UK Broadband Speed Lower than Average Level of Western European Countries

According to analysis data recently released by Cable.co.uk, broadband speeds in the UK are still lagging behind Western European countries and the gap is gradually widening.

Data shows that the average download speed of broadband networks in the UK is 110.99 Mbps, lagging behind Western European countries (138.47 Mbps) by 27.48 Mbps. It is worth noting that this gap has widened compared to 25.06 Mbps in the same period last year, although it has significantly improved compared to 93.63 Mbps in the past year.

These data come from the data collection project M-Lab, a collaboration between Google and CS&S, which has conducted over 1.5 billion tests on internet speeds in 220 countries and regions worldwide over the past 12 months.

Dan Howdle, a consumer telecommunications analyst at Cable.co.uk, said, “In the past year, the UK has lost some advantages in market competition with other Western European countries, and the average speed of broadband in the UK is lower than the European average. This is partly due to the relatively slow pace of full fiber deployment in the UK. Although the UK is still accelerating, its pace is still slow compared to some European competitors.

Overall, the UK ranks 35th in the global broadband speed rankings, down one place from last year but still maintaining its position in the top half of the list. In addition, although 9 out of the top 10 are occupied by Western European countries (see table below), almost all of these countries are densely populated small countries, which greatly affects the deployment efficiency and cost of FTTP (Fiber to the Home).

Compared to European economies of similar size, the performance of the UK is not outstanding. Although the UK leads Italy (72.45 Mbps) and Germany (87.77 Mbps), it lags behind Spain (148.63 Mbps) and France (176.97 Mbps). Meanwhile, the Netherlands (188.49 Mbps) is far ahead in Europe.

Cable.co.uk points out that the health of the broadband market should not be measured solely by speed testing. The internet speed data listed on its ranking does not necessarily represent the fastest available services, and other factors such as usage and price can also affect the ranking.

Howdle said, “The slow decline in rankings of European countries may also reflect customers’ tendency to choose slower network speeds, or countries outside of Europe performing better in marketing their all fiber services.”

According to the latest statistics from Point Topic, as of the end of March this year, 64.7% of households in the UK have access to fiber broadband, covering approximately 20.4 million households. Among them, 7 million households have the opportunity to choose two or more FTTP networks.

In addition, earlier this month, Vodafone became the third Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the UK to launch retail broadband tariffs, with the highest speed exceeding 2Gbps. The previous two were Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) and Yayzi, headquartered in Blackpool.

All of this supports the view that it is difficult for the UK to lead on Cable.co.UK’s rankings, which is not related to maximum available throughput, but rather to the maturity of online services.

A worrying fact is that there is currently no “killer” application that can drive the mass market to accept faster internet speeds.