Fiber Development Index are Singapore, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, China and Qatar. Among them, only China, a large country with a huge territory, entered the top 5. Omdia noted that the top 5 countries all benefit from a "strong national broadband plan."
Among the major powers, the United States ranks only 18th, far behind not only China, but even Behind Russia (ranked 16th). It is reported that the fiber development index of developed countries such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom is lagging behind, mainly because there is no too clear or aggressive national plan, and operators lack incentives.
Among the other major powers, Japan is 6th, Spain is 7th, France is 15th, Canada is 21st, and Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom are far behind.
The white paper states that by 2026, the proportion of the world's population connected to the Internet will increase from the current 58% to 70%. Of these 70 percent, 30 percent will access the internet through mobile devices and 40 percent will have a fixed broadband connection at home. (C114 Namsan)
