Commission: Estonia ranks 9th in Europe for digitization
Estonia ranks ninth in the European Union's Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) for 2017, after Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.
Estonia is the champion in Europe in the online provision of public services, and scores above EU average in digital skills and the use of the Internet by its citizens.
As for broadband, it is strong on mobile, but has low fixed broadband coverage despite progress over the past year. The key challenge in Estonia is the digitization of companies, the executive summary of DESI 2017 on Estonia says.
In Estonia 4G is widely available, and the take-up of mobile broadband is very high.
Basic fixed broadband coverage has increased but remains well below EU average. The availability of next-generation access (NGA) is slightly above average, and fast broadband take-up is growing.
Overall, Estonia ranks 17th for connectivity, and 25th for cable broadband.
The report points out that where in Sweden 51 percent of the businesses using a computer have an ICT security policy, in Estonia only 17 percent of companies have one. For that criterion only Poland and Hungary are lagging behind Estonia with 13 percent and 10 percent, respectively.
Estonia ranks 23rd for the use of social media by businesses, and 20th for the use of social media by residents.
On the other hand, Estonia is in third place in the EU when it comes to people reading news online.
In terms of Internet use in general, Estonia ranks sixth in Europe, down one place compared with last year.
Estonia also scored well in terms of Internet users, basic digital skills levels, and the share of ICT specialists in the workforce, with the highest shares of ICT specialists in total employment registered in Finland at 6.6 percent, Sweden at 6.3 percent, and Estonia at 5.3 percent. At the same time, the number of graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is low.
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS