greece internet scorecard

8/8/2019 Greece Internet Scorecard

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ConnectivityScorecard 2009

Greece High mobile penetrationrates; but lack of conducive marketconditions and favorable regulationsaffects enterprise infrastructure and

usage metrics

Overview

Greece ranks 24th within its peer group ofinnovation-driven1 economies included inConnectivity Scorecard 2009. With a score of2.62, the country lags far behind SouthEuropean countries such as Spain (3.49) and

Italy (3.99), which are themselves verydisappointing performers in a broader context,and finds itself in company with the formercommunist states of Eastern Europe. Of the 25countries in its peer group, Greece finishedahead of only Poland, which scores 2.49.

Greeces performance may come as a surpriseto some, since the country went through aneconomic boom in the early years of thecurrent decade. The Scorecard, however, does echo the findings of the most recent i2010 report by theEuropean Commission, where Greece ranked between 20 th and 26th out of 27 countries on most

measures, and so its performance on the Scorecard reflects systemic issues that require urgentattention.

Strengths and weaknesses

Greeces performance on almost every sub-category of the Scorecard is weak.

On the consumer infrastructure front, Greece scores 0.27, which is far below the highest score of 0.88.The country achieves its best score in the area of tele-density on account of a high mobile penetrationrate, but since the overall consumer infrastructure score combines mobile penetration with latent2 fixedline penetration, the countrys historical relative weakness of the fixed-line sector ensures that Greeces

1 As defined by the World Economic Forum2

Latent tele-density accounts for the conscious choice of consumers to substitute away from fixed lines in manycountries where the infrastructure is available and affordable to many households who nonetheless choose not tohave a fixed line telephone connection because of a preference for mobile telephony


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score on this measure is still only 0.27 on a 0 to1 scale. In addition to this, broadband

penetration in Greece is far below the EUaverage.

At 0.21 Greeces score in the consumer usageand skills sub-category is comparable to itsinfrastructure score. Greece is among the worstperformers within its peer group specifically interms of Internet penetration, and in fact it faresworse than many eastern European countries inthis regard.

The countrys performance in the businesssegment too is weak: It achieves a low 0.25 onbusiness infrastructure and 0.28 on businessusage and skills. As with some consumerinfrastructure measures, penetration of PCs is also the lowest in the sample of innovation-driveneconomies, and so is the penetration of secure servers. This poor showing is repeated in the businessusage and skills sub-category as well, with Greece featuring among the list of worse performers in termsof Internet buying and selling by enterprises. It is important to note that although Greeces absolutescores in this category are comparable to its performance in other segments, the business sub-categories are awarded the highest weightings between them they account for more than half of thetotal score and this has a significant negative influence on the countrys overall performance.

The government segment in Greece mirrors the performance of the other two segments. The countryscores low on most e-government measures, with a relative score of 0.45 on the Brookings Institutionranking. Interestingly, however, the proportion of enterprises using online government services isrelatively high in Greece.

Analysis

As is the case with other southern European nations, an improved telecommunications infrastructure willbe an important but, in isolation, an insufficient step towards solving the countrys connectivityproblems. Greece has systemic problems related to usage and deployment of ICT. The more pressingneed, therefore, is to improve its performance on the usage side. Why, for instance, is Internet usage

lower in Greece than it is in poorer nations? Understanding and addressing such anomalies will beimportant to improving Greeces ICT economy.

In addition, Greeces telecommunications regulatory environment has arguably lagged behind that of therest of Europe. The partial privatization of the main incumbent operator, OTE, was only implemented in2007 with Deutsche Telekom now owning a 20% stake. It is fair to assume, therefore, that furtherprivatization of the industry could foster significant improvements in market performance.

Besides an improved regulatory and competitive framework, Greece also needs to pay greater attentionto the wider ICT context, thinking long term and investing in the future. The OECD ranks Greece nearthe bottom in terms of investment in knowledge, and limited systematic data is available on the shareand growth of the ICT sector in the Greek economy. What is quite clear, though, is that the ICT sector is

not a significant component of the Greek economy so far.

As the global economy moves further into the new age, Greece faces the end of an economic boom inwhich some of its old economy industries such as shipping thrived. It is important that Greece treat the


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findings of the Connectivity Scorecard as a wake-up call and focus on developing ICT as a lever forsustained growth in living standards.


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APPENDICES

About Connectivity Scorecard

Connectivity Scorecard is a global ICT index, which measures the extent to which governments,businesses and consumers make use of connectivity technologies to enhance social and economicprosperity. Unlike other research available, Connectivity Scorecard also measures usage and skills,such as literacy, the use of enterprise software and the accessibility of women to ICT.

Nokia Siemens Networks has commissioned the study, which is the first of its kind to rank countries notonly on their deployment of ICT infrastructure but also on the extent to which people, governments andbusinesses put this infrastructure to economically productive use.

The study is created by Leonard Waverman, Fellow of the London Business School and Dean andProfessor at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, and conducted under hisdirection by international economic consulting firm LECG.

For more information on Nokia Siemens Networks Connectivity Scorecard, visitwww.connectivityscorecard.org

Business Contact

Nokia Siemens NetworksIlkka Lakaniemi, Head of Global Political Dialogue and Initiatives

+358407218009

Media Contacts

Nokia Siemens NetworksVitaliano Vitale, Communications, South East Europe+39 335 8215046

Nokia Siemens NetworksBen Hunt, Media Relations+44 7508 002382

greece internet scorecard

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