Fixed broadband improving globally but the digital divide remains deep and wide

• New report from Opensignal analyses real-world fixed broadband access across 18 countries
• Users enjoying the most reliable broadband experience are in Sweden and Norway, with the UK in third place
• Rural reliability remains a problem because of the cost of broadband deployment in geographically challenging locations
• Sharing network infrastructure does not necessarily lead to high reliability or help to narrow the digital divide

The UK has taken third place in new global rankings of broadband reliability by Opensignal, the independent and reliable analytics company specialising in “quantifying the mobile-network experience”. 

In its latest report on broadband reliability around the world, “Bridging the digital divide: Unlocking reliable broadband for all”, Opensignal makes use of its new Broadband Reliability Experience metric to assess users’ real-world fixed broadband experience across 18 countries and examines the digital divide between urban and rural areas. It does so by examining the varying income levels and other characteristics of the countries in the study and analysing variations in broadband characteristics and reliability between urban and rural areas.

One of the key findings is that the UK is doing well, scoring 702 points on Opensignal’s 100- to 1,000-point scale, behind only Sweden and Norway. Other findings are that urban broadband reliability is consistently higher than rural. And while that is hardly a surprise, it is good to have empirical evidence to support the fact that urban premises have access to better infrastructure, higher-speed broadband and newer technology and equipment that bolster the user experience. 

Interestingly, income levels are less predictive of reliability than density, thus, fixed broadband reliability in urban areas of middle-income countries, such as Chile and Poland, surpasses the rural reliability achieved in many high-income countries.

What’s more, network infrastructure sharing does not necessarily equate to high reliability or help to narrow the digital divide. The Opensignal report shows that counties with limited infrastructure sharing but that offer targeted subsidies for private rural investment generally perform better than those relying on the widespread sharing of infrastructure.

The study also empirically supports the commonly held belief that topography and density are key factors in determining and maintaining the depth and width of the digital divide. Thus, markets with highly concentrated urban populations demonstrate the smallest gaps between urban and rural reliability, while geographically diverse middle-income countries, where fixed broadband deployment has been slow because of the difficulty in providing service to far-flung populations across difficult terrain, continue to exhibit the deepest and widest digital divides. However, the comparatively small list of countries that feature a significant number of medium-density areas, such as Spain and the US, have relatively much smaller digital divides.

Opensignal defines reliability in this context as “the ability to perform typical household tasks”, and its research shows that countries with the highest reliability (with an overall cumulative score of 650 and above) are Sweden, Norway, the UK, Canada, Japan and the US. Those with moderate reliability (with scores of between 500 and 650) are Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Spain, Italy, Poland and Brazil.

Countries with the lowest reliability score (of less than 500 points) are India, Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines and Indonesia. Wealthier countries tend to have more reliable fixed line broadband, but the correlation is not as strong as might be expected because other factors, such as regulatory environment and legislation, have a pronounced impact – as does the incidence and strength of competition between telcos and service providers.

On average, broadband reliability is 23% higher in urban areas than in rural locations across all the markets analysed. That’s because built-up areas, by definition, have a higher concentration of people and premises, which makes it more economical and comparatively easy both to invest in and maintain high-quality fixed broadband infrastructure than in rural areas. Also, the cost per user of installing and maintaining broadband networks is lower, due to the density of potential subscribers in a given area. Furthermore, urban subscribers benefit from better underlying infrastructure in terms of roads, power supply and other utilities.

At the end of May last year, an average 98% of UK urban premises had access to superfast broadband (defined as download speeds of more than 30Mbit/s), but this falls to 91% for rural premises. The gap is narrowing and the disparity is more evident where access to gigabit-capable connections (speeds of over 1Gbit/s) are concerned. This pans out at 82% for urban areas and 46% for rural.

The quality of the end-user experience of broadband reliability in urban versus rural areas is dependent on connectivity and technologies. For example, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) is better than FTTC/N (fibre-to-the-curb, cabinet or node) where the final connection is via copper or coaxial cable. Wi-Fi router configuration and broadband service package subscription also matters.

And there are other reasons that mean the countries surveyed are not equal. Thus, Indonesia and the Philippines are made up of archipelagos and islands, big and small, and such geographies make it difficult and expensive to deploy connectivity. Improvement plans do exist, and some are being enacted, but most are based on mobile and satellite connectivity, with fixed broadband mainly being of limited interest and investment.

Colombia has the most pronounced urban to rural broadband reliability experience gap

The most common model of broadband provision globally is for internet service providers (ISPs) to build and operate their own networks, but in many parts of the world, central and regional governments pay subsidies to help bridge the digital divide and narrow the urban-rural reliability gap. In the US, federal initiatives such as the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and Connect America Fund (CAF) have been helping to expand high-speed broadband in rural areas. Meanwhile, the Canadian government has a programme, the Universal Broadband Fund, to provide high-speed internet access to 98% of Canadians by 2026, and to make that 100% coverage, including the vast county’s remote rural and mountainous areas, by 2030.

In terms of the urban versus rural Broadband Reliability Experience gap, the Opensignal report shows that Colombia has the largest disparity, with a difference of 176 points in absolute terms and a 38% lower rural broadband reliability experience than urban. And despite government interventions via programmes such as Vive Digital, rural connectivity is still inadequate. This is partly down to geographical considerations and poor underlying infrastructure, such as roads, power supply problems, and underdeveloped and scarce backhaul connectivity.

India, now the most populous country on the planet and with the world’s fastest-growing gross domestic product (GDP), has a remarkably small urban/rural gap in terms of internet access – at just 90 points on the Opensignal scale. The relative balance is partly because fixed internet access is a tiny percentage (4.22%) of the market, as compared to the proliferation of mobile access. That said, according to the sub-continent’s national industry watchdog, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), 87.4% of those with fixed line broadband are connected by fibre optics.

The simple fact of the matter is that it is economically unviable and physically impracticable to connect all of India by fibre but, in partial compensation, last year Indian operators Airtel and Jio launched 5G fixed wireless access (FWA), and Jio’s offering looked particularly promising.

Intriguingly, the Opensignal data shows that urban broadband reliability experience in some middle-income markets is actually as good as, or even better than, that of rural users. Thus, urban reliability in Chile is better than the rural experience in all rich markets other than the Nordics and Canada, while urban households in Poland get more reliable broadband than rural households in Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Australia, the US and Japan. Remarkably, even lower-income Brazil’s urban reliability is better than that in a few higher-income and more mature markets, such as Italy and Japan. 

Opensignal’s Broadband Reliability Experience metric measures the entire user experience – from establishing a connection to successfully completing tasks such as streaming video, browsing the web and scrolling through social media. It also demonstrates the true end-to-end reliability experience by analysing the two most popular internet protocols – TCP (transmission control protocol) and UDP (user datagram protocol) – to provide a comprehensive measure of every aspect of a household experience with an ISP network. This permits Opensignal to assess when connections are operating perfectly or erratically and when connectivity fails entirely. 

The metric parameters overall are: Connectivity, which measures a premise’s ability to connect to the internet; completion, which measures a connection’s ability to finish tasks requested or required; and sufficiency, which determines if a task or tasks have been performed properly and have been executed well.

- Martyn Warwick, Editor in Chief, TelecomTV