Malta's broadband internet access tested low in quality
Malta has scored low in an international survey on the quality of fast broadband internet access among 42 countries around the world. Placing just 36th, it was outperformed by most of the European countries that joined the European Union alongside...
Malta has scored low in an international survey on the quality of fast broadband internet access among 42 countries around the world. Placing just 36th, it was outperformed by most of the European countries that joined the European Union alongside Malta in 2004.
Iceland and Cyprus were the only European countries that ranked worse than Malta in terms of broadband quality. On the other hand, Malta was described as a "catch-up country" when both quality and penetration are considered, ranking 25th above Italy, New Zealand and Cyprus but still below Estonia, Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania.
This tags Malta as a country barely equipped to cater for the current high-speed internet needs, and absolutely not geared for the needs of the next three to five years.
The top 10 performers are, in order of ranking: Japan, Sweden, The Netherlands, Latvia, Korea, Switzerland, Lithuania, Denmark, Germany and Slovenia. France is 12th, the US is 16th and the UK is 24th, the latter being in the same league as Malta. China and India close the list. However, only Japan made the grade when it comes to supporting the new internet applications of the near future that would need a lot of bandwidth.
The study, focusing on countries in Europe, North America, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Brazil, Russia, India and China, was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco.
The research team said it used nearly eight million records from actual broadband speed tests conducted by users around the world during May through www.speedtest.net. Then the team calculated statistical averages of several key performance parameters used to determine the quality of a broadband connection for each country. The team concluded that broadband experience is mainly affected by broadband speeds in both directions, latency (the time a packet of data takes to travel to a point and back to the user), network oversubscription and data packet loss. These parameters were grouped into three major categories: download and upload throughput, and latency.
The broadband quality score (BQS) for each country was determined using a formula that weighted each category according to the quality requirements of a set of popular applications now and in the future.
Malta's BQS was calculated at 20 against a threshold of 32 to meet the needs of today's applications that thrive on broadband.
The top 10 countries offer their customers bandwidth speeds of around 8 Mb/s (megabits per second) or less, except Japan which offers twice the figure. Maltese internet users are being offered up to 30 Mb/s, which is very high comparable to the top performers in the study. However, the local broadband speeds in May, at the time of the survey, were not as high as they are today but they were still in the same level of top-ranking countries, at least on paper. Typical applications for today include web browsing, social networking, music downloads, basic video streaming and video chatting, standard definition IPTV and enterprise-class home offices. Future applications include consumer telepresence for communications, health care and education, high-quality video file sharing and streaming, high-definition IPTV, cinema-quality live event broadcasts and advanced home automation.
"The broadband quality study was developed on the premise that the new generation of web applications will rely on a higher level of performance of broadband connections," explained Alastair Nicholson from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. "Average download speeds are adequate for web browsing, e-mail and basic video downloading and streaming, but we are seeing more interactive applications, more user-generated content being uploaded and shared, and an increasing amount of high-quality video services becoming available. Moreover, because the study also found significant correlation between a nation's broadband quality and its advancement as a knowledge economy, policy makers may need to consider how to create an environment to improve key broadband performance parameters in the future."
The survey insisted that the next wave of web applications demand a step-improvement in broadband quality. Most countries do well for today's applications but Japan is the only country that is future-ready. Broadband quality is correlated with ICT diffusion, the knowledge economy and web usage. Fibre-optic deployments and upgraded cable networks help drive higher BQS.
To establish broadband leadership countries must focus on availability, penetration and quality. Governments, content producers, service providers, vendors and consumers have all a key role, the researchers concluded. The results of this survey may come as a negative surprise a few days after the European Commission has ranked Malta high in terms of ICT use, performing above the EU average in many areas. The i2010 mid-term review (Preparing Europe's Digital Future) praised Malta for its online public services for citizens and businesses. This report showed broadband penetration in Maltese households, as a percentage of households with an internet connection, exceeds the European average of 82 to 77 per cent, showing a greater take-up of broadband among Maltese internet users. Maltese businesses are the fourth best connected in Europe to broadband and Malta's population is the fifth most covered by DSL coverage in the EU.
Maltese broadband users can check the speed of their connection on www.nethealth.net.mt provided by the Malta Communications Authority.
i-tech@timesofmalta.com
Iceland and Cyprus were the only European countries that ranked worse than Malta in terms of broadband quality. On the other hand, Malta was described as a "catch-up country" when both quality and penetration are considered, ranking 25th above Italy, New Zealand and Cyprus but still below Estonia, Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania.
This tags Malta as a country barely equipped to cater for the current high-speed internet needs, and absolutely not geared for the needs of the next three to five years.
The top 10 performers are, in order of ranking: Japan, Sweden, The Netherlands, Latvia, Korea, Switzerland, Lithuania, Denmark, Germany and Slovenia. France is 12th, the US is 16th and the UK is 24th, the latter being in the same league as Malta. China and India close the list. However, only Japan made the grade when it comes to supporting the new internet applications of the near future that would need a lot of bandwidth.
The study, focusing on countries in Europe, North America, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Brazil, Russia, India and China, was conducted by a team of MBA students from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco.
The research team said it used nearly eight million records from actual broadband speed tests conducted by users around the world during May through www.speedtest.net. Then the team calculated statistical averages of several key performance parameters used to determine the quality of a broadband connection for each country. The team concluded that broadband experience is mainly affected by broadband speeds in both directions, latency (the time a packet of data takes to travel to a point and back to the user), network oversubscription and data packet loss. These parameters were grouped into three major categories: download and upload throughput, and latency.
The broadband quality score (BQS) for each country was determined using a formula that weighted each category according to the quality requirements of a set of popular applications now and in the future.
Malta's BQS was calculated at 20 against a threshold of 32 to meet the needs of today's applications that thrive on broadband.
The top 10 countries offer their customers bandwidth speeds of around 8 Mb/s (megabits per second) or less, except Japan which offers twice the figure. Maltese internet users are being offered up to 30 Mb/s, which is very high comparable to the top performers in the study. However, the local broadband speeds in May, at the time of the survey, were not as high as they are today but they were still in the same level of top-ranking countries, at least on paper. Typical applications for today include web browsing, social networking, music downloads, basic video streaming and video chatting, standard definition IPTV and enterprise-class home offices. Future applications include consumer telepresence for communications, health care and education, high-quality video file sharing and streaming, high-definition IPTV, cinema-quality live event broadcasts and advanced home automation.
"The broadband quality study was developed on the premise that the new generation of web applications will rely on a higher level of performance of broadband connections," explained Alastair Nicholson from Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. "Average download speeds are adequate for web browsing, e-mail and basic video downloading and streaming, but we are seeing more interactive applications, more user-generated content being uploaded and shared, and an increasing amount of high-quality video services becoming available. Moreover, because the study also found significant correlation between a nation's broadband quality and its advancement as a knowledge economy, policy makers may need to consider how to create an environment to improve key broadband performance parameters in the future."
The survey insisted that the next wave of web applications demand a step-improvement in broadband quality. Most countries do well for today's applications but Japan is the only country that is future-ready. Broadband quality is correlated with ICT diffusion, the knowledge economy and web usage. Fibre-optic deployments and upgraded cable networks help drive higher BQS.
To establish broadband leadership countries must focus on availability, penetration and quality. Governments, content producers, service providers, vendors and consumers have all a key role, the researchers concluded. The results of this survey may come as a negative surprise a few days after the European Commission has ranked Malta high in terms of ICT use, performing above the EU average in many areas. The i2010 mid-term review (Preparing Europe's Digital Future) praised Malta for its online public services for citizens and businesses. This report showed broadband penetration in Maltese households, as a percentage of households with an internet connection, exceeds the European average of 82 to 77 per cent, showing a greater take-up of broadband among Maltese internet users. Maltese businesses are the fourth best connected in Europe to broadband and Malta's population is the fifth most covered by DSL coverage in the EU.
Maltese broadband users can check the speed of their connection on www.nethealth.net.mt provided by the Malta Communications Authority.
i-tech@timesofmalta.com