South Korea, which came 2nd, took the first place in ICT investment ratio. Optical fiber ratio, ratio of third-generation mobile phones, internet dissemination rate and broadband dissemination rate were also highly evaluated. Sweden which came 3rd, took the first place in Internet dissemination rate. Broadband dissemination rate and mobile phone dissemination rate were highly evaluated and other criteria were well balanced, with deviation values of over 50.

### (2) International comparison of ICT utilization A. Evaluation method

Next, the progress in ICT systems and utilization of services is evaluated to show how effectively the world’s highest level of ICT infrastructure is being used. Since there is little quantitative data that allows for an integrated international comparison, unlike ICT infrastructure for the utilization of ICT, we conducted an online questionnaire targeting users in the aforementioned seven countries $ ^{32} $ . For the survey on utilization, the following 10 areas were set: (1) healthcare/welfare, (2) education/personnel, (3) employment/labor, (4) administrative services, (5) culture/arts, (6) corporate management, (7) environment/energy, (8) transportation/distribution, (9) security/safety, (10) e-commerce. We then presented three cases of specific ICT system services $ ^{33} $ for each area and asked about the overall utilization for each area.

### B. Overall rankings

In order to comprehensively compare the utilization in the 10 areas for each country, the deviation value concerning utilization in each country was calculated from the mean value of the sum of the utilization rates $ ^{34} $ for each area.

As a result, as figure 2-15 shows, the most advanced country in terms of utilization was Singapore, followed by Denmark, South Korea and Sweden. Japan was ranked fifth out of the seven coun-

Figure 2-14 Deviation values by index relating to ICT infrastructure

Compiled from the Survey on Global Comparison in Relation to Japan’s ICT Infrastructure (2009), Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications

$ ^{29} $ Users in seven countries were grouped by age, and 1000 responses were returned from each country.

$ ^{30} $ ICT system services in each area include: (1) healthcare/welfare (electronic chart, pension payment simulation, etc.), (2) education/personnel (home life-long education, in-school LAN, etc.), (3) employment/labor (provision of placement information system, telework, etc.), (4) administrative services (online application, online tax declaration/taxation system, etc.), (5) culture/arts (tour information/audio information, purchase/use of internet contents, etc.), (6) corporate management (facilitation and upgrading of production and distribution process management by electronic tags, etc., B2B e-settlement system, etc.), (7) environment/energy (remote monitoring system for the usage of water, electricity gas, etc., automatic control ventilation and lighting, visualization of electricity consumption, etc.) (8) transportation/distribution (e-tickets using IC card, system to confirm the position of goods for currier services), (9) safety/security (security confirmation system at time of disaster, danger alarm system, etc.), (10) e-commerce (settlement system by credit card or e-money, online system for financial transactions, etc.)

$ ^{31} $ First, respondents were asked to choose an appropriate answer as to the use of ICT system services corresponding to each area for the following options: “Have used the service”, “Have not used the service, but have heard of it”, or “Have not used or heard of the service.” Then, the rate of responses of “Have used the service” was regarded as the utilization rate. Among respondents, only people in employment were counted for corporate management. Employment was classed as follows: executives/officers, employees (clerical), employees (technical), employees (other), self-employed, specialists, civil servants.