Loading ...If you have an Internet-based business or are a heavy online user, knowing which countries have the widest availability of broadband connections at the fastest speeds is a big deal. You should be interested in a recent report by the United Nations Broadband Commission that offers detailed information and analysis on the state of global broadband.
The report is quite long, so we’ll try to boil it down for you.
First of all, you’ll want to look for those countries that have the highest percentage of broadband connections per 100 people. Switzerland holds the #1 spot with nearly 42 percent. The rest of the top 10: the Netherlands, Denmark, France, South Korea, Norway, Iceland, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. According to the U.N., the United States ranks twentieth.
Much of the world accesses the Internet via mobile broadband. The mobile leader is Singapore, with over 123 connections per 100 people in that country. Japan, Finland, South Korea, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Norway, the United States and Hong Kong round out the top 10.
What about speed? Hong Kong tops the charts with a blazing 70 megabits per second (MBPS), according to network diagnostics company Ookla. Clocking in over 50 MBPS are Singapore and Romania. South Korea, Sweden, Lithuania, Japan and Macau (China) are not far behind, all over 40 MBPS. The U.S. average is just over 20 MBPS.
What about the future? The U.N.’s report looked at broadband expansion and speed targets set by countries and found that many had very ambitious plans. By 2016, Finland plans to achieve 100 percent broadband use in the country at speeds up to 100 MBPS. Denmark hopes to achieve the same goals by 2020. Australia, the U.S. and Sweden are just slightly less ambitious, hoping to achieve 90 percent broadband use with speeds over 90 MBPs by 2020. Germany wants to achieve 75 percent use by 2014 at speeds around 50 MBPS. New Zealand would like to hit 70 percent use and 100 MBPS by 2019 and Spain is planning to reach 50 percent and 100 MBPS by 2015.
You can check the stats on all countries at the end of the study to find out how your country ranks.