Speed Vs. Maturity
Seoul ranked 12th in the penetration and usage rates of information and communications technology (ICT) among 40 major cities in the world.
Networked Society Lab under Ericsson published their “Networked Society City Index” report measuring the ICT maturity of the world's major cities at the 2014 Business Innovation Forum recently held in Stockholm, Sweden.
This index is evaluating the quality of the infrastructure, usage, and price of ICT in each city and how much ICT is used to develop economic, environmental, and social networking.
The investigation points out that South Korea remains 12th owing to the low usage of ICT infrastructure for environmental and economic development, despite having world's top Internet speed and penetration rate of smartphones. The number one city for ICT maturity is Stockholm, followed by London, Paris, and Singapore. Ahead of Seoul, Tokyo and Los Angeles ranked 10th and 11th, and Beijing was ranked 26th.
Furthermore, Seoul fell behind in ICT development speed. According to the Networked Society Lab, the ICT maturity improvement speed of Seoul ranked 30th, in the lower ranks. First place was ranked by Lagos (Nigeria) followed by Delhi (India), Cairo (Egypt), and Dhaka (Bangladesh).