Broadband speed improvements

A global survey has revealed that 62 out of 66 countries have improved their speed of broadband connections since last year.

South Korea tops the Broadband Quality Study 2009, which was conducted by a team of MBA students from Oxford's Saïd Business School and economists from the University of Oviedo.

South Korea rose just above 2008's broadband quality leader Japan with a 72 per cent improvement over the past year. In South Korea, 97 per cent of households are now able to receive broadband services and receive the best quality of broadband services.

Other global broadband leaders in descending order are Japan, Hong Kong, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, Singapore, Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway. The UK lags behind at 25th in the broadband quality table.

The research team found that broadband quality is linked to a nation's advancement as a knowledge economy and countries with broadband on their national agenda had the highest broadband quality.

Sweden has the highest quality broadband in Europe, rapidly catching up with Japan and South Korea. It is also closing a broadband quality gap in its own country with residents outside the most populated cities enjoying better quality than those in the cities, which bucks the trend elsewhere.