Connecting up

Britain climbs broadband league tables

The UK is now 18th-most connected country in the world, up from 25th last year

Britain is climbing the broadband league tables, but still lags 17 other countries

Typical British web users can “comfortably enjoy” the latest web applications, a new survey has said.

But the Broadband Quality Survey 2010 shows that British broadband services still lag some way behind the best in the world, such as those enjoyed by South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan.

The survey, conducted for Cisco by the Said Business School and the University of Oviedo, found that the UK had improved 23 per cent in a single year.

It added that in 2010 there was a 39 per cent improvement in download speeds from 2009 and a 17 per cent rise in upload speeds.

The authors placed the UK in a category of “Broadband Penetration leaders”, with three-quarters of UK households already having broadband access, and claimed that, on average, the UK shows no broadband quality digital divide between the most populated cities and those outside.

This was cited as a major achievement given the geography and demography of the country.

The report, however, found that Britain was not one of the 14 countries that is already prepared for the “applications of tomorrow”, and added that many developing economies are leap-frogging established powers.

It found that countries such as Latvia, Bulgaria and Portugal are already achieving the necessary 11mbps download and 5mps upload speeds.

The worldwide average is currently 5.9mbps for download and 1.7mbps for upload; the UK compares favourably with a 6.4mbps download speed.

Overall the study, the third annual report, showed that global broadband quality has improved by 50 per cent in three years, and that South Korea has set a new benchmark for the world’s broadband standards by achieving 100 per cent penetration.

The Government has said that Britain will have the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

The survey defines quality as a both the speed of the connection and the amount of time it takes data to arrive at a machine.

Top broadband nations:

South Korea

Hong Kong

Japan

Iceland

Switzerland; Luxembourg; Singapore

Malta

Netherlands

United Arab Emirates; Qatar

Sweden

Denmark

Source: Said Business School