New data has highlighted the extremes of broadband internet service speeds across the 37 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Credit: AxxLC A recent study by the UK-based price comparison site Uswitch has found that Chile boasts the fastest average broadband internet connection across the 37 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), followed by Denmark and the United States. At 189.36Mbps, the average Chilean broadband connection can download a 1,500MB movie in just over a minute – that’s about 100Mbps faster than the average connection across the OECD, and seven times faster than the slowest country, which was Turkey, clocking in at 26.34Mbps. The second- and third-slowest average broadband connections belonged to Greece and Mexico, at 33.41Mbps and 38.77Mbps, respectively. Denmark’s 163.60Mbps and the United States’ 143.76Mbps were good for second and third places at the top end, as mentioned. The data collected by Uswitch also ranked OECD countries by how affordable their broadband internet packages are based on the average costs tabulated against average monthly per capita income. This metric found that Israel’s internet, which costs just 0.78% of monthly income on average, was the most affordable of the 38 countries measured, followed by Lithuania and France at 0.97% and 1.14%, respectively. The most expensive, by this measure, were Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia, at 4.49%, 4.72% and 5.63%. There’s a huge constellation of different factors that contributes to the average price and speed of broadband capability in a given country – where differing underlying technology means that high-speed connectivity has been slower to arrive in some countries than others. Government policy and regulatory schemes also affect how quickly carriers can build out modern networks, and even the raw geographic size and demographic density of a country can all play a role in how fast and cheap a given nation’s average broadband connection is. The site’s broadband expert, Catherine Hiley said that the UK – Uswitch’s home country – lags somewhat behind the pack on at least one of these metrics. “It’s interesting to see that the UK ranks only 26th for median download speed,” she said. “These figures demonstrate that the UK still has a long way to go in terms of offering fast and reliable speeds.” The health of home broadband connections is, increasingly, a critical consideration in an era of wildly expanding remote and hybrid workplaces. Another recent survey, from provider Sky Broadband, showed that UK residents averaged about 250 minutes of video calls per week, and that the enjoyment of the work-from-home option is sharply on the rise, with nearly two-thirds of those polled reporting that they’ve upgraded their home office spaces as a consequence. The full rankings of average broadband speeds across the OECD according to Uswitch is: Chile Denmark United States Spain New Zealand Japan Switzerland Norway Netherlands Sweden Hungary Canada Portugal South Korea France Luxembourg Finland Israel Poland Belgium Lithuania Germany Republic of Ireland Latvia Slovenia United Kingdom Colombia Estonia Austria Australia Costa Rica Italy Czech Republic Slovakia Mexico Greece Turkey Related content news analysis Western Digital keeps HDDs relevant with major capacity boost Western Digital and rival Seagate are finding new ways to pack data onto disk platters, keeping them relevant in the age of solid-state drives (SSD). By Andy Patrizio Dec 06, 2023 4 mins Enterprise Storage Data Center news analysis Global network outage report and internet health check Cisco subsidiary ThousandEyes, which tracks internet and cloud traffic, provides Network World with weekly updates on the performance of ISPs, cloud service providers, and UCaaS providers. By Ann Bednarz and Tim Greene Dec 06, 2023 286 mins Networking news analysis Cisco uncorks AI-based security assistant to streamline enterprise protection With Cisco AI Assistant for Security, enterprises can use natural language to discover policies and get rule recommendations, identify misconfigured policies, and simplify complex workflows. By Michael Cooney Dec 06, 2023 3 mins Firewalls Generative AI Network Security news Nvidia’s new chips for China to be compliant with US curbs: Jensen Huang Nvidia’s AI-focused H20 GPUs bypass US restrictions on China’s silicon access, including limits on-chip performance and density. By Anirban Ghoshal Dec 06, 2023 3 mins CPUs and Processors CPUs and Processors Technology Industry Podcasts Videos Resources Events NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe