Introduction

ASEAN is a tremendously diverse region, encompassing within its borders some 4 million square kilometres, 600 million people, 32,000 islands, 900 different languages and a diversity of development that ranges from US$800 per capita to US$49,000 per capita from its least to its most developed member countries. This diversity extends to ICT adoption across ASEAN. As discussed in the next section, Internet usage has a relation to a country's development. The world average Internet penetration rate is 23.8 per cent. The internet penetration rates for developed countries are: United States — 77.3 per cent, Japan — 78.2 per cent, South Korea — 81.1 per cent, Australia — 80.1 per cent. Compared to this, the rate of Internet penetration of the ASEAN member states is shown in Table 7.1.

Data varies widely depending on the source, how the measurement is derived, and when it was taken. For consistency, the data for Table 7.1 is taken from a common source.

A Broader Measure

Internet penetration is a gross measure as it does not sample other quantitative or qualitative criteria such as quality of Internet access, legal framework, and other infrastructural issues. A more compound measure is a country's readiness for Internet-based opportunities. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), collaborating with IBM, publishes an annual E-readiness ranking.

E-readiness is defined as an indicator of how amenable a national market is to Internet-based opportunities. The ranking evaluates the technological, economic, political and social assets of sixty-eight countries and their cumulative impact on respective information economies. The rankings are based upon nearly 100 quantitative and qualitative criteria, organized in six distinct categories: Connectivity and Technology Infrastructure, Business Environment, Consumer and Business Adoption, Legal and Policy Environment, Social and Cultural Environment, and Supporting e-services.

For 2010, the No. 1 country is Denmark, followed by the United States and Sweden as No. 2 and No. 3 respectively. The ASEAN countries' rankings are shown in Table 7.2.