Canada’s broadband quality below threshold?

Posted by Chanuka Wattegama on September 16, 2008 / 2 Comments

Canada is woefully positioned for future internet usage and the quality of current broadband networks is barely enough to cope with current traffic because of a lack of investment by providers, according to a new study.

The survey, conducted by the Oxford Said Business School in London and the Universidad de Oviedo in Spain and released Friday, found that Canada is below the global broadband quality threshold, which measures the proliferation of high-speed internet in a country, as well as the speeds available and the reliability of connections.

While Japan was the only country to meet the study’s standards for future readiness, broadband networks in countries such as Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria scored better than Canada, which ranked 27th out of the 42 nations covered. The United States ranked 16th.

Researchers calculated a broadband quality score, or BQS, by testing download and upload speeds in each country, as well as latency, a factor that measures how instantaneously information travels over a broadband network. They found that in order to meet the demands of today’s internet traffic, broadband networks need to be able to deliver steady download speeds of 3.75 megabits per second and uploads of one mbps with a latency no greater than 95 milliseconds.

Read the full report in CBCNews here.

2 Comments

Rohan Samarajiva
September 16, 2008, 10:42 am
“Researchers calculated a broadband quality score, or BQS, by testing download and upload speeds in each country, as well as latency, a factor that measures how instantaneously information travels over a broadband network. They found that in order to meet the demands of today’s internet traffic, broadband networks need to be able to deliver steady download speeds of 3.75 megabits per second and uploads of one mbps with a latency no greater than 95 milliseconds.”

In this light, what does one make of the latency targets set by IDA in Singapore? Is IDA less interested in making modern services accessible on the web than in making life comfortable for SingTel and StarHub?
Skip
October 22, 2008, 7:13 pm
This is very interesting, as well as unbelievable. I would have thought that Canada would be ranked high in terms of broadband quality. But then again, it’s great that there are tests like these so there would be some sort of standard followed the world over.