The OECD figures revealing Iceland topping the list of broadband users were a surprise as South Korea is regularly touted as being the most wired nation on Earth following government drives to get people using fast net connections.

Fibre and cable

According to the economic group, Iceland has 78,017 broadband subscribers and South Korea 12,190,711.

The leading countries in broadband use per capita all had more than 25% of their net users subscribing to such a service. Iceland led the field on 26.7%.

By comparison, the UK was ranked 12th with 15.9%, just behind the US with 16.8%.

The study also found the rate of people taking up broadband remained at an average of 15%.

Japan followed the US in the largest number of broadband users, with 22.5 million. It also leads in fibre-to-the-premises usage, with 4.6 million fibre subscribers by the end of 2005.

The number of fibre subscribers in Japan now outnumbers the total of broadband users in 21 of the 30 OECD countries.

In Korea, fibre-based broadband connections grew 52.4% during the second half of 2005. However, despite the growth in the number of users connecting via fibre, the statistics reveal that DSL remains the leading broadband technology in 28 OECD countries.

In the US and Canada, cable subscribers outnumber those that use DSL.