Worldwide Broadband Speed League 2019

Interactive map

Using the map

Countries are colour-coded by average broadband speed measured. As you can see, this paints an interesting picture, with the majority of faster countries clustered around Europe, and most of the slowest countries on the African continent.

Hovering over an individual country will bring up its associated speed data. This includes country name, its ranking out of the 207 countries measured, its mean average download speed, how long it would take to download a 5GB HD movie using this average speed, the mean download speed measured across the previous 12-month period, and how many places – if any – the country has gained or lost in worldwide speed rank.

Why some countries are missing data

When it comes to internet provision, the situation varies both by country and region. Generally speaking though, you can apply the rule that the larger and less developed the nation is, the slower the internet access tends to be.

The economy of Taiwan (this year's fastest), for example, relies heavily on digital infrastructure, while the country itself occupies a relatively small space compared to many others. There is economic necessity, coupled with the relative ease of delivering high-speed connections across a smaller area.

Conversely, the economy of Chad suffers from geographical remoteness, drought and political turmoil, with agriculture its chief industry. It is vast. There is therefore arguably no pressing economic necessity for high-speed internet, while the cost of delivery would almost certainly exceed Chad's GDP.

Although Chad is just one example, most of the countries not included in the study have issues preventing them from rolling out worthwhile digital infrastructure, and therefore failed to generate enough tests to provide a useful average. Countries excluded were: Bhutan, Central African Republic, Chad, Lesotho, North Korea, Solomon Islands, Somalia and South Sudan.

Previous years' research

This is the third year running we have undertaken this research. Both the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 results are included in the downloadable data set so that year-on-year change may be observed.

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Highlights

Here is a quick look at the fastest countries or territories in the world according to the study

#1. Taiwan
Taiwan comprises a mixture of broadband technologies, and broadband growth in terms of subscriber numbers has stalled. Speed increases are driven by mass migration from ADSL to fibre.
#2. Singapore
A vibrant digital economy and diminutive landmass offer Singapore significant advantages when it comes to infrastructural development and FTTP (pure fibre) availability.
#3. Jersey
Jersey is the first jurisdiction in the world to make pure fibre (FTTP) available to every broadband user. Jersey's shift from tenth to third shows that uptake has been healthy.
#4. Sweden
Sweden’s decision to focus on FTTP (pure fibre) means around 60% of Swedish homes and businesses now have access to speeds of up to 1Gbps (1,000Mbps).

Global average broadband speed continues to rise

Tracking broadband speed measurements in 207 countries and territories (200 last year) across multiple 12-month periods has allowed us to generate an overall average speed for the globe and to see how this number changes over time. The good news is that the global average speed is rising fast.

The average global broadband speed measured during the period from 11 May 2016 to 10 May 2017 was 7.40Mbps. The average global broadband speed measured during the period from 30 May 2017 to 29 May 2018 was 9.10Mbps – a rise of 23.35%. This year, the average speed measured in the period from 9 May 2018 to 8 May 2019 was 11.03Mbps – a further rise of 20.65% over the previous year.

However, it should be noted that those countries contributing the most to the rising average are those in developed nations which contain not only already-faster established infrastructure, but in which we’re also seeing the most significant rollout and uptake of the latest technology. There is comparatively little development – and therefore little change in availability and/or uptake of faster infrastructure – in the bottom half of the league table compared to the top.

The gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen

Before you paint a picture that broadband provision is improving globally based on the 20.65% jump in average global speed since last year, consider that, on average, the top 100 countries in the table have gained 4.08Mbps while the bottom 100 in the table have gained by an average of only 0.47Mbps.

Of course, the top 100 have proportionately faster speeds to begin with, so we really need to look at the percentage increases to see what’s actually going on. Not including new entries, the top 100 countries have increased their average broadband speed by 25.63%. The bottom 100 countries have increased their average broadband speed by 23.77%. Proportionately, then, the difference in year-on-year speed increase is small.

Of course, the smaller the top and bottom chunk you measure this way, the more stark that difference becomes. If you take the top 25 versus the bottom 25, for example, the top 25 increased their speeds by an average of 34.62%, while the bottom 25 have gained only 2.19%. The gap is widening, with faster progress correlating with higher placement in the league table.

UK holding its ground, but still poorly placed compared to much of the EU

The top of the table is dominated by Europe, as is evident from even a quick glance at our interactive map. Of the top 50 countries, 37 of them are in Europe. Last year’s results placed the UK 35th in the world. This year the UK places 34th. However, the UK remains behind countries such as Madagascar and two thirds of other EU countries.

With the UK only just beginning to roll out FTTP (fibre to the premises), and with a number of other European countries already a long way ahead of the UK in this regard, it is likely it will just about hold its ground, but more likely slip when we take these measurements next year.

Our sample size is nearly 60% larger than last year

Thanks to the increased proliferation of the M-Lab speed test tools, this year we were able to build our report from over 276 million individual speed tests in 207 countries, compared to the 163 million tests which formed last year’s data set. This has allowed us to include eight countries that we were not able to include previously, due to the sample sizes being too low to produce a useful number.

Previous year's research

This is the third year running we have undertaken this research. The previous year's results are included in the data set for easy tracking across the last three years.

Regions

Africa
With its vast landmass and little in the way of a digital economy when taken as a continental whole, Africa is a long way behind the rest of the world when it comes to broadband provision, relying primarily on wireless (WiMAX, 3G, 4G) connectivity rather than cables to cover its vast spaces.
Madagascar is the fastest African nation, clocking in at an average speed of 22.57Mbps, placing it 33rd globally. This is thanks to the underwater EASSy cable that supplies the island’s urban centres with respectable fibre broadband speeds. Most other African nations aren’t so lucky, with six out of the 40 included nations having to get by on average speeds of less than 1Mbps.
Arab States
All but seven of the 21 countries included in the Arab States region are in the bottom 100 results, while Yemen also has the honour of being the country with the lowest speed globally with an average speed of just 0.38Mbps. In Yemen it would take 30hrs, 01min and 40secs to download a 5GB movie.
Only the UAE, with its download speed of 9.62Mbps, offers an average speed significantly above 6Mbps, and no countries at all in the region reach 10Mbps or greater – the speed UK regulator Ofcom considers the minimum required to cope with typical household needs.
Asia and Pacific
This region is a mixed bag, offering some of the fastest countries in the world – Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and New Zealand – and at the same time some of the slowest: Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Timor-Leste.
This should come as no great surprise. The region is vast and comprises 40 countries measured in the study this year. Taiwan is number one in the world with an average speed of 85.02Mbps, with last year's champion Singapore not far behind in second place globally, with an average speed of 70.86Mbps, and Taiwan coming third in the region and sixth in the world with an average speed of 42.77Mbps.

Europe
Europe has the world’s highest concentration of countries with fast or very fast broadband. One glance at the map shows that almost all of Europe enjoys broadband speeds that are, in most cases, leading the rest of the world.
We measured 54 countries in the European region and all but one of them (Armenia) fall within the top 100 fastest. In fact, Europe makes up a staggering 37 of the top 50 fastest countries. Jersey is Europe’s fastest jurisdiction, offering an average speed of 67.46Mbps. Armenia is Europe’s slowest, with an average speed just 4.85Mbps – though this is still an improvement on last year.
North America
This is a small category in terms of number of countries, with only four included: United States, Canada, Greenland and Bermuda. However, these cover a vast landmass. America also offers us by far the largest sample – a whopping 132.5 million speed tests from 25.6 million distinct IPs.
The United States has the fastest broadband in the North American region – no surprises there – with an average speed of 32.89Mbps. Greenland is the slowest with an average speed of 6.51Mbps.
South/Latin America
Countries in the South/Latin America region fail to get a single entrant into the top 50 fastest countries. Cayman Islands is this region’s fastest country, with an average speed of 16.12Mbps, with Venezuela at the bottom of the regional table with average speeds of just 1.37Mbps, which is a small improvement on last year.
Generally the countries in this region occupy the centre portion of the global league, with no South/Latin America country in the 40 fastest or 40 slowest.

Our comments

With average broadband speeds rising by 20.65% in the last year the global picture looks rosy. But 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 88 times slower than the five fastest. This year they are 125 times slower.
Europe and parts of Asia are dominating 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.

It’s been very interesting looking at the data for a third year running. It's our largest data set ever, and the results are reassuringly consistent.
The obvious correlation is that countries and territories with a heavier reliance on or ongoing investment in pure fibre (FTTP) networks, or 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, have gone largely unchanged.
Take the Republic of Ireland, for example. Its heavy investment in FTTP has seen its average speeds rise far faster than the average this year, lifting it a highly respectable seven spots up the table. The UK, meanwhile, remains in the 'experimental' stage of FTTP provision, offering ultrafast in test locations for the most part while making noises about national rollout in the coming years. As such, it has lifted only one spot, while (somewhat embarrassingly perhaps) remaining one place behind Madagascar, and in the bottom third of all EU nations.
The UK has few excuses here. There is nothing especially challenging about UK geography when compared to that of our EU counterparts. The UK is simply arriving later to FTTP than many of those doing better in the global league. Ultimately, the UK must accelerate full fibre rollout if it is to remain a competitive digital economy – especially so as Brexit looms.

Cable.co.uk's annual internet speed ranking using M-Lab data is a great example of open data being used to encourage public understanding of broadband speeds people receive around the world. Average speed rankings by country are a great starting point, and are a great starting point for deeper research and statistical analysis of the state of broadband using M-Lab's global broadband measurement datasets.

Resources

Downloadable versions of the data set (.xls), the original press release and the research methodology (.pdf)

League table
The full league table can be downloaded here and includes a comparison to last year's results.
DOWNLOAD
Press release
If you wish to see the original press release for this research, you can download it here as a PDF.
DOWNLOAD
Methodology
Our research methodology and notes on how to interpret speed data can be downloaded here as a PDF.
DOWNLOAD

Contact us

Dan Howdle
Consumer telecoms analyst
Twitter: @danhowdle
Email: dan@cable.co.uk
Mark Ashton
Head of Research and Development
Twitter: @cableuk_news
Email: mark@cable.co.uk

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Worldwide broadband speed league 2019

Interactive map

Using the map

Why some countries are missing data

Previous years' research

Broadband comparison services

Highlights

#1. Taiwan

#2. Singapore

#3. Jersey

#4. Sweden

Global average broadband speed continues to rise

The gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen

UK holding its ground, but still poorly placed compared to much of the EU

Our sample size is nearly 60% larger than last year

Previous year's research

Regions

Africa

Arab States

Asia and Pacific

Europe

North America

South/Latin America

Our comments

Resources

League table

Press release

Methodology

Contact us

Dan Howdle

Mark Ashton

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