Chile takes the crown for fastest broadband in the OECD

A recent study by the UK-based price comparison site Uswitch has found that Chile boasts the fastest average broadband internet connection across the 37 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), followed by Denmark and the United States.

At 189.36Mbps, the average Chilean broadband connection can download a 1,500MB movie in just over a minute – that’s about 100Mbps faster than the average connection across the OECD, and seven times faster than the slowest country, which was Turkey, clocking in at 26.34Mbps.

The second- and third-slowest average broadband connections belonged to Greece and Mexico, at 33.41Mbps and 38.77Mbps, respectively. Denmark’s 163.60Mbps and the United States’ 143.76Mbps were good for second and third places at the top end, as mentioned.

The data collected by Uswitch also ranked OECD countries by how affordable their broadband internet packages are based on the average costs tabulated against average monthly per capita income. This metric found that Israel’s internet, which costs just 0.78% of monthly income on average, was the most affordable of the 38 countries measured, followed by Lithuania and France at 0.97% and 1.14%, respectively. The most expensive, by this measure, were Mexico, Costa Rica and Colombia, at 4.49%, 4.72% and 5.63%.

There’s a huge constellation of different factors that contributes to the average price and speed of broadband capability in a given country – where differing underlying technology means that high-speed connectivity has been slower to arrive in some countries than others. Government policy and regulatory schemes also affect how quickly carriers can build out modern networks, and even the raw geographic size and demographic density of a country can all play a role in how fast and cheap a given nation’s average broadband connection is.

The site’s broadband expert, Catherine Hiley said that the UK – Uswitch’s home country – lags somewhat behind the pack on at least one of these metrics.

“It’s interesting to see that the UK ranks only 26th for median download speed,” she said. “These figures demonstrate that the UK still has a long way to go in terms of offering fast and reliable speeds.”

The health of home broadband connections is, increasingly, a critical consideration in an era of wildly expanding remote and hybrid workplaces. Another recent survey, from provider Sky Broadband, showed that UK residents averaged about 250 minutes of video calls per week, and that the enjoyment of the work-from-home option is sharply on the rise, with nearly two-thirds of those polled reporting that they’ve upgraded their home office spaces as a consequence.

The full rankings of average broadband speeds across the OECD according to Uswitch is:

1. Chile
2. Denmark
3. United States
4. Spain
5. New Zealand
6. Japan
7. Switzerland
8. Norway
9. Netherlands
10. Sweden
11. Hungary
12. Canada
13. Portugal
14. South Korea
15. France
16. Luxembourg
17. Finland
18. Israel
19. Poland
20. Belgium
21. Lithuania
22. Germany
23. Republic of Ireland
24. Latvia
25. Slovenia
26. United Kingdom
27. Colombia
28. Estonia
29. Austria
30. Australia
31. Costa Rica
32. Italy
33. Czech Republic
34. Slovakia
35. Mexico
36. Greece
37. Turkey