UK Broadband Doesn't Test Well

UK officials have made headlines in recent months with their Web-based initiatives. According to reports, UK officials consider getting people online a matter of national importance and security. As it turns out, their network can't handle some 5 million more netizens!

In recent studies, Cisco found that European countries such as Latvia and Sweden were better prepared to handle next generation Internet applications. The UK landed a distant 25^th out of the 66 countries on Cisco's list. However, the UK's network was found quite capable of handling today's network applications. If they plan on bringing more and more people online, though, the UK has a ways to go before it catches up to leaders Japan and South Korea.

"Next generation" applications are mostly video, when you get down to brass tacks, but also include sharing photos, video conferencing/"phone calls," and other, bandwidth-sucking activities. "Cloud computing" also continues to gain ground and many experts posit it as the future of computing, as a whole.

Based on file transfer speeds and latency alone, the actually UK placed 31^st. On a positive note, the study found the United Kingdoms in a far better spot than a similar one in 2008, which found only Japan prepared to handle future applications. Cisco's findings employed speedtest.net.

The United States fared slightly better (one rank) than the U.K. Some of the countries which failed too meet even today's standards include Brazil, China, and South Africa.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009