A survey on the quality of broadband Internet around the world conducted by the Said Business School of the University of Oxford and the University of Orviedo has placed Malta in the 25th place out of 42 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
Immediately behind Malta there is Italy in 26th place, followed by Portugal, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, and Romania in 31st place.
Among the broadband leaders, Japan was classified in first place, followed by South Korea in second place, the Netherlands in third place, Denmark in fourth and Switzerland in fifth place.
At the bottom there is India in 42nd place, preceded by China, Brazil, Mexico and new EU Member State Poland respectively.
The study, which was sponsored by CISCO, determined each country’s Broadband Quality Score (BQS), which combines actual download and upload throughput and latency, with different weights matching current and future application requirements.
“Broadband leadership is a combination of availability penetration and quality. Until now, quality has not been explored comprehensively, yet it is the most important factor in ensuring a positive consumer experience,” the study’s authors said.
With respect to other EU counties, Malta is in the 17th place. Lagging behind us are a coterie of other new Member states such as the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Poland and a couple of other Mediterranean states such as Italy, Portugal and Greece.
Out of the EU countries, the Netherlands (third) was on top, followed by Denmark (fourth), Sweden (sixth), Luxembourg (tenth) and Finland (12th).
The survey shows that the next wave of web applications demand a step improvement in broadband quality. Most countries do well for today’s applications but only Japan is ready for the future.
Today’s broadband services for applications like social networking, low-definition video streaming, basic video chatting, small file sharing and small-definition IPTV require a download speed of 3.75 megabits per second, an upload speed of 1 megabit per second and a latency of 95 milliseconds.
On the other hand, tomorrow’s broadband services would require four times as much upload speed (11.25 Mbps), five times as much download speed (5 Mbps), and a latency which is 30 milliseconds faster (60 milliseconds).
According to the survey, Malta’s current broadband quality does not even cater for today’s requirements, let alone for the requirements for the next 3 to 5 years, which include visual networking, high definition video streaming, consumer tele-presence, large file sharing and high-definition IPTV.
The other countries that are not even ready for today’s requirements include Slovakia, the UK, Greece, Spain, Canada, Australia, Luxembourg, Italy, Estonia, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, New Zealand, Iceland, Brazil, Cyprus, Mexico, China and India.
The download throughput relates to the net bit rate of downstream data that transverse the network and the broadband connection. It is critical for streaming high-quality video and sharing large files such as pictures or video.
The upload throughput relates to the net bit rate of upstream data that transverse the network and the broadband connection. It is increasingly relevant for two-way high-quality video communications and uploading and sharing pictures and videos.
Latency is the time taken for a packet of data to reach from source to destination. It is very important for real-time applications such as VOIP communications and gaming.
Other factors that were considered in the BQS were network over-subscription, packet loss, jitter and service continuity, which are critical for video broadcast distribution and overall end-to-end experience.
The speed tests were sourced from actual tests conducted in the Speedtest.net during May 2008.
