Who Has the Fastest Internet Connection in the World?
“The Internet was designed to ensure anywhere-to-anywhere connectivity” (future.internetsociety.org). Regardless of where users are, they should be able to connect without technical or other impediments. Essential to the Internet’s value as a platform for innovation, creativity, and economic opportunity, digital transformation is needed. A MuleSoft survey of 650 IT leaders from global enterprises indicates that the vast majority (97%) of companies of those included in the survey are currently undertaking or planning to undertake digital transformation initiatives. Nine out of every 10 IT leaders believe that their companies will lose revenue if they don’t introduce those initiatives. In another study it is reported that Facebook dominates social messaging, Google is top in Web searching and Amazon leads online shopping, and these largest Internet platforms are capturing fundamental human interactions (future.internetsociety.org).
Naturally, to stay abreast of these global transformation initiates, central questions are Internet connectivity and broadband speed. Sources say that speeds of up to 500Mbps are becoming more common in the world’s most developed countries, but it is often very expensive, and users choose cheaper options at lower speeds. However, as the digital age evolves, prices will lower and the average global Internet speed is likely to increase every year, even more rapidly as new technology evolves.
See how South Africa compares by looking at the figures below.
South Korea has the fastest Internet in the world
With an average connection speed of 25.3 Megabits per second (Mbps), South Koreans have the fastest broadband Internet in the world. The top 10 list looks like this:
- South Korea — 25.3 Mbps
- Hong Kong — 16.3 Mbps
- Japan — 15 Mbps
- Switzerland — 14.5 Mbps
- Sweden — 14.1 Mbps
- Netherlands — 14 Mbps
- Ireland — 13.9 Mbps
- Latvia — 13.4 Mbps
- Czech Republic — 12.3 Mbps
- Singapore — 12.2 Mbps (www.webfx.com)
Notice that South Africa is missing from that list, but still ranks 76th in the top 100 countries. We fall short of the global average download speed and according to the Worldwide Broadband Speed League, have a mean download speed of about 6.38 Mbps (thesouthafrican.com). How does this speed compare to the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP, the USA?
The average US connection speed is 11.5 Mbps
Slower than Latvia, Singapore, and the Czech Republic, the average Internet connection speed in the United States is 11.5 Mbps. However, many states have average connection speeds higher than the national average. For example, the state with the fastest broadband Internet is Delaware with 17.4 Mbps, and the second-fastest is Washington at 16.3 Mbps, tied with Hong Kong for the second-fastest Internet speeds globally.
South Korea also has the fastest mobile Internet
South Korea has the fastest mobile Internet speed in the world with an average connection speed of 18.2 Mbps. The top 10:
- South Korea — 18.2 Mbps
- Slovakia — 10.9 Mbps
- Singapore — 9.1 Mbps
- United Kingdom — 8.1 Mbps
- Denmark — 7.9 Mbps
- Canada — 7.9 Mbps
- Sweden — 7.3 Mbps
- Ukraine — 7.3 Mbps
- France — 7.1 Mbps
- Russia — 7 Mbps (www.webfx.com)
On 14 August 2019, QuotesAdvisor.com reported that South Africa has the fastest average mobile download speed in Africa with 22.42 Mbps with Durban the fastest download speed at 26.66 Mbps and Johannesburg third with 23.62 Mbps.
The US has the 18th fastest mobile Internet
Compared to South Korea’s mobile connections at an average of 18.2 Mbps, the US average is only 5.8 Mbps which is a big contrast from what’s available in the rest of the world. South Korea 18.2 Mbps is higher than the United States’ non-mobile broadband average.
In Vietnam, mobile Internet users wait less than a second for pages to load
In Vietnam, the time it takes to load the average page on a mobile is only 0.68 seconds compared to the US where the average page load time on mobile is 4.44 seconds. The average broadband load time is in the USA is 2.82 seconds, while in Japan, broadband users only have to wait 1.43 seconds for pages to load on broadband. In Brazil it takes about 6.63 seconds for pages to load on broadband, and almost 10 seconds on mobile.
The fastest (and cheapest) Fibre Internet is available in Romania
Hellovision in Seoul, South Korea, and RCS & RDS in Bucharest, Romania offers the fastest and most inexpensive 1GBS Fibre Internet at around $26-$32 (R383,71 – R472,26) per month. Along with the inexpensive and speedy gigabit Internet available in Romania and South Korea, Tokyo also has similar plans available for less than $50 USD per month.
What is the fastest Internet in the world?
At 91 connection speed of Gigabits per second, NASA has the world’s fastest Internet which is about 13,000 times faster than the average global Internet connection speed.
Let us help guide you into which Home Fibre line you should be using!
