Malta ranks sixth in third annual broadband study

The results of the third annual study of the quality of broadband connections around the globe reveals continued improvements worldwide, with more countries already prepared for the applications of tomorrow than in previous years and two thirds of the countries analyzed meeting or surpassing today's needs.

Hong Kong, Iceland, South Korea, Luxemburg and Malta lead in broadband penetration with take-up reaching 100% of households.

Overall, thanks to a range of investments in infrastructure, global broadband quality has improved by 50% in just three years and penetration of broadband continues to improve, with about half of the households (49%) of the countries investigated now having access to broadband (up from 40% in 2008).

Using the data from 40 million real-life broadband quality tests conducted in May-June of 2010 on the Internet speed testing site, speedtest.net, the researchers were able to evaluate the broadband quality of 72 countries around the globe.

Quality was evaluated by scoring the combined download throughput, upload throughput, and latency capabilities of a connection, the key criteria for a connection's ability to handle specific Internet applications, from consumer telepresence to online video and social networking. These criteria are expressed as a single 'Broadband Quality Score' for each country.

Building on last year's study, the 2010 data also includes analysis of the broadband quality of 239 cities, providing further insight into the evolution of smart connected communities around the world.

The measurement of mobile broadband quality, first introduced to the study last year, has also been expanded significantly to include 68 countries (94% of the overall sample). The research has also explored the patterns of broadband consumption per household and evaluated the impact these will have on overall broadband quality requirements.

The study was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco.