Taiwan overtakes Singapore in broadband speed
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The global average in terms of broadband speed is 11.03Mbps since May 2019, compared to it being 9.14 at the same time last year. The data from this new research was gathered by a US-based open-source project called Measurement Lab (M-Lab).
“With average broadband speeds rising by 20.65% in the last year the global picture looks rosy. But the truth is faster countries are the ones lifting the average, pulling away at speed and leaving the slowest to stagnate. Last year, we measured the slowest five countries at 88 times slower than the five fastest. This year they are 125 times slower,” commented Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, with regards to the M-Lab research.
The top 15 in the league tables of 2019 comprise of all European and Asian countries, with the US being number 16 on the list.
Some of the European countries that made it to the top 15 were Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. As for Asian countries, it included Japan and Singapore.
The league table showed that downloading a movie in HD of around 5GB in size takes 8 minutes and 2 seconds on average in Taiwan while it took 30 hours in Yemen, which was the last-placed country in the league table.
M-Lab is led by a variety of teams based at Code for Science and Society, Google Princeton University’s PlanetLab, New America’s Open Technology Institute among others.
“Average speed rankings by country are.. a great starting point for deeper research and statistical analysis of the state of broadband using M-Lab’s global broadband measurement datasets,” said Chris Ritzo, M-Lab’s programme management and community lead.
The research carried out 276 million speed tests, all on 70 million IP addresses.
Questions & Answers
Q.Which specific Asian countries were among the top 15 for broadband speed in the 2019 league table?
Which specific Asian countries were among the top 15 for broadband speed in the 2019 league table?
The article states that Japan and Singapore were the Asian countries included in the top 15. Taiwan also overtook Singapore, implying its presence, but the list explicitly names only Japan and Singapore as included from Asia in the top 15.
Q.How much faster were the quickest countries compared to the slowest countries in the 2019 research?
How much faster were the quickest countries compared to the slowest countries in the 2019 research?
In the 2019 research, the five slowest countries were measured at 125 times slower than the five fastest. This shows a widening gap compared to the previous year's measurement of 88 times slower.
Q.What is the primary organisation behind the research project, Measurement Lab (M-Lab), that gathered this data?
What is the primary organisation behind the research project, Measurement Lab (M-Lab), that gathered this data?
Measurement Lab (M-Lab) is led by various teams, including Code for Science and Society, Google Princeton University’s PlanetLab, and New America’s Open Technology Institute. It is described as a US-based open-source project.