Getting a decent internet connection is very important, a truism that will only become more pronounced as time passes.
Despite this, many economically advanced countries – including the UK – are doing a pretty terrible job at bringing fast download speeds to their people.
Figures from broadband advice site Cable.co.uk, compiled from open source data, show that the United Kingdom comes 31st in a global ranking of nations by internet download speed. Take a look at chart above.
Singapore is the top performer by a huge margin – probably made easier by the small size of the country.
After that, Scandinavia and northern Europe dominate, with strong figures from Hong Kong and Korea as well. Sweden, Norway, and to a lesser extent Canada, all show that having a low population density is no barrier to good connectivity.
A spokesman for Cable.co.uk said the easiest way for the UK to climb the rankings is to get broadband to rural households with very low speeds, and also roll out "fibre to the home" (FTTH) broadband networks.
For most homes with "fibre broadband," the fibre optic cables only reach the end of a street, and slower copper wires carry the day the rest of the way. FTTH means fibre goes right inside an individual house.
In the UK, 2% of homes have FTTH. In high-ranking countries like Sweden and Latvia, the figure is above 40%.
Here is the data for the top 40 in full:
(NB: Some entries, like Macau, Jersey, Hong Kong and Gibraltar, are semi-autonomous regions of larger states rather than nations in their own right.)
RankCountryDownload Speed (Mbps) 1 Singapore 55.13 2 Sweden 40.16 3 Taiwan 34.4 4 Denmark 33.54 5 Netherlands 33.52 6 Latvia 30.36 7 Norway 29.13 8 Belgium 27.37 9 Hong Kong 27.16 10 Switzerland 26.93 11 Lithuania 25.12 12 Japan 24.47 13 Estonia 24.11 14 Jersey 23.3 15 Hungary 23.16 16 South Korea 22.9 17 Portugal 21.72 18 Romania 21.33 19 Finland 20.9 20 Macau 20.52 21 United States 20 22 Spain 19.6 23 Slovakia 18.85 24 Germany 18.8 25 Slovenia 18.37 26 Canada 18.03 27 Bulgaria 17.54 28 Czechia 17.31 29 Thailand 16.85 30 New Zealand 16.6 31 United Kingdom 16.51 32 Monaco 16.13 33 Luxembourg 15.52 34 Austria 15.26 35 Poland 14.88 36 Ireland 13.92 37 France 13.43 38 Gibraltar 13.18 39 Cayman Islands 13.15 40 Croatia 12.57