UK 31st In Annual Broadband Quality Study

Linky

The top nine countries -- South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, The Netherlands, Denmark and Romania -- already have the broadband quality required for such applications, which will become mainstream in three to five years, the study said.

Among other countries ranked for broadband quality, France was 14th, the United States 16th, Russia 18th and Germany 20th. Britain was 31st, China 43rd, Brazil 45th and India 63rd.

These metrics are download, upload and latency based, 55% download, 23% upload, 22% latency weighting.

So we're behind Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, Russia from that side of Europe, and 31st overall in the world. We don't even make the G30, let alone the G20 on this scale.

Stats:

The UK has no cities in the top 70 in the study.
The UK is 28th for quality outside major cities.
The UK's 'Digital Divide' placing is 48th, we have the 48th largest digital divide, 2 places above Japan and in the best 3rd of the survey. Our digital divide is, infact, negligible with barely any difference between city and other areas.

In short the 'digital divide' is not actually our overwhelming problem on the world stage, it's our urban environments where we rate worst relative to the rest of the world. Our placing outside of urban environments actually improves our standing relative to the rest of the world.

Kinda embarrassing but not surprising. While there are complaints about how the cities get everything and rural areas get nothing the stats simply don't support that and actually suggest that the major issue is that our urban areas are the more substandard relative to elsewhere, with provision outside of major cities being a high point in the UK showing.

We also have high take up, which when taken into account gives us an overall standing of 25th.

So not so low points: Overall take up rate of broadband, rural quality.
Lowest points: Urban areas.

And Digital Britain's master plan is to tax everyone to raise quality in rural areas while trying to ram the internet down the throat of those who don't want it but will be paying the tax for it. Fantastic stuff.

Edited by deleted (Thu 01-Oct-09 12:16:51)

Or another way of looking at it:
Some countries have invested large amounts in something they don't currently need and that no-one currently knows what it will be needed for (and which isn't universally available anyway). The UK has invested moderate amounts and has a network that by and large is doing what is needed pretty much everywhere. Investment is continuing but might lag behind some mythical future application.

IOW:No need to panic but we mustn't be complacant.

I'm sure that next year we'll all feel really good about paying an extra £6 a year tax for something we don't really need !

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

I'm sure that next year we'll all feel really good about paying an extra £6 a year tax for something we don't really need !

For once we agree. The heavens will be falling next.

In my case said tax doesn't even give me anything my area isn't entitled to those funds.

Andrue - London is the largest and richest city in Europe, largest financial hub in the world apart from possibly New York, does it not seem just a little odd that it doesn't even feature in the report's top 75 cities?

Where's the cash going to come from for all these upgrades? BT's FTTC will max out almost straight away and BT are broke anyway, Virgin Media couldn't organise a [censored] up in a brewery, the government hasn't got any cash to splash around on infrastructure.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

I'm sure that next year we'll all feel really good about paying an extra £6 a year tax for something we don't really need !

For once we agree. The heavens will be falling next.

In my case said tax doesn't even give me anything my area isn't entitled to those funds.

Mine neither, even though on most days my Orange 3G dongle out-performs my business ADSL. Technically, my area has 2M+ broadband, but the lines around here are in such a poor state that it's practically impossible to maintian a good broadband connection for very long.

I hate to keep harping on about privatisation, but the price that BT paid for the phone network was a pittance compared to its actual worth, and although BT has installed a lot of plant in the major cities, maintenance in outlying areas has been minimal and pitiful. A lot of the underground copper cabling is older than the engineers working on it.

The situation is not going to have an easy fix, because I have the feeling that none of the major political parties are going to reveal the real financial mess that this country is in until the next election has been won. In the meantime, all we are going to get are cover-ups, because all the parties are mindful of their chances, should the truth be told before then. After June 2010, we may need the extra capacity for all the extra jobseekers sitting at home.

In reply to a post by zebedeee:

Mine neither, even though on most days my Orange 3G dongle out-performs my business ADSL. Technically, my area has 2M+ broadband, but the lines around here are in such a poor state that it's practically impossible to maintian a good broadband connection for very long.

That tax is actually for those who don't have access to 'next generation' services. It's quite likely that you may be covered, it's there to push 'next generation' access from about 60% to 90% coverage. I get nothing as I'm considered already covered by Vermin Sleazier.

So ... will this tax be used to sort out the crepe aluminium wiring everywhere (mine included) which puts noise on the line which messes up the BB rate adaptive s/w?

From the BT perspective, the line is excellent for voice so does not need upgrading.

What exactly are "next generation services" then?

I would like the ability to see and/or use one of the new fangled i-Player thingamys, and to use websites quicky - all too often the graphics intensive sites take minutes to load up.

And what gets me, is that all this on-line advertising, especially those with Flash and similar graphics just make it worse and worse, making the "web experience" just dreadful!

So, please tell me my £6 pa will be spent making people and households like mine able to use the net in a comfortable way?

Rob

yeah we are the clever ones and they all stupid for thinking forward.

pretty much backs up what I have said in the past.

our rural areas are well served when compared to other countries but our urban areas are poorly served.

The UK's 'Digital Divide' placing is 48th, we have the 48th largest digital divide, 2 places above Japan and in the best 3rd of the survey.

the data actually shows we have virtually no digital divide, 47 countries have a bigger divide than us. Poland, Japan and Chile have no difference between cities and outside of cities.

I'm not sure that "48th largest" conveys the right impression when the number itself is tiny.