The only countries among the top six outside the Nordic region were Singapore, which was number one, and the United States, which ranked fifth.
The United States dropped to fifth place from its previous number-one position. Now the USA was seen to have lost ground to other countries in both quality of education and the use of the Internet; the US did not actually decline - it is the other countries that have moved ahead.
Iceland was in second place, Denmark was in fourth, and Sweden was number six. Norway ranked number 13.
The study compared factors such as technical infrastructure, governmental information society policy, the quality of education, and service fees.
There was considerable variation among Western EU countries. Italy?s ranking dropped from 28th to 45th, with a few African and Latin American countries coming out ahead. Italy's bureaucracy was ranked as the second-most cumbersome.
