The results of the second annual global study on the quality of broadband connections in 66 countries, released on Thursday, reveal that 62 out of the 66 countries analysed had improved the quality of consumer broadband services since last year. While Ireland gets a 16th ranking for household penetration, a study of the quality of broadband connections gives Ireland low grades, behind developing economies such as Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Ireland, which is classified as an "an innovation economy," gets a 31st ranking compared with Estonia in 5th place. Dublin is ranked for quality at 123 out of 240 cities.

The authors says the 2009 research delivers new insight into who the global broadband leaders are by combining data for each country’s broadband penetration with a measure of the quality of broadband services actually experienced by its citizens. The study was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo’s Department of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Internet infrastructure company Cisco.

The new data highlights the extent of the digital quality divide between urban and rural areas and, for the first time, compares the quality of fixed and mobile broadband services.

The first groundbreaking Broadband Quality Study was published in September 2008 to highlight each country’s ability to benefit from next-generation web applications and services. The research team found that broadband quality is linked to a nation’s advancement as a knowledge economy and countries with broadband on their national agenda had the highest broadband quality. This year’s report covers an additional 24 countries and includes new analysis on broadband quality in more than 240 cities.

Using more than 24 million records from actual broadband speed tests conducted by users around the world in May 2008 and from May to July 2009 through http://www.speedtest.net/, the research team calculated statistical averages for each country of several key performance parameters used to determine the quality of a broadband connection. The team concluded that broadband experience is mainly affected by broadband speeds in both directions, latency, network oversubscription, and packet loss.

These parameters were grouped into three major categories: download and upload throughput, and latency. The Broadband Quality Score (BQS) for each country was determined using a formula that weighted each category according to the quality requirements of a set of popular applications now and in the future. Typical applications for today include web browsing, social networking, music downloads, basic video streaming and video chatting, standard definition IPTV, and enterprise-class home offices. Future applications include consumer telepresence for communications, healthcare and education, high-quality video file sharing and streaming, high-definition IPTV (Internet protocol TV), cinema-quality live event broadcasts and advanced home automation.

Broadband Quality Study 2009 – Report
Broadband Quality Study 2009 – Appendix