UK 'lagging behind European neighbours' for broadband speed

The UK has slower broadband speeds than many of its European neighbours, according to new analysis which puts it 31st in the global rankings.

With a mean download speed of 16.51 Mbps, Britain is nearly three times slower than table topper Singapore at 55.13 Mbps.

Countries including Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria are ahead of the UK in the analysis, while people in France, Italy and Australia typically get slower speeds.

Yemen has the slowest average download speed of 0.34 Mbps.

Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, said the results showed the UK has lessons to learn from Europe.

He said: "These results offer us a fresh perspective on where we sit in the broadband world.

"Relatively speaking, we are near the top of the table.

"However, many of those ahead of us - some a long way ahead - are our neighbours both in the EU and wider Europe."

The 10 countries for fastest broadband speeds:

• 1: Singapore

• 2: Sweden

• 3: Taiwan

• 4: Denmark

• 5: Netherlands

• 6: Latvia

• 7: Norway

• 8: Belgium

• 9: Hong Kong

• 10: Switzerland

The findings are based on more than 63 million broadband speed tests which were taken over a year and the results collected by M-Lab. These were later ranked by cable.co.uk.