A new 2021 Worldwide Internet Accessibility Index has just been published by comparison site Broadband Choices, which ranks 169 countries and territories on the quality of their broadband and mobile infrastructure to find the world’s most connected countries. Interestingly the United Kingdom managed to place 6th overall.<\/p>\n
The accessibility index<\/a> attempts to score based on several key indicators, including fixed line broadband speeds, the price and affordability of home internet packages (business broadband and bundle deals are excluded), the cost of mobile data (per 1GB) on SIM Only plans, the percentage of the population with access to the internet, mobile internet (3G<\/a>, 4G<\/a> etc.) coverage, the number of public WiFi<\/a> hotspots and the percentage of webpages by national language.<\/p>\n Overall Denmark<\/strong> came top of the table this year. “Unusually, Danish internet users enjoy affordable internet and some of the best connection speeds despite the market being heavily dominated by one provider – proving that competition isn\u2019t always necessary. Less than 0.1% off web pages are written in Danish, however, with a large majority of Danes speaking English as a second language, it\u2019s unlikely to be a significant barrier to accessibility<\/em>,” said the study.<\/p>\n By comparison the UK ranked an impressive 6th place thanks, at least in part, to a good level of affordability in both fixed and mobile broadband connections. But despite this the UK’s average download speed was a surprisingly low 20.06Mbps, which is significantly lower than any other study we’ve seen in the past year.<\/p>\n Sadly, the full results don’t show how the UK scores for every single category, so it’s hard to know where the other positive results came from, although we probably do well for public WiFi<\/a> availability, general internet availability and the percentage of webpages by national language may be disproportionately high for English as a global standard.<\/p>\n In terms of affordability, we note that the study weights some of its scoring by the average (median) salary for each country in $ USD (i.e. the cost of the average monthly broadband deal as a percentage of median household salary), which is a good thing to do.<\/p>\n On the other hand, the index gets its data on broadband speeds from M-Lab (this appears to use some sort of speedtest based study), which found that the United Kingdom had an average (median) download speed of just 20.06Mbps. But this is well below the 64Mbps (download) recorded in Ofcom<\/a>’s 2020 fixed line broadband speeds report (here<\/a>) and the 76.49Mbps via Ookla’s end of 2020 data (here<\/a>). Cable.co.uk also used M-Lab last year and got a higher result of 37.82Mbps for the UK (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Suffice to say that something or some context is missing from the index’s speed(s) figure. Admittedly Ofcom<\/a> used a different methodology to M-Lab (i.e. the regulator directly tested connections via a modified router, which rules out key issues like poor WiFi<\/a> and local network load etc.), but that\u2019s still a huge gap.<\/p>\n Equally any speed testing based reports should always be taken with a pinch of salt because they can easily be misinterpreted. In particular, nobody should be equating such studies to directly reflect the availability of faster connections as the two are far from being in sync (not everybody takes a faster connection, even when it’s available to them).<\/p>\n Lest we forget the impact of other factors, such as poor home wiring, user choice of package, local network congestion (i.e. conducting a test while others or background tasks are using the network) and slow home WiFi etc.<\/p>\n A new 2021 Worldwide Internet Accessibility Index has just been published by comparison site Broadband Choices, which ranks 169 countries and territories on the quality of their broadband and mobile infrastructure to find the world’s most connected countries. Interestingly the United Kingdom managed to place 6th overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-25930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk_isp_news","tag-statistics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"\n2021 Worldwide Internet Accessibility Index Results<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n\n
\n Rank<\/strong><\/td>\n Country<\/strong><\/td>\n Download (Mbit\/s)<\/strong><\/td>\n Cost Per Month ($)<\/strong><\/td>\n Affordability<\/strong><\/td>\n Cost 1GB Data ($)<\/strong><\/td>\n Score<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 1<\/td>\n Denmark<\/td>\n 99.08<\/td>\n 55.1<\/td>\n 1.30%<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n 97.07<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2<\/td>\n Liechtenstein<\/td>\n 187.35<\/td>\n 77.8<\/td>\n 0.80%<\/td>\n 6.7<\/td>\n 94.85<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 3<\/td>\n United States<\/td>\n 34.14<\/td>\n 60.4<\/td>\n 1.44%<\/td>\n 9.6<\/td>\n 93.45<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 4<\/td>\n Hong Kong<\/td>\n 81.63<\/td>\n 50.4<\/td>\n 1.51%<\/td>\n 3.2<\/td>\n 93<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 5<\/td>\n Sweden<\/td>\n 71.56<\/td>\n 48.4<\/td>\n 1.37%<\/td>\n 2.6<\/td>\n 92.2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 6<\/td>\n United Kingdom<\/td>\n 20.06<\/td>\n 38.7<\/td>\n 1.35%<\/td>\n 3.4<\/td>\n 92.13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 7<\/td>\n Australia<\/td>\n 20.04<\/td>\n 59.1<\/td>\n 1.51%<\/td>\n 1.4<\/td>\n 90.94<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 8<\/td>\n Luxembourg<\/td>\n 56.67<\/td>\n 58.2<\/td>\n 0.95%<\/td>\n 3.8<\/td>\n 90.32<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 9<\/td>\n Switzerland<\/td>\n 95.26<\/td>\n 77.7<\/td>\n 1.18%<\/td>\n 12.8<\/td>\n 90.25<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 10<\/td>\n Andorra<\/td>\n 67.78<\/td>\n 48.6<\/td>\n 1.71%<\/td>\n 9.5<\/td>\n 89.25<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 11<\/td>\n New Zealand<\/td>\n 25.76<\/td>\n 64.3<\/td>\n 2.09%<\/td>\n 7.3<\/td>\n 89.15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 12<\/td>\n Finland<\/td>\n 54.06<\/td>\n 48<\/td>\n 1.45%<\/td>\n 1.6<\/td>\n 89.12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 13<\/td>\n Russia<\/td>\n 6.74<\/td>\n 8.2<\/td>\n 1.33%<\/td>\n 0.7<\/td>\n 88.91<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 14<\/td>\n Ireland<\/td>\n 13.77<\/td>\n 58.2<\/td>\n 1.60%<\/td>\n 3.4<\/td>\n 88.82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 15<\/td>\n The Netherlands<\/td>\n 54.56<\/td>\n 52.1<\/td>\n 1.50%<\/td>\n 4.9<\/td>\n 88.64<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 16<\/td>\n Canada<\/td>\n 19.23<\/td>\n 61<\/td>\n 2.04%<\/td>\n 11.1<\/td>\n 87.51<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 17<\/td>\n Bahamas<\/td>\n 21.98<\/td>\n 82.6<\/td>\n 4.54%<\/td>\n 6.2<\/td>\n 87.45<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 18<\/td>\n Spain<\/td>\n 23.93<\/td>\n 45.5<\/td>\n 2.38%<\/td>\n 3.5<\/td>\n 86.89<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 19<\/td>\n Iceland<\/td>\n 35.25<\/td>\n 73.3<\/td>\n 1.78%<\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n 86.32<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 20<\/td>\n Belarus<\/td>\n 5.08<\/td>\n 11<\/td>\n 2.52%<\/td>\n 1.3<\/td>\n 86.14<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 21<\/td>\n Estonia<\/td>\n 24.54<\/td>\n 32.6<\/td>\n 2.38%<\/td>\n 2<\/td>\n 85.71<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 22<\/td>\n Poland<\/td>\n 23.87<\/td>\n 17.8<\/td>\n 1.76%<\/td>\n 1<\/td>\n 85.61<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 23<\/td>\n Romania<\/td>\n 28.26<\/td>\n 10.3<\/td>\n 1.28%<\/td>\n 1.5<\/td>\n 85.46<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 24<\/td>\n Israel<\/td>\n 16.88<\/td>\n 24.5<\/td>\n 0.84%<\/td>\n 0.6<\/td>\n 85.37<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 25<\/td>\n Barbados<\/td>\n 27.23<\/td>\n 91.2<\/td>\n 6.35%<\/td>\n 8.8<\/td>\n 85.13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 26<\/td>\n Austria<\/td>\n 18.85<\/td>\n 44.8<\/td>\n 1.45%<\/td>\n 1.5<\/td>\n 85.11<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 27<\/td>\n Belgium<\/td>\n 32.33<\/td>\n 54.4<\/td>\n 1.83%<\/td>\n 7.1<\/td>\n 84.65<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 28<\/td>\n Hungary<\/td>\n 34.02<\/td>\n 17.8<\/td>\n 1.75%<\/td>\n 5.2<\/td>\n 84.42<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 29<\/td>\n Lithuania<\/td>\n 22.71<\/td>\n 13.5<\/td>\n 1.29%<\/td>\n 2.7<\/td>\n 84.31<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 30<\/td>\n Norway<\/td>\n 37.13<\/td>\n 82.5<\/td>\n 1.82%<\/td>\n 7.3<\/td>\n 84.16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 31<\/td>\n Turkey<\/td>\n 4.75<\/td>\n 13.8<\/td>\n 2.61%<\/td>\n 1.8<\/td>\n 84.09<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 32<\/td>\n France<\/td>\n 10.27<\/td>\n 33<\/td>\n 1.17%<\/td>\n 2.2<\/td>\n 84<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 33<\/td>\n Germany<\/td>\n 22.67<\/td>\n 38.6<\/td>\n 1.18%<\/td>\n 4.8<\/td>\n 84<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 34<\/td>\n Slovenia<\/td>\n 20.27<\/td>\n 37.1<\/td>\n 2.73%<\/td>\n 2.8<\/td>\n 83.61<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 35<\/td>\n Japan<\/td>\n 32.27<\/td>\n 48.7<\/td>\n 1.64%<\/td>\n 5.6<\/td>\n 83.42<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 36<\/td>\n Serbia<\/td>\n 13.49<\/td>\n 19.4<\/td>\n 3.49%<\/td>\n 2.8<\/td>\n 82.88<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 37<\/td>\n Dominica<\/td>\n 7.36<\/td>\n 56.5<\/td>\n 14.36%<\/td>\n 7.3<\/td>\n 82.8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 38<\/td>\n Italy<\/td>\n 11.88<\/td>\n 36.3<\/td>\n 1.71%<\/td>\n 1.1<\/td>\n 82.73<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 39<\/td>\n Brazil<\/td>\n 4.86<\/td>\n 29.1<\/td>\n 5.85%<\/td>\n 3.5<\/td>\n 82.62<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 40<\/td>\n Indonesia<\/td>\n 3.16<\/td>\n 32.5<\/td>\n 10.28%<\/td>\n 1.4<\/td>\n 82.62<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 41<\/td>\n Egypt<\/td>\n 3.52<\/td>\n 17.4<\/td>\n 7.81%<\/td>\n 1.2<\/td>\n 82.59<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 42<\/td>\n Slovakia<\/td>\n 19.55<\/td>\n 20.8<\/td>\n 2.03%<\/td>\n 4.6<\/td>\n 82.46<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 43<\/td>\n Kazakhstan<\/td>\n 1.39<\/td>\n 11.5<\/td>\n 2.72%<\/td>\n 0.9<\/td>\n 82.45<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 44<\/td>\n Chile<\/td>\n 4.17<\/td>\n 37.1<\/td>\n 4.32%<\/td>\n 2.4<\/td>\n 82.29<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 45<\/td>\n Kuwait<\/td>\n 3.35<\/td>\n 69.7<\/td>\n 3.90%<\/td>\n 3.5<\/td>\n 82.2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 46<\/td>\n Croatia<\/td>\n 13.98<\/td>\n 33.5<\/td>\n 3.23%<\/td>\n 3<\/td>\n 82.15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 47<\/td>\n Virgin Islands (U.S.)<\/td>\n 9.58<\/td>\n 94.5<\/td>\n 4.57%<\/td>\n 6.8<\/td>\n 82<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 48<\/td>\n Latvia<\/td>\n 14.22<\/td>\n 18.4<\/td>\n 1.96%<\/td>\n 5<\/td>\n 81.98<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 49<\/td>\n Bulgaria<\/td>\n 18.44<\/td>\n 15.7<\/td>\n 2.32%<\/td>\n 3.6<\/td>\n 81.97<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 50<\/td>\n Taiwan<\/td>\n 20.59<\/td>\n 28<\/td>\n 1.98%<\/td>\n 7.3<\/td>\n 81.96<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"