The results of the third annual study of the quality of broadband connections around the globe reveals continued improvements worldwide, with more countries already prepared for the applications of tomorrow than in previous years and two thirds of the countries analyzed meeting or surpassing today’s needs. Overall, thanks to a range of investments in infrastructure, global broadband quality has improved by 50% in just three years and penetration of broadband continues to improve, with about half of the households (49%) of the countries investigated now having access to broadband (up from 40% in 2008).

Graphic: Saïd Business School, Oxford University / cisco

Using the data from 40 million real-life broadband quality tests conducted in May-June of 2010 on the Internet speed testing site, speedtest.net, the researchers were able to evaluate the broadband quality of 72 countries around the globe.

Quality was evaluated by scoring the combined download throughput, upload throughput, and latency capabilities of a connection, the key criteria for a connection’s ability to handle specific Internet applications, from consumer telepresence to online video and social networking. These criteria are expressed as a single ‘Broadband Quality Score’ for each country. By combining this Broadband Quality Score with broadband penetration figures for each country (i.e. the proportion of households who have access to broadband, obtained from Point BlogPost in 2010), the researchers were able to map out the world’s broadband leaders – those with the best combination of broadband quality and penetration (Note: For a full explanation of how the scores are calculated, see page 4 of the Broadband Quality Study 2010).

Building on last year’s study, the 2010 data also includes analysis of the broadband quality of 239 cities, providing further insight into the evolution of smart connected communities around the world.

The measurement of mobile broadband quality, first introduced to the study last year, has also been expanded significantly to include 68 countries (94% of the overall sample). The research has also explored the patterns of broadband consumption per household and evaluated the impact these will have on overall broadband quality requirements.

The study was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo’s Department of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco.

Key Facts/Highlights

Global broadband quality continues to improve at a pace

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

Broadband leadership table (top 10):Ranking	Broadband Leadership 2010
1	South Korea
2	Hong Kong
3	Japan
4	Iceland
5	Switzerland. Luxemburg, Singapore
6	Malta
7	Netherlands,
8	United Arab Emirates, Qatar
9	Sweden
10	Denmark

Broadband leadership table (top 30) with scores and progress from 2008 to 2010:

Ranking 2010	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

Ranking Evolution Top 10 Countries, 2008-2010:

Country	2010	2009	2008
Korea	1	1	1
Hong Kong	2	3	2
Japan	3	7	4
Iceland	4	4	8
Switzerland	5	5	6
Luxembourg	5	5	9
Singapore	5	2	3
Malta	6	10	19
Netherlands	7	6	5
United Arab Emirates	8	12	19
Qatar	8	2	11
Sweden	9	8	9
Denmark	10	9	7

Link to socio-economic development

Broadband quality is directly linked to a nation’s advancement as a knowledge economy. In order to reflect this in the results, and to see which countries were outperforming their economic group and subsequently were well prepared to make economic leaps, the researchers compared the results according to the country’s stage of economic development as defined by the World Economic Forum.¹ See Fig 2: Broadband quality ranking – by economic development for the full breakdown

• South Korea topped the list of Innovation-driven economies (Stage 3) with a score of 157. Slovakia came last within this group with a score of 60
• Bulgaria topped the list of Efficiency-driven economies (Stage 2) with a score of 71. South Africa came at the bottom of this group with a score of 34
• Ghana topped the list of Factor-driven economies (Stage 1) with a score of 38. Angola came at the bottom with a score of 5
• Qatar topped the list of Stage 1 to 2 Economies with its score of 106. Algeria came at the bottom with a score of 31
• Bahrain topped the list of stage 2 to 3 Economies, with a score of 100, placing it amongst the broadband leaders of the world (rank 12 in broadband leadership albeit with a low score on BQS at 23). Russia came at the bottom of this group with a score of 50

The team repeated and enlarged the number of regressions conducted in the first edition between broadband quality, broadband penetration and broadband leadership with over 40 socio-economic factors.

The research confirmed the early findings on the positive associations between broadband and the economy. Significantly, broadband leadership is strongly associated with competitiveness, knowledge economy and innovation. The main correlations are shown in Fig 4: Impact of Broadband on Socio-Economic Factors

¹ Stages of Economic Development as defined in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report.
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm

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
• Latvia has the largest gap between the quality in its main cities and those regions outside, while Japan has the largest positive gap where the quality outside its main cities is actually generally better than in the main cities

Leapfrog opportunity

• While some countries have been able to deliver good quality Internet access for the majority of the population, others, in particular the less developed economies, have focused on delivering high quality broadband to their cities first, as key hubs of economic development, via new investment in fiber or cable services. This is in contrast to the typical approach of the more developed economies who have focused on upgrading old copper based broadband (DSL), in order to bring broadband to as much of the population as possible. As a result these countries, including many from Eastern Europe such as Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic and Hungary, have been able to leapfrog the more advanced economies in terms of broadband quality. However, while their Broadband Quality Score will be high, their penetration figures will be lower, affecting their overall ranking as broadband leaders
• Bulgaria, Qatar and Bahrain were found to lead their economic groups in broadband quality by considerable margins, competing comfortably, and often beating, many of those in more advanced stages of economic development

Top 10 broadband movers since 2009:

	BQS			Penetration			Leadership
Country	2009	2010	Delta	2009	2010	Delta	2009	2010	Delta
Korea	53	81	27	99.55%	100%	0%	128	157	29
Latvia	40	54	14	39.49%	48%	9%	71	94	22
United Arab Emirates	22	24	2	81.88%	100%	18%	88	106	18
Japan	50	64	13	63.43%	66%	2%	98	116	18
Malta	25	28	3	84.31%	100%	16%	92	108	16
Cyprus	23	24	2	59.95%	75%	15%	69	83	14
Finland	33	45	12	66.59%	70%	3%	83	97	14
Hong Kong	29	41	12	94.77%	100%	5%	104	118	13
Iceland	29	38	10	93.92%	100%	6%	103	115	12
Romania	38	44	7	36.05%	42%	6%	67	78	11
Portugal	32	38	6	48.64%	55%	7%	69	80	11
Germany	32	39	7	60.39%	66%	6%	77	88	11
Ireland	26	28	2	77.04%	88%	11%	86	97	11

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

Household consumption

• The study assessed the average consumption of different household segments and found major differences between basic-digital homes and smart and connected homes
• Basic digital homes which mainly use the web for simple-quality requirement applications such as web browsing, instant messaging and social networking, consume about 20 GB per month
• Smart and connected households, who would use the web for high definition video communication, high definition entertainment, tele-education or telemedicine, home security and others, can easily consume 500 GB per month and require an assured bandwidth of 18 Mbps
• Researchers looked at the impact that higher broadband quality has on the competitiveness of the service providers in a country. Assessing the top 25 countries in broadband quality the team confirmed that service providers that offered significant higher quality of broadband increased their market shares. Specifically:
• • Incumbents that provided fibre connections and were unchallenged increased market share up to 13% in just two years
  • Cable operators with superior quality increased shares between 10 (incumbents) and 60% (new players)
  • Alternative service providers that provided higher broadband quality have shown the highest market share gains, up to 96%, albeit from a smaller customer base