[LINK] World Broadband

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Third annual study from Saïd Business School, Oxford University, looks at 
broadband quality in 72 countries & 239 cities. http://newsroom.cisco.com


Key Facts/Highlights ..


•Overall broadband quality has increased by 48% since 2008 (although some 
countries have shown significantly larger improvements):

•The average global download speed has increased 49% in just three years 
(3,271 Kbps in 2008, 4,882 Kbps in 2009 and 5,920 Kbps in 2010)

•The average global upload speed has increased 69% in three years (794 
Kbps in 2008, 1,345 Kbps in 2009. 1,777 Kbps in 2010)

•Average latency has fallen by 25% to 142ms. This is slightly up from 
140ms in 2009, but still significantly lower than 189ms in 2008

•48 countries, (66%), are meeting the requirements to enjoy all the major 
services offered by the Internet today, (defined in the study as social 
networking, low-definition video streaming, basic video-conferencing, 
small file sharing), as well as not so demanding applications (such as 
instant messaging, email, web browsing). This adds ten countries since 
2009, and 18 since 2008. This is in spite of global Internet traffic 
volumes rising by 166% from 2008-2010 (source: Cisco Visual Networking 
Index 2010)

•Fourteen countries are already prepared for the "Internet applications 
of tomorrow", such as high definition Internet TV and high quality video 
communications services (consumer telepresence) which are expected to 
become mainstream in just a few years time. These countries are: South 
Korea, Japan, Latvia, Sweden, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Lithuania, 
Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Portugal, Denmark and Iceland. This is 
up from nine countries in 2009 and just one in 2008 (Japan). 

•South Korea tops the broadband leadership ranking for the second year in 
a row.


Closing the 'digital divide'


•Hong Kong, Iceland, South Korea, Luxemburg and Malta lead in broadband 
penetration with take-up reaching 100% of households

•49% of the households of all the countries studied have access to 
broadband, up from 40% in 2008 and 47% in 2009

•Half of the countries show no digital divide in the quality of broadband 
(i.e. between their main cities and outside them), a 38% increase from 
2009

•There are already 38 cities with the broadband quality required to 
become smart and connected communities; 18 of those are in Western 
Europe, 11 in Eastern Europe, 7 in Asia, and 1 in the USA

•Seoul tops the list of cities with the highest broadband quality 
(scoring 97 out of 100)

•Japan stands out as having the most cities with the highest broadband 
quality in the world, with 3 cities Nagoya, Yokohama and Osaka rated 
2nd , 3rd and 4th respectively


Improvements in mobile broadband


•Sweden, Denmark, USA, and Spain are the world leaders in mobile 
broadband quality. Sweden and Denmark are also in the leading group in 
fixed-line broadband

•The latency of mobile broadband, one of the biggest weaknesses of mobile 
Internet access, has improved by 45% in just one year, from 1313ms to 
724ms. Average download speed is now 936 Kbps, up 35% from 2009 and 
upload is now 277 Kbps, an increase of over 100% from 2009

•Mobile broadband quality varies considerably with the technology used 
much more so than with fixed-line. While on average the quality of mobile 
broadband is far below that of fixed-line, about 30% of users experience 
download throughputs above 1.3 Mbps (the threshold for today´s 
applications in mobile)

•Moreover, 10% of users are already enjoying average download speeds of 
3.75 Mbps and uploads of ca. 1 Mbps, and latency below 110ms. This gives 
them comparable quality to fixed-line broadband users who are ready 
for "today´s applications", which correspond to the form factor of 
netbooks and Internet tablets

•Even more outstanding was to find that 4% of users have average download 
speeds of 7 Mbps, uploads of 1.7 Mbps and latencies below 100ms


World Rankings 2010  (Top 30 countries)

 Country
 Leadership 2010
 Leadership 2009
 Leadership 2008
 
1
 Korea
 157
 128
 107
 
2
 Hong Kong
 118
 104
 98
 
3
 Japan
 116
 98
 95
 
4
 Iceland
 115
 103
 85
 
5
 Luxembourg
 111
 101
 84
 
5
 Singapore
 111
 105
 96
 
5
 Switzerland
 111
 102
 91
 
6
 Malta
 108
 92
 67
 
7
 Netherlands
 107
 101
 93
 
8
 Qatar
 106
 106
 80
 
8
 United Arab Emirates
 106
 88
 68
 
9
 Sweden
 104
 96
 83
 
10
 Denmark
 103
 94
 87
 
11
 Norway
 102
 95
 85
 
12
 Bahrain
 100
 91
 73
 
13
 Finland
 97
 83
 77
 
13
 Ireland
 97
 86
 75
 
14
 Israel
 96
 N/A
 N/A
 
15
 Canada
 93
 87
 81
 
15
 France
 93
 87
 79
 
15
 Latvia
 93
 71
 58
 
15
 United States
 93
 84
 74
 
15
 Slovenia
 93
 87
 77
 
16
 Belgium
 91
 82
 73
 
17
 Estonia
 87
 77
 67
 
17
 Germany
 87
 77
 70
 
17
 United Kingdom
 87
 82
 76
 
18
 Cyprus
 83
 69
 55
 
19
 Taiwan
 82
 82
 74
 
20
 Australia
 80
 78
 74
 
20
 Spain
 80
 74
 69
 
21
 Lithuania
 79
 75
 55
 
21
 Portugal
 79
 69
 60
 
22
 Romania
 78
 67
 54
 
23
 Czech Republic
 77
 59
 49
 
24
 Greece
 75
 65
 52
 
24
 New Zealand
 75
 70
 62
 
25
 Austria
 73
 69
 64
 
26
 Italy
 72
 68
 63
 
27
 Bulgaria
 71
 62
 44
 
28
 Hungary
 71
 61
 51
 
29
 Poland
 60
 52
 45
 
29
 Slovakia
 60
 54
 45
 
30
 Turkey
 58
 55
 48
 
--

Cheers,
Stephen