Study: Advanced European countries slow to improve broadband
October 31, 2023
Surfshark’s Digital Quality of Life Index has evaluated countries’ digital wellbeing based on five core pillars — internet quality, internet affordability, e-government, e-infrastructure, and e-security — which are made up of 14 indicators. Surfshark found that even the top countries in the Index have their weaknesses.
“One of the primary goals of the Digital Quality of Life Index is to highlight areas for improvement for each country. Indeed, no nation in the Index perfected all studied indicators. Even those ranking highest fell short in some aspects. We aim to inspire countries to refine areas that will ultimately elevate the digital quality of life for their citizens.”, says Agneska Sablovskaja, Lead Researcher at Surfshark.
Key takeaways:
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9 out of 10 countries at the top of the DQL Index are European, and 6 of these countries lag behind in internet speed improvement.
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Austria, Germany, Estonia, and Finland lag behind in fixed internet speed improvement. 20 out of 121 analyzed countries in the DQL Index have fixed internet that exceeds 200 Mbps, while Austria, Germany, Estonia, and Finland have speeds ranging from 100 to 170 Mbps.
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Luxembourg and Switzerland lag behind in mobile speed improvement, with growth rates of 0.6 and 0.1 Mbps/month. Meanwhile, the UAE — a country that already has extremely fast internet— has been improving its speed at an average of 8.5 Mbps/month, which is most likely due to 5G implementation.