Japan has the world's best infrastructure for broadband services, helped by its fiber- optic networks, according to research conducted by two European universities.

Of the 42 countries studied, Japan has the highest score for download and upload speeds and latency, the U.K.'s University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo in Spain said in a statement. Sweden is second, followed by the Netherlands, according to the research, financed by Cisco Systems Inc.

The so-called broadband quality score is based on download and upload throughput and latency, or the time it takes for a packet of data to be sent from source to destination. The speed of networks and the quality of servers and Internet users' home computers all contribute affect the score.

``Quality will be even more important in the future because of new applications,'' Fernando Gil de Bernabe, managing director at Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group, said in a phone interview yesterday.

Services that involve live communication, such as Web calls and online gaming, require low latency, Gil de Bernabe said. Japan is the only country with a broadband quality score of more than 75, which is required to deliver future services such as high-definition television based on Internet technology and live event broadcasts in ``cinema-quality,'' according to the statement.

Source:Bloomberg