Taiwan takes pole position as UK lags in global broadband league

Taiwan has leapt into first place in Cable.co.uk’s World Broadband Speed League this year, with a mean download speed of over 85Mbps, up from 28Mbps in 2018’s list.

The World Broadband Top 10 is topped by Taiwan, Singapore, with a mean broadband speed of 70.86Mbps and – something of an outlier – the tiny UK Crown Dependency of Jersey, with a mean of 67.46Mbps.

Jersey is also an outlier in relation to the UK itself, which languishes in 35^th position behind Madagascar, with a mean broadband speed of 22.37Mbps, up from 18.57Mbps last year. The UK has been surpassed by neighbouring Ireland, which secures 29^th place, and lags behind 18 other EU countries, putting it in the bottom third of the EU broadband league.

The remainder of the top 10 countries are all western European, with the exception of Japan, which comes in at number seven. Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland are the leading European broadband nations, with mean download speeds ranging from 55.18Mbps in the case of Sweden to 38.85Mbps for Switzerland. China, despite its well documented growth, is only 152^nd with a mean speed of 2.69Mbps, while India is 75^th with 8.66Mbps, according to Cable.co.uk.

Among other major global economies, the US is 16^th placed with 32.89Mbps, while France is 23^rd with 30.44Mbps and Germany is 28^th with 24.64Mbps.

South Korea, despite its densely populated cities and investment in fibre, only manages 43^rd place with a mean broadband speed that has actually declined over the past year. Canada is 26^th, while Australia is only 51^st.

Among other major European countries, Spain is 14^th and Italy is 48^th, while Poland is 29^th.

Global broadband speeds have risen from 9.14Mbps to 11.03Mbps in the year to May, up 20.65% compared with a global rise of 23.35% last year.