Web Survey Finds Speed Is Quickest Overseas

To try to come up with a more complete picture of where countries stand, the study's researchers created an overall index of “broadband leadership” including the performance scores and market penetration. By that measure, South Korea ranked highest, followed by Japan and Hong Kong, with the United States ranking 15th.

[Source: The New York Times, by Eric Pfanner; October 1, 2009]  

The performance of broadband Internet connections has surged ahead in many countries in the last year, even before government stimulus packages aimed at upgrading networks take full effect, according to a new study conducted by the Saïd Business School at Oxford and the University of Oviedo in Spain, and sponsored by Cisco Systems.

The most advanced broadband connections are in South Korea, Japan and Sweden, according to the research.

The work differs from some other efforts to assess how countries stack up on the basis of broadband, a form of high-speed Internet connection, because it measures the performance of these connections, rather than simply comparing market penetration rates. As broadband has become more widespread — some governments want to turn it into a universal service like electricity or water — the quality of connections has grown more important.

The study takes into account the download and upload speeds of Internet connections, along with the latency, or delay, in the hookup. These measures will be increasingly important in the future, Cisco says, as consumers embrace online services like high-definition Internet television and video conferencing.

The top three countries, along with six others in Europe, have sufficiently robust Internet connections to allow the average broadband customer to take advantage of these kinds of services already, according to the survey. A year ago, in an early survey by Cisco, only one country, Japan, met these criteria.

Sixteen more countries, including the United States, France and Germany, fell into the second-highest category, meaning that the average Internet connection “comfortably” handles the needs of consumers for popular Web uses today, including social networking and low-definition video streaming. For the United States, that was a jump from last year, when the average Internet connection only barely met users’ needs, according to the survey.

Fernando Gil de Bernabé, a senior director at Cisco, cited network upgrades by Internet providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T as a reason for the better performance.

“Last year, it was quite painful for the U.S.,” he said. “This year it showed a big improvement.”

But the United States still ranked behind such poorer countries as Bulgaria and Romania, the survey showed. Internet connections in Eastern Europe are often superior because network operators invested straight into the latest equipment, leapfrogging past broadband providers in other countries.

Highlighting performance gaps is, for Cisco, a way to try to drive sales of networking equipment. But governments have also been paying more attention to speed and other quality issues, as broadband has climbed the political agenda in national capitals. A number of countries have recently announced or started to put into effect spending plans aimed at spreading broadband availability.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks countries on a variety of individual criteria, like average advertised download speed and how widely available broadband service is. Japan, South Korea and France are at the top of its list for speed, while the highest market penetration is in Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, the O.E.C.D. said.

The O.E.C.D. has been urging policy makers to look at issues like the divide between broadband speeds or availability in urban and rural areas, as well as discrepancies between advertised and real speeds.

To try to come up with a more complete picture of where countries stand, the Cisco-sponsored researchers created an overall index of “broadband leadership” including the performance scores and market penetration. By that measure, South Korea ranked highest, followed by Japan and Hong Kong, with the United States ranking 15th.

“One commonality from all the countries at the top is that they all have a national broadband agenda,” Mr. Gil de Bernabé said.