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UK comes 25th in global broadband study

The UK is a mid-table location when it comes to broadband, according to new research.

By Jennifer Scott, 1 Oct 2009 at 11:22

The UK has taken a disappointing 25th place in the latest global broadband study.

The country is considered to be meeting the needs of today with its broadband capability but it only held a mid-table spot behind Lithuania, Bulgaria and Latvia.

Sweden came out top for the European contenders but came fourth overall behind South Korea – who took the top spot – Japan and Chinese territory Hong Kong.

Almost two thirds of countries were able to deliver good enough broadband for the most common web applications today, such as social networking, streaming low-definition video, web communications and sharing small files such as photos and music.

However, only nine countries were prepared for future web applications such as high definition internet TV or high-quality video communications like home telepresence, which the report suggests will become mainstream in the next three to five years.

The research was undertaken by MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo’s Department of Applied Economics on behalf of Cisco and looked at 66 different countries’ quality of connections and the percentage of households which have one.

Alastair Nicholson, associate fellow at the Saïd Business School, said: “New web applications will continue to increase demand for improvements in the key performance parameters of download and upload throughput and latency that we use to calculate broadband quality.”

Average download speeds globally increased by 49 per cent to 4.75 Mbps and upload speeds increased even further by 69 per cent to 1.3 Mbps.

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2 comments

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Inadequate Service

I think it is not enough to compare the speed of connections accounting for quantities of connections falling in ranges such as low, medium, high and average amd real versus quoted speed

It seems to me that it should also be appropriate to measure cost per Kbps and Mbps and also to provide a indication of cost of real connections versus advertised connections and the proportion faling in percentage ranges of advertised speeds.

I think the UK would appear far furthur down the list if cost were factored into the survey

I think that univerally the cost of existing connection should be split into a base cost for line and (e.g. 20% of lowest current line charge such as £4) and the remainder should define the cost of the line per 0.5MB - for example 25p per 0.5MB resulting in a maximum cost of £10 for a 20Mbps ADSL2 connection speed (+£4 for line) and therefor be prorated to actual average speed so a 20Mbps line running at an average of 11.5Mbps would actually cost £5.75 + £4.

I would also argue that the need to connect a telephone be removed, allowing users to have ADSL without a telephone contract.

BT deliberately forces people to take a telephone connection and charges excessively for the line which may well be anything up to or in excess of 50 years old and an exchange which might once have filled a warehouse that now fits into a cabinet not much larger than a telephone box.

It is about time BT and other provider of phone and data services move into the 21st century and adopy data only connections providing all services over such connections using VOIP for voice and streaming SD TV which typically can run over a 1Mbps connection easily and scrap these legacy technologies.

Charging might be broken into a basic charge for a physical connection/equipment £4 Copper £10 Fibre charge, and a per Mbps charge with customers being allowed to choose the speed they want to receive and paying for the real (average) speed capped at initiation not the advertised speed.

By Hitman101 on Friday Oct 2

Cisco Broadband Study

The study proves that our copper network continues to deliver the broadband quality needed by businesses and consumers today. But while many countries in the study have failed in delivering broadband access to the majority of the population, the UK’s copper network is delivering good quality broadband to almost everyone that needs it. While affordable fibre is out of reach to many small businesses today, the report proves that ADSL, SDSL and bonded SDSL services still deliver a cost-effective solution to meet the needs of small businesses in the short to medium-term.
Chris Stening, Managing Director, Easynet Connect

By ChrisStening on Friday Oct 2