South Korea: Home of the best internet

Among other Asia-Pacific nations, Australia ranked 11th with 72 per cent, Japan ranked 16th with 64 per cent, New Zealand ranked 25th with 57 per cent and China ranked 43rd with 21 per cent.

The United States, where only 60 per cent of households had broadband as of last year, simply ranked 20th in the survey of 58 countries by a Boston-based company, Strategy Analytics.

Five out of the top 10 countries or territories in the survey were in Asia and the firm predicted the broadband subscribing base in the Asia-Pacific region will explode on average by a further 15 per cent a year between 2009 and 2013.

Strategy Analytics said South Korea's highly-urbanised population and its government-backed broadband policy accounted for its high rate of broadband penetration.