UK ranks 21st out of 30 fastest broadband nations : OECD report
When it comes to broadband speed, UK could find only 21st place among the fastest 30 nations, according to the latest report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Other European nations like Finland, Sweden, France, Denmark and Netherlands have surpassed the UK, in terms of delivering super-fast speeds. Even the less developed European nations like Spain, Portugal and Greece were quite ahead of UK in the speed league table.
Countries like Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have developed next generation or fibre based broadband networks that enabled the users to achieve much higher speeds, the report shows. The study also reveals that fast broadband infrastructure has helped these countries to perform better in the key areas of economy like electricity, health and education.
In UK, most users get broadband via phone lines (ADSL) or by cable which do not provide as much speeds as fibre networks (FTTC or FTTP) can offer. Comparing to this, nearly half of the broadband users in South Korea and Japan receive fibre-optic broadband.
In UK, fast broadband services are mostly available in urban places while there are many areas in rural Britain which do not have broadband access or receive very slow broadband.
However, in terms of broadband uptake, UK ranked fifth among 30 OECD nations, with a total subscribers of 17,742,676.
OECD report shows that many fast broadband nations could realise the next generation broadband rollout through subsidising the cost as the investment on fibre networks was seen vital for the economic welfare of the nation.
Taylor Reynolds of the OECD says, “If you cut 1% off the costs of education, electricity, health and transport you would more than pay for a fibre network,”
“That is the type of thinking required by countries considering rolling out next-generation networks,” he added.
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