U.S. is fifteenth in broadband, new study shows

The United States is behind Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and eleven other countries in terms of broadband speed and latency, according to a new study from the University of Oxford.

The second annual Broadband Quality Study (BQS) measured broadband services in 66 countries and 240 cities. South Korea and Japan topped the list of countries and Yokohama, Japan topped the city list. Unfortunately, no American city broke the list of the top twenty cities, which included Bucharest, Romania and Kosice, Slovakia.

According to Speed Matter's own report on Internet Speeds in all 50 States, the United States has an average Internet download speed of 5.1mbps - which places 28th internationally.

This years BQS results do show an improvement from the first report. In the first BQS the United States ranked at number 29 - an improvement of 7.7 points in our BQS score.

US improvement was largely attributed to increased private investment in home fiber-optic cable and adherence to the DOCSIS 3.0 standard of data transmission.

However, the United States still has a lot of work to do according to the report. In order to achieve real-time video networking and large file sharing, we need to have high quality broadband.

The University of Oxford maintains that the U.S. is a long way from adapting to the technology that will dominate business and consumer practices for the next decade.

Study: U.S. Fifteenth In Broadband Quality (DSLReports.com)

Broadband Quality Score: A global study of broadband quality, September 2009 (University of Oxford)

Top Countries - BQS 2009 (University of Oxford)

Top Cities - BQS 2009 (University of Oxford)

2009 Report on Internet Speeds in all 50 States (Speed Matters)