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Taiwan No. 7 in digital access
DIGITAL EQUALITY:
The distribution of access to digital services such as cable TV, mobile phones and the Internet in Taiwan is becoming increasingly homogeneous
STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Wednesday, Sep 19, 2007, Page 2
The nation's digital opportunities are now rated No. 7 in the world, thanks to its ever-narrowing digital divide, officials at the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.
Referring to the World Information Society Report 2007 released by the International Communication Union, CEPD officials said Taiwan's digital opportunity index -- measured on a scale of zero to one -- stood at 0.71 for the period from 2005 to last year, the seventh-highest score among the 181 economies surveyed and the fourth-highest in the Asia-Pacific region.
UPWARDS
The nation's ranking went up three notches over the previous year's survey, meaning that its score is now comparable to Denmark's 0.76, Iceland's 0.74, the Netherlands' 0.71, Sweden's 0.7 and the UK's 0.69, the officials said.
In addition to its performance on digital opportunities, the distribution of digital opportunities was also becoming increasingly homogeneous, they said.
DECLINING
As shown in the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics' Report on the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure 2006, the Gini Coefficients of inequality for various information and communications technologies -- including personal computers, Internet access, mobile phones and cable TV -- have been declining, they said.
Gini Coefficients range between zero and one, with a zero representing an absolutely equal distribution and one an absolutely unequal distribution.
A distribution is regarded as relatively unequal when the ratio becomes larger than 0.3.
It is regarded as significantly unequal when the ratio is larger than 0.4.
PROGRESS
The penetration rate of personal computers was 66.1 percent last year, up 2.9 percentage points over the previous year, with the Gini Coefficient for personal computers dropping from 0.277 in 2005 to 0.273 last year -- the lowest level in the past six years, CEPD officials said.
On mobile phones, the nation's per-capita mobile phone ownership ranked No. 10 in the world, the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007 said, with the Gini Coefficient for mobile phones decreasing from 0.236 in 2005 to 0.228 last year -- also the lowest level in the past six years, the officials said.
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