Study Ranks UK 70th out of 214 Countries for Cheapest Broadband Plans

Comparison site Broadband Genie has today published a new 2026 Global Broadband Price League, which analysed 2,631 broadband tariffs across the globe to identify the most and least expensive nations for broadband. Overall, the United Kingdom was found to rank a lowly 70th out of a total database of 214 “countries”.

Naturally, there are a few caveats to consider with this study. Firstly, it doesn’t seem to categorise tariffs by performance or cost per megabit of broadband speed, which means we aren’t getting much of a clear apples-to-apples comparison between the listed nations. Secondly, there doesn’t seem to be any weighting for the different sizes of each economy or Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), which again makes for a weaker comparison.

Instead, we get a fairly simplistic ranking, going from lowest to highest, which is merely based on the median cost of all sampled plans in each country – that’s obviously going to vary a lot between countries, given how everywhere will have a different mix of technologies and capabilities. The result is then presented as an average cost in $ USD. One other issue is that there are generally considered to be around 195 countries in the world, not 214, but it does depend on the flexibility of your definition.

Overall Iran appears to have the least expensive broadband at $2.61 (£1.92) a month, but this is largely due to the collapse of the local currency against the US dollar. It’s also important to note that the study was completed before the escalation of conflict between Iran and the USA.

The UK is ranked a lowly 70th, although this still makes it one of the cheapest countries for broadband in Northern and Western Europe. By comparison the United States is ranked 167th, behind Western Economies including the UK and France. Meanwhile, Eastern Europe dominates the top of the table, with Ukraine (2nd), Romania (7th), and Russia (10th) all making the top 10.

Finally, Wallis and Futuna (a tiny French island collectively in the South Pacific) comes out as the most expensive place for broadband, with costs averaging $373.88 per month. The catch here is that this study only appears to be considering fixed broadband lines, so it won’t be reflecting the fact that some of the more expensive locations might be able to get access via Starlink (satellite) or other methods.

2026 Global Broadband Price League