The quality of broadband connections in the UK are below the
average recorded in 42 countries, a Cisco study has revealed.
The networking company's broadband quality study is being used
to highlight each nation's ability to benefit from next-generation
web applications and services.
The Cisco-sponsored study focuses on countries in Europe, North
America, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), Brazil, Russia, India and China. It was conducted by a team
of MBA students from Said Business School at the University of
Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied
Economics.
Sweden and the Netherlands had the best-performing broadband
connections in Europe. The study found that both countries
benefited from increasing investments in fibre and cable network
upgrades, coupled with competition diversity, and were supported by
strong government vision and policy.
Over half the 42 countries studied enjoyed broadband connections
at the level of performance required to deliver a consistent
quality experience for most common web applications. Some major
countries, including the UK, Spain and Italy, fell just below the
threshold.
Japan comes top
Japan, which made an early commitment to investing in broadband
as a source of competitive advantage, had by far the highest
broadband quality score of the 42 countries studied. It was the
only country currently prepared to deliver the quality required for
next-generation web applications over the next three to five years,
said Cisco.
Alastair Nicholson from Said Business School said, "The
broadband quality study was developed on the premise that the new
generation of web applications will rely on a higher level of
performance of broadband connections.
"Average download speeds are adequate for web browsing, e-mail
and basic video downloading and streaming, but we are seeing more
interactive applications, more user-generated content being
uploaded and shared, and an increasing amount of high-quality video
services becoming available."
The study also found a significant correlation between a
nation's broadband quality and its advancement as a knowledge
economy, and Nicholson added that policymakers might need to
consider how to create an environment to improve key broadband
performance parameters in the future.
Using nearly eight million records from actual broadband speed
tests, conducted by users around the world in May through
www.speedtest.net, the research team calculated statistical
averages for each country of several key performance parameters to
determine connection quality.
The team concluded that broadband experience is mainly affected
by broadband speeds in both directions, latency, network
oversubscription and packet loss.
These parameters were grouped into three major categories:
download and upload throughput, and latency. The broadband quality
score for each country was determined using a formula that weighted
each category according to the quality requirements of a set of
popular applications now and in the future.
Typical applications for today include web browsing, social
networking, music downloads, basic video streaming and video
chatting, standard definition IPTV, and enterprise-class home
offices.
Future applications include consumer telepresence for
communications, healthcare and education, high-quality video file
sharing and streaming, high-definition IPTV, cinema-quality live
event broadcasts and advanced home automation.
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