New OECD figures show New Zealand with one of the fastest broadband uptake rates in the world.

For the year to June 30, our number of broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants increased by 4.05 to 20.4.

The good news: that makes us sixth on the OECD's league table of countries with the fastest broadband uptake per capita.

The bad news: with other OECD countries tightly clustered around the same growth percentage, beneath the lies, damned lies and statistics, New Zealand's overall OECD ranking remains static at 19 (see table below).

New Zealand remains last equal in the OECD's ranking of data plan caps. Despite recent moves to expand data caps, all New Zealand ISPs put limits on the amount of data that can be downloaded on a monthly plan, with punitive charges or a slow-down to dial-up speed applying to those who bust their cap. The US and Asian OECD members have no data caps, and limits are rare or on relatively few broadband plans in European countries (see table bottom).

The OECD's stats also show that fibre optic cable to the home is the only way to achieve dizzying broadband speed. The fastest advertised broadband plans recorded by the OECD are all in countries where fibre dominates over DSL. In the US, 51Mbit/s is offered. France, Sweden, Korea, Finland all offer 100Mbit/s plans while Japanese net-heads are spoiled with a 1Gbit/s (1000Mbit/s) cable offering.

New Zealand's fastest advertised plans are around the 24Mbit/s mark.

Across the OECD, average plan speeds again show that DSL-dominated New Zealand is behind. Average fibre optic download speed on offer is 79.9Mbit/s, while the OECD average DSL plan comes in at 8.8Mbit/s - certainly at the high end of what most Kiwis on full-speed plans could expect in their everyday surfing. The average for wireless broadband is 1.6Mbit/s.

Broadband penetration per 100 inhabitants

(For the 12 months to June 2008. Total includes other categories beyond the DSL and fibre-optic cable noted in the table, such as Fibre-Lan; these equal less than 1% in most countries, including NZ.)

Prevalance of data caps