Web Survey Finds Speed Is Quickest Overseas

The performance of broadband Internet connections has surged ahead in many countries in the last year, even before government stimulus packages aimed at upgrading networks take full effect, according to a study to be published Thursday. The most advanced broadband connections are in South Korea, Japan and Sweden, according to the study, conducted by the Saïd Business School at Oxford and the University of Oviedo in Spain, and sponsored by Cisco Systems, the telecommunications equipment maker. The work differs from some other efforts to assess how countries stack up on the basis of broadband, a form of high-speed Internet connection, because it measures the performance of these connections, rather than simply comparing market penetration rates. As broadband has become more widespread — some governments want to turn it into a universal service like electricity or water — the quality of connections has grown more important. The study takes into account the download and upload speeds of Internet connections, along with the latency, or delay, in the hookup. These measures will be increasingly important in the future, Cisco says, as consumers embrace online services like high-definition Internet television and video conferencing. The top three countries, along with six others in Europe, have sufficiently robust Internet connections to allow the average broadband customer to take advantage of these kinds of services already, according to the survey. A year ago, in an early survey by Cisco, only one country, Japan, met these criteria. Sixteen more countries, including the United States, France and Germany, fell into the second-highest category, meaning that the average Internet connection "comfortably" handles the needs of consumers for popular Web uses today, including social networking and low-definition video streaming.