Study Ranks UK 67th Cheapest in the World for Broadband

The latest study from Cable.co.uk has tested the fixed broadband ISP packages from 211 countries to create a global pricing comparison, which finds that the UK ranks 67th cheapest (up from 71st last year) with an average monthly cost of $34.78 (£25.97), but we drop to 93rd (down from 82nd) when ranked by average cost per megabit ($1.06).

The research, which used data from 3,288 fixed broadband deals gathered between 29th October 2020 and 9th December 2020, does however note that the UK came 4th cheapest when compared against the 29 countries studied in Western Europe. However, due to lower average speeds compared to much of Europe, it fared far worse in terms of value for money, coming in 25th out of those 29 countries.

The above result largely highlights the fact that most of Europe is now well ahead of the UK in deployments of gigabit-capable technologies, like FTTP (here), although we are now starting to catch-up quite rapidly and if that can be sustained then we may well start to see some more positive movement in the coming years.

The study also notes that Eritrea came out as the country with the most expensive average cost ($2,666), while the Ukraine delivered the cheapest ($6.41). The average package cost across the world as a whole came out as $78.14, so at least we’re comfortably below that.

The Big Caveats

However, it’s important to reflect that the core ranking of this study doesn’t tell the whole story, not least because it cannot easily reflect the other differences between packages, such as any value-added extras (static IP addresses, different router quality, anti-virus controls, unlimited vs capped data allowances etc.). Doing a true apples-to-apples comparison would thus be nightmarishly difficult and would perhaps work better if weighted to reflect cost using Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

The application of PPP is important because there can be huge differences between countries in terms of things like taxation, size of the state and monthly salaries. For example, you might well pay significantly less for a 100Mbps service in, for example, the Ukraine but that’s not strictly a fair apples-to-apples comparison as the average monthly salary in the Ukraine is around £328. Now on to the results.