A new report has shown UK broadband average speed ranking it 31st in the world, lagging behind many European countries.
The UK’s average broadband speed is 16.5Mbps – nearly three times slower than Singapore which topped the list of 189 countries at 55.13 Mbps.
The analysis found that the UK lags behind 19 European countries including Germany (18.8Mbps), Spain (19.6Mbps) and Hungary (23Mbps).
The report was based on more than 63 million broadband speed tests taken over the course of a year. The results were later ranked by cable.co.uk.
“These results offer us a fresh perspective on where we sit in the broadband world,” says Dan Howdle, an analyst at Cable.co.uk, who produced the report.
“Relatively speaking, we are near the top of the table. However, many of those ahead of us, some a long way ahead, are our neighbours both in the European Union and wider Europe. Is it good enough to lag behind 20 other European countries in terms of broadband speed?”
The slowest speed on the list of 189 countries was Yemen, where it typically takes where it would take two days to download a film in high definition. This is compared to Singapore where it takes an average of 18 minutes to download a 7.5Gb film.
Howdle said the report showed the broadband “first world” and “third world”. Less developed countries such as Somalia, Congo, Gabon and Malawi appeared at the bottom of the list.
To tackle the poor placing of UK in the list, last month 57 MPs published a report calling on Ofcom to make providers including BT (LON:BT.A) and Sky (LON:SKY) compensate customers who do not get the connection speeds they have been promised.
Ofcom has a goal of a minimum of 10Mb broadband to all UK households – the minimum speed able to cope with the average family’s internet needs.