Study: Western Europe dominates broadband league table
May 12, 2023
A study by Broadband Genie has explored the affordability of high-speed broadband around the globe. The study looked at 132 countries and compared the average salary to the average cost of high-speed internet, finding that access to affordable high-speed broadband is not universally available.
The study took survey responses to determine the average salary and compared that to Broadband Genie’s internet knowledge to build a unique league table of how each country ranked.
Some of the main findings from the study included:
- Asian tech supercentre Hong Kong has the most affordable internet in the world, just outperforming Singapore, which came in 2nd.
- Scandic nations Denmark and Finland ranked 3rd and 4th for global broadband affordability.
- Switzerland rounded out the worldwide top 5 and is the most affordable nation for broadband in Europe, beating France, ranked 9th in the world.
- Fiji was a surprise entrant in the top 10, ranking as the 10th most affordable country worldwide for broadband.
- The UK ranks 22nd overall, on a par with peers like Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It lags behind European powerhouses Switzerland, France and Germany in the rankings, though there’s little between them in terms of the affordability rating.
- The US is way down the list in 32nd place, outperformed by most of its economic competition. It’s in a similar position as Ireland and Hungary and is outranked by China.
- Some of the bigger global economies didn’t perform as well as expected in the study. Spain ranked 43rd, Portugal ranked 53rd, BRIC powerhouse Brazil ranked 77th, and Egypt ranked way down in 97th.
Some countries were excluded from the data due to a number of factors:
- Population too small (under 50,000)
- The exchange rate data we had and survey responses were not deemed consistent or reliable
- The country had unreliable data (sometimes due to a smaller-than-average response rate, sometimes due to geopolitical or cultural reasons)