The UK has slipped to 35th place in an annual league table of global broadband speeds, putting it in the bottom third of EU countries and below the likes of Madagascar and Bulgaria.
An analysis of more than 160m broadband speed tests conducted across 200 countries revealed Singapore was once again the world’s fastest country, followed by Sweden, Denmark and Norway, while Yemen came last.
Earlier this year the UK government declared it had delivered on its promise to extend “superfast” broadband to 95% of homes – but the company that compiled the data claimed Britain was likely to fall further behind other countries over the coming years.
According to the analysis, carried out during the 12 months to 29 May, the UK achieved an average speed of 18.57Mbps, which means downloading a 5GB HD movie would typically take just over 36 minutes. This put it in 35th place, down four from last year’s league table.
The UK lagged behind 25 other European countries, 20 of them in the EU, as well as the US (20th place) and Japan (12th). It came ahead of 165 other countries, including Ireland (36th), Austria (38th), Italy (43rd) and Australia (52nd), said Cable, the broadband, TV and phone website that issued the findings.
Singapore ranked as the world’s fastest country for the second year running, with average speeds of 60.39Mbps, while last-placed Yemen had an average speed of 0.31Mbps.
The researchers found that 36 of the top 50 fastest-performing countries were located in Europe, nine in Asia and Pacific, two in North America, two in South/Latin America, and one in Africa.
Madagascar, off the coast of east Africa, moved up to 22nd place, one place ahead of France, despite the fact that the UN has named it one of the world’s least developed countries, with only 2% of the population using the internet as recently as 2012.
Dan Howdle, an analyst at Cable, said it was “somewhat sad to see the UK not faring better”.
He added: “A number of other countries have leapfrogged us since last year, including France and Madagascar. Compared to many other countries both in and out of Europe, the UK has simply come too late to a full fibre solution. Despite plans to roll out FTTP [fibre to the premises] to UK homes across the next decade or so, the UK is likely to fall further behind while we wait.”
The UK government said in January that more than 19 out of 20 UK homes and businesses now had the opportunity to upgrade their internet connections to superfast speeds of 24Mbps or faster.