Residents in Buffalo may have felt a reason to gripe in recent days, when separate analyses — from technology firm Ookla as well as The Buffalo News — found that internet speeds there rank among the slowest in the country.
As with any comparison, of course, it’s good to keep in mind that while the grass might seem greener elsewhere things can also always be worse. Indeed, a new analysis of internet speeds and the cost people pay for connectivity around the world published by UK-based site Compare the Market shows how much service varies around the world, which will give some people reason to be jealous or satisfied — depending on where you live.
Among the findings, the full results of which you can see here: If you regularly lament the slowness of your internet connectivity, you can always give thanks you’re not trying to get online in the Southeast Asian country of Brunei. That country’s internet speed rounds out the bottom of the list, coming in at just 15.1 Mbps. At the top end, the fastest internet in the world is found in Singapore, which boasts average download speeds of 185.25 Mbps, followed by Iceland (153.3 Mbps), South Korea (114.31 Mbps), Hungary (108.78 Mbps) and the US (107.28 Mbps).
To give some context to those speeds, the Compare the Market data also shows that downloading an hour’s worth of Netflix content in Singapore would take a mere 16 seconds, compared to Brunei at the bottom end taking up to 3 minutes, 18 seconds.
What about in terms of the price you pay for internet connectivity? If cost is your biggest concern, then the place you’d apparently want to be is in Israel, where residents pay an average monthly cost of what amounts to $13.30. Compare that to the average price in the US of almost $70 a month, or to the big bill facing internet users in the United Arab Emirates each month.
That country seems to be the worst in terms of residents paying the highest average monthly cost — in the UAE’s case, the US equivalent of $160.45 a month for connectivity that includes an average download speed of 38.16 Mbps.
In the US, some of the fastest internet connectivity can be found in cities where you might not expect it — like Chattanooga, Tenn., where residents can get high-speed fiber for around $60 thanks to the publicly owned utility there.
