25/05/2015 02:13 AST
East Asia can be a good place for those who appreciate blistering Internet broadband speed. In the latest global web speed test conducted by Ookla, a US-based company specialising on broadband testing and networks diagnostic, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan scored first, second and fourth on the list of the fastest, only disrupted by St Pierre and Miquelon, a small French protectorate island group in the North Atlantic south of Newfoundland, which came third.
Ookla measured Singapore’s average broadband download speed at 122.4 megabits per second (mbps), followed by Hong Kong with 102.9 mbps and Saint Pierre and Miquelon with 88.2 mbps. Japan scored 82.1 mbps, followed by Romania with 74.3 mbps, Lithuania with 59.6 mbps, South Korea with 59.5 mbps, Sweden with 58.9 mbps, Macao with 51.1 mbps and Netherlands with 50.7 mbps. The ranking is similar with regards to slightly slower upload speed.
According to the test results as of May 2015, the global average download broadband speed is 23.3 mbps. Ookla noted that the results are based on tests performed by Internet users within 480km of Ookla servers, meaning rankings are focused on connection speeds in major cities and do not necessarily reflect broadband speed in rural parts of a country.
Out of the 202 countries tested, the one with the slowest download speed is Equatorial Guinea with 0.9 mbps. Niger, Cuba, Gambia, Guinea, Congo and Syria are also on the bottom of the list, all with speeds of less than 2 mbps.
Internet speeds in Southeast Asia (ex-Singapore) are all below the global average. Thailand came in at 19.8 mbps, ahead of Vietnam (17.7 mbps) and Cambodia (9.1 mbps), followed by Brunei (7.9 mbps), Malaysia (7.1 mbps), Laos (6.9 mbps), Indonesia (6.7 mbps) and Myanmar (6.6 mbps).
The slowest Internet download speed can be experienced in the Philippines (3.6 mbps), which is devastating news for a country whose economy to a sizeable extent is built upon business process outsourcing services that require stable and fast Internet connections. The only Asian country that has slower download speed than the Philippines is Afghanistan with just 2.5 mbps.
Upload speed in the Philippines is even the lowest all over Asia (1.5 mbps). At the same time, the median monthly costs in US dollars per mbps in the Philippines are one of the highest with an average of $18.18. In comparison, the global average is $5.21.
Gulf Cooperation Council countries showed slightly better results, led by download speed of 19.1 mbps in the United Arab Emirates, followed by Qatar (17.6 mbps) and Oman with 15.9 mbps.
Ookla also tested mobile download speed “based on millions of recent cellular test results” from its own iOS and Android apps.
The country with the highest mobile download speed is, interestingly, China with 27.4 mbps, followed by Latvia (27.3 mbps), New Zealand (27.2 mbps), Denmark (25.64 mbps) and the United Arab Emirates (25.63 mbps). Qatar ranks a prominent 19th on this list with an average mobile download speed of 19.7 mbps. Last ranking out of 112 tested nations for mobile download speed is Vietnam with just 1.83 mbps.
Gulf Times
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