Australia, at 14th, had a global IDI of 7.36.

The ITU noted the New Zealand Government investment into upgrading its broadband infrastructure to increase the country's global competitiveness as a major component of its rankings boost.

New Zealand is spending around $NZ1.5 billion on a mix of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and existing copper communications infrastructure as well as $NZ300 million on improving rural broadband.

Australia is spending $36 billion on a predominantly FTTH National Broadband Network (NBN).

The ITU report made no mention of Australia's NBN.