UK broadband among the slowest in Europe

Analysis of over 557 million broadband speed tests worldwide has revealed that the UK now sits in 47th place, with an average speed of 37.82Mbps.

The research from Cable.co.uk puts the UK ahead of 174 countries, but behind 46 others, coming in behind 21 Western European countries. This puts the UK among the slowest in the region when it comes to average broadband speed, losing 13 places since the measurements were taken last year.

To put things into some perspective, 32 of the top 50 fastest-performing countries are located in Europe, with six in Asia, seven in the Caribbean region, three in Northern America, and one each in Oceania and Central America. By contrast, 32 of the 50 slowest-performing countries are located in Sub-Saharan or Northern Africa, five are in Asia, five are in the Near East, three are in the CIS (Former USSR) region, three are in Oceania, and one each in South America and the Caribbean region. The US ranks 20th overall with an average download speed of 71.3Mbps.

109 countries failed to achieve average speeds of 10Mbps or greater, the speed deemed by UK telecoms watchdog Ofcom to be the minimum needed to cope with the needs of a typical family or small business.

Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, says:

While global broadband speeds continue to trend upward, the truth is faster countries are the ones lifting the average, pulling away at speed and leaving the slowest to stagnate. Last year, we measured the slowest five countries at 125 times slower than the five fastest. This year they are 276 times slower. The slowest countries are not slowing, they are simply not growing. While the fastest countries continue to accelerate year-on-year.

Europe absolutely dominates the leaderboard once again thanks to largely excellent infrastructure. In all cases, those countries ranking highest are those with a strong focus on pure fibre (FTTP) networks, with those countries dawdling too much on FTTC and ADSL solutions slipping further down year-on-year.

You can see the full results on the Cable.co.uk site.

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