Malta improves by two places but still in 46th place in global table of broadband speeds

Malta has improved by two places but it is still in the 46th place in an annual league table of global broadband speeds.

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.

The UK has slipped to 35th place putting it in the bottom third of EU countries and below the likes of Madagascar and Bulgaria.

Earlier this year the UK government declared it had delivered on its promiseto 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, Malta achieved an average speed of 13.60 mean download speed (Mbps) while the UK achieved an average speed of 18.57Mbps, which means downloading a 5GB HD movie would typically take just over 36 minutes.

In Malta’s case one would need over 50 minutes. This UK’s 35th place is 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 coun- tries 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.