Global Index Report: A Shift In Power Marked With Global Internet Speed

On Wednesday, September 8, 2021, the most recent Global Index Report that showed speeds from July 2019 to July 2021 was issued by Speedtest. In the report, it showed that download speeds have spiralled globally in both mobile and fixed broadband with a 200% increase than that of 2017.

The report further highlighted that the world’s internet performance had a drastic change, witnessing a 59.5% rise with global mean mobile speeds reaching 55.07 Mbps and a 31.9 percent increase with 107.50 Mbps for fixed broadband.

The mean download speed over mobile was in July 2021 faster by 98.9% than July 2019 and 141% faster than July 2018, with the internet speed witnessing a stable speed augmentation on a monthly basis. It should be noted that despite this, the global average for mobile download speed between February and March 2020 did not indicate upward streak in growth.

“On fixed broadband, mean download speed was 68.2 percent faster in July 2021 than in July 2019, 131.3 percent faster in July 2021 than in July 2018, and 196.1 percent faster in July 2021 than in July 2017,” the Global Index report stated.

“There was a similar dip in download speed over fixed broadband in March of 2020 as we saw on mobile. The speed increased again in April 2020 but did not recover to a pre-March level until April 2020,” it added.

In country ratings on mobile mean download speed, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) topped the list in 2020 and 2021, overtaking South Korea who had ranked first in 2019, and now have to settle for second in the new report.

In the last three years, China and Qatar were dragging the third and fourth position, with China coming third in 2020, while Qatar ranked third in 2019 and 2021.

The report further showed that Canada and Australia, who both have been part of the top log in the past now have very low rankings.

The report further tried to explain this when it wrote;

 “It’s interesting to see Australia and Canada declined in the rankings although their speeds have increased dramatically during the past three years. 5G is shifting mobile rankings where even countries with 5G (which few countries had in 2019) need a strong 5G focus to maintain their presence at the top of the list lest they be outpaced by other countries with larger investments in 5G,” the report revealed.

In classification by countries with the fastest fixed broadband based on download speed, Singapore topped the list in 2019 and 2021, later on came Monaco who dominated it in 2021, with Singapore having to do with second place.

Between 2019 to 2021, South Korea dropped from second place it was in 2019 to seventh place in 2021, with the United States presence surprisingly non-existent in the current year ranking.

With various nations of the world dedicating their funds in the investment of new technologies, the speed and rankings all over the world is expected  to keep changing with time, which may be largely dependent on the conducted in-depth analysis of the individual countries on research and engineering and of course 5G deployment.