Fewer young Americans have Internet access than their peers in the Czech Republic, Canada, Macao and Britain, a survey of 13 countries and areas around the world showed.

Fewer young Americans have Internet access than their peers in the Czech Republic, Canada, Macao and Britain, a survey of 13 countries and areas around the world showed.

Among 12 to 14 year olds, 100 percent of British youth use the Internet, followed by Israel at 98 percent, the Czech Republic and Macao at 96 percent and Canada at 95 percent, according to the World Internet report by the Center for the Digital Future.

By contrast, only 88 percent of Americans of the same age had access, trailed by Hungary and Singapore, where more than seven in 10 young people use the Internet.

Separately, a bulletin by a software company showed mobile phone access to the Internet burgeoning outside the United States, especially in Southeast Asia.

For the report by the Center for the Digital Future, headed by Jeff Cole at the University of Southern California, researchers in 13 countries talked to more than 25,000 people in Asia, Australia, North and South America and Europe in late 2007 and early 2008.

The Center report showed the United States trails other countries in older groups, too. US Internet usage by those over 18 runs behind Sweden, New Zealand and Canada.

Recently, US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin unsuccessfully proposed a universal service fund to promote high-speed Internet access, similar to the one for telephone service.

The Center report, issued annually in the United States and for the first time worldwide, said mobile phones are used for Internet access "by a very small percentage of users, with the exception of the United Kingdom."

As of June 30, 2008, 1.463 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World Stats. During the 1990s, it was estimated that the Internet users grew by 100 percent per year.

The Unites States accounts 220.1 millions users of Internet, which take 15 percent of all users. The population of the Unites States is 305 million, which takes 3 percent of world.