01 Oct 2009
The UK's broadband infrastructure is on a par with that of Iceland and Estonia and positioned 25th out of 66 countries, according to a worldwide study of the quality and penetration of national broadband infrastructures.
The research carried out jointly by Oxford University's Said Business School and Spain's University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics, for networking giant Cisco, corralled countries into four groups: ready for tomorrow; comfortable for today; meeting needs for today; and below needs for today.
The UK fell into the third group, but the report said the UK infrastructure will improve markedly if the country follows through with projected optical fibre rollouts and cable upgrades.
Furthermore, UK download speeds are up 39 per cent on average, compared with last year, and upload speeds have increased by 37 per cent.
However, network latency has increased by 8 per cent. Latency is critical when real-time applications such as video conferencing and IP telephony are used.
The study used speed test data from within each country to benchmark broadband performance and found that the average global download speed was 4.7Mbit/s, while the upload rate was around a third at 1.3Mbit/s.
The study proves that our copper network continues to deliver the broadband quality needed by businesses and consumers today. But while many countries in the study have failed in delivering broadband access to the majority of the population, the UK's copper network is delivering good quality broadband to almost everyone that needs it.
While affordable fibre is out of reach to many small businesses today, the report proves that ADSL, SDSL and bonded SDSL services still deliver a cost-effective solution to meet the needs of small businesses in the short to medium-term.
Posted by: Chris Stening, MD, Easynet Connect 01 Oct 2009
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