UK drops to 47th in global broadband rankings
Details
Louise Duffy
| 02 September 2020
The UK is lagging behind the rest of Europe when it comes to broadband speed, coming in below 21 Western European countries, due to its comparatively slow pure fibre network rollout.
VirginMedia network 25March2020


According to the Worldwide Broadband Speed League, which gathers data from more than 557 million broadband speed tests conducted across 221 countries, the UK is among the slowest in the region, losing ground since the measurements were taken last year. In the 12 months since the last report, the UK has dropped from 34th to 47th place.

At 37.82Mbps, the UK average puts it 22nd out of 29 states in Western Europe, or eighth slowest. Average speeds in the UK are less than half of the Western European average (81.19Mbps).

Western Europe dominates the global speed table, with eight of the top 10 fastest countries in the world for broadband. The principality of Liechtenstein offers the fastest broadband in Europe (and in the world) with an average speed of 229.98Mbps.

Hong Kong (105.32Mbps) and Hungary (99.74Mbps) are the only two states to make it into the top 10 fastest in the world outside Western Europe.
Countries in Northern Africa collectively had the lowest average speed in the world (3.80Mbps), while Western European nations collectively exhibited the highest average speed regionally (81.19Mbps).

Commenting on the report, Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk – which carried out the research in conjunction with M-Lab – said: "Countries and territories with a heavier reliance on or ongoing investment in pure fibre (FTTP) networks, or that are upgrading to fibre or LTE from even more aged technologies, continue to see their averages rise. Those that are somewhat late to that particular party, however - the UK being a case in point when it comes to pure fibre networks - have slipped back as others have risen faster.

"While around 60% of the UK has access to the Virgin Media network and can get speeds of up to 516Mbps, and there is limited availability of smaller networks such as Hyperoptic offering gigabit speeds, the Openreach network remains the anchor that keeps average speeds in the UK comparatively low. Entry-level fibre packages and 'fast' fibre packages on Openreach have been set at around 30-35Mbps and 60-70Mbps respectively for more than five years now with no significant changes beyond how those speeds are advertised.

"As shown by the domination of smaller countries and regions at the top of the table – Liechtenstein, Jersey, Andorra, Gibraltar – it is obviously far easier to upgrade a country or territory to full fibre the smaller it happens to be. However, the UK still finds itself a long way behind many nations of equal or greater size. Ultimately, the UK, specifically Openreach, is comparatively late in its rollout of pure fibre networks, which is causing the UK to stagnate, while other nations gain ground."

The full report can be read at http://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/spe...-speed-league/