UK Declines in European Ranking of Mobile and Broadband Connectivity

The European Commission has published their 2016 Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which sees the United Kingdom’s country ranking for mobile and fixed line broadband connectivity fall from 4th to 6th place; mostly because other countries are improving at a faster pace.

It’s important to reflect that the index, which attempts to summarise the performance and evolution of digital connectivity and competitiveness across Europe, is based on a mix of data gathered between June and December 2015. However this is the same for all of the EU countries in its ranking and so the results are still useful as a comparison of change.

Broadly speaking the latest DESI report found that the UK did improve in most areas, but other countries were simply improving at a faster pace. “The United Kingdom performs better than the EU average but it has improved at a slower rate than the EU as a whole, which places it in the lagging ahead cluster of countries,” said the report.

The UK also took a sharp hit in terms of fixed broadband price (% individual gross income spent for the cheapest standalone subscription [lower values are better]), which saw our ranking decline from 9th place in 2015 to 13th. The outcome is unsurprising given some of the sharp broadband and line rental price hikes that hit in 2015.

However the UK also reported Next Generation Access (NGA) broadband coverage of 91%, which is well above the EU average of just 71%.

The latest report also covered a number of other areas, such as Internet adoption and use of Internet based services. We’ve included the overall summary from those below and it’s worth noting that in the following categories we either hold our existing rank or improved upon it.