The Ookla Speed Test Global Index has released its figures for December – and once again Australia has tumbled down the ranks. Our fixed broadband speeds are now 55th in the world; behind the likes of Slovenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan and Guam. Despite everything the NBN promised, we are floundering below the global average and continue to slip further each month.
According to Ookla’s latest report (which is based off thousands of unique user test results over the month of December), Australia’s average download speed for fixed broadband is just 25.88 megabits per second (Mbps). This places us 55th in the world; a drop of two places compared to November. It is also well below the global average of 40.71Mbps.
Image: Ookla
Interestingly, Australia’s global ranking fell despite broadband speeds remaining relatively stagnant compared to last month. In other words, other countries have managed to improve their average speeds month-to-month, while Australia has not. It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the NBN’s continued deployment, is it?
On the plus side, Australia’s mobile speeds remain among the world’s fastest, with average download speeds of 48.47Mbps. This places us seventh in the world behind Norway (61.20Mbps), Malta (54.36Mbps), Netherlands (54.17Mbps), Singapore (54.00Mbps), United Arab Emirates (50.20Mbps) and Iceland (50.12Mbps). Perhaps it’s time to consider 4G home broadband as an NBN alternative?
Image: Ookla
So how did the rest of the world do? Once again, Singapore came out on top for fixed broadband speed, with average downloads of 161.21Mbps. NBN proponents argue that it’s unfair to compare Singapore to Australia due to its much smaller geographical footprint. However, it’s worth noting that Russia – which has a much larger landmass than Australia – also beat us in the Ookla Speed Test Global Index.
Here’the full list:
| Rank | Country | Speed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | – | Singapore | 161.21 |
| 2 | – | Iceland | 145.64 |
| 3 | – | Hong Kong (SAR) | 141.56 |
| 4 | – | South Korea | 132.52 |
| 5 | – | Romania | 98.64 |
| 6 | – | Hungary | 90.69 |
| 7 | – | Macau (SAR) | 88.93 |
| 8 | – | Sweden | 87.14 |
| 9 | – | Netherlands | 80.70 |
| 10 | – | Switzerland | 78.89 |
| 11 | +3 | Japan | 78.03 |
| 12 | – | United States | 77.32 |
| 13 | – | Denmark | 76.70 |
| 14 | +1 | Norway | 76.68 |
| 15 | -4 | Lithuania | 76.41 |
| 16 | +6 | Reunion | 73.14 |
| 17 | -1 | Canada | 69.58 |
| 18 | – | Spain | 65.65 |
| 19 | -2 | Jersey | 65.32 |
| 20 | – | New Zealand | 64.31 |
| 21 | +2 | China | 63.69 |
| 22 | -3 | Luxembourg | 61.69 |
| 23 | -2 | France | 61.35 |
| 24 | +1 | Belgium | 57.36 |
| 25 | -1 | Portugal | 54.53 |
| 26 | – | United Kingdom | 52.53 |
| 27 | – | Germany | 49.52 |
| 28 | – | Barbados | 48.67 |
| 29 | – | Latvia | 47.64 |
| 30 | -2 | Malta | 46.58 |
| 31 | – | Moldova | 45.22 |
| 32 | +3 | Poland | 44.76 |
| 33 | -1 | Israel | 44.75 |
| 34 | -4 | Bulgaria | 43.81 |
| 35 | -2 | Taiwan | 42.74 |
| 36 | -2 | Ireland | 41.92 |
| 37 | – | Slovakia | 39.55 |
| 38 | -2 | Finland | 39.46 |
| 39 | – | Thailand | 38.85 |
| 40 | +3 | Trinidad and Tobago | 37.42 |
| 41 | -1 | Russia | 37.41 |
| 42 | -4 | Estonia | 36.99 |
| 43 | +1 | Czech Republic | 35.26 |
| 44 | -3 | Chile | 35.20 |
| 45 | -3 | Ukraine | 34.60 |
| 46 | -1 | Slovenia | 33.39 |
| 47 | – | Italy | 31.96 |
| 48 | -2 | Bermuda | 31.62 |
| 49 | -1 | Austria | 29.90 |
| 50 | – | Panama | 29.42 |
| 51 | – | Belarus | 28.78 |
| 52 | -3 | Qatar | 28.55 |
| 53 | +1 | Guam | 27.09 |
| 54 | -2 | Kazakhstan | 25.96 |
| 55 | -2 | Australia | 25.88 |
| 56 | -1 | United Arab Emirates | 25.69 |
| 57 | +4 | Puerto Rico | 24.95 |
| 58 | -2 | Vietnam | 24.77 |
| 59 | -2 | Serbia | 23.96 |
| 60 | -1 | Montenegro | 23.93 |
| 61 | -1 | Croatia | 22.30 |
| 62 | – | Malaysia | 22.15 |
| 63 | -5 | The Bahamas | 22.02 |
| 64 | – | Uruguay | 21.75 |
| 65 | +9 | Saudi Arabia | 21.26 |
| 66 | -3 | Mongolia | 20.91 |
| 67 | -2 | Macedonia | 20.70 |
| 68 | -1 | Georgia | 20.33 |
| 69 | +1 | Armenia | 19.68 |
| 70 | +6 | India | 19.66 |
| 71 | -5 | Curaçao | 19.34 |
| 72 | +3 | Ghana | 19.20 |
| 73 | -2 | Sri Lanka | 19.11 |
| 74 | -6 | Mexico | 19.06 |
| 75 | -2 | Jamaica | 19.01 |
| 76 | -4 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 18.80 |
| 77 | +1 | Cyprus | 18.27 |
| 78 | +1 | Brazil | 17.86 |
| 79 | -2 | Bahrain | 17.52 |
| 80 | +1 | Jordan | 17.37 |
| 81 | +2 | Peru | 17.07 |
| 82 | -2 | Kuwait | 16.50 |
| 83 | +2 | Bangladesh | 16.26 |
| 84 | – | Turkey | 15.71 |
| 85 | -3 | Oman | 15.63 |
| 86 | +2 | Argentina | 15.52 |
| 87 | -1 | Kenya | 15.39 |
| 88 | +3 | Philippines | 15.19 |
| 89 | +3 | Nepal | 15.02 |
| 90 | – | Greece | 14.81 |
| 91 | -2 | Kyrgyzstan | 14.06 |
| 92 | +1 | Indonesia | 13.79 |
| 93 | -6 | Brunei | 13.72 |
| 94 | – | Dominican Republic | 13.21 |
| 95 | – | Mauritius | 13.04 |
| 96 | – | Albania | 12.99 |
| 97 | +2 | Cambodia | 12.51 |
| 98 | – | Maldives | 12.41 |
| 99 | +2 | Colombia | 10.83 |
| 100 | +4 | Ecuador | 10.81 |
| 101 | +2 | Ethiopia | 10.77 |
| 102 | +4 | Morocco | 10.76 |
| 103 | -1 | Azerbaijan | 10.54 |
| 104 | +5 | Nigeria | 9.96 |
| 105 | +5 | Laos | 9.89 |
| 106 | +2 | Côte d’Ivoire | 9.71 |
| 107 | -2 | Iran | 9.41 |
| 108 | +5 | Palestine | 9.04 |
| 109 | -2 | Namibia | 9.03 |
| 110 | +1 | Guyana | 8.34 |
| 111 | +6 | Iraq | 8.31 |
| 112 | +2 | Belize | 8.16 |
| 113 | +3 | Costa Rica | 8.13 |
| 114 | +5 | Paraguay | 7.48 |
| 115 | +6 | Republic of the Union of Myanmar | 7.40 |
| 116 | +4 | Syria | 6.92 |
| 117 | +5 | Tunisia | 6.71 |
| 118 | -21 | Guatemala | 6.60 |
| 119 | +5 | El Salvador | 6.27 |
| 120 | +6 | Pakistan | 6.14 |
| 121 | +2 | Honduras | 6.14 |
| 122 | +5 | Uzbekistan | 6.13 |
| 123 | +2 | Nicaragua | 6.07 |
| 124 | +4 | Bolivia | 5.57 |
| 125 | +4 | Egypt | 5.38 |
| 126 | +4 | Lebanon | 4.94 |
| 127 | +5 | Libya | 3.85 |
| 128 | +3 | Venezuela | 3.65 |
| 129 | +4 | Algeria | 3.48 |
At present only around 3 million Australian premises are receiving services on the nbn network.
This means that the majority of data being captured by these kind of reports are being generated by the 5 million or so legacy services on slower ADSL services.
As these premises switch to the nbn network and we move towards our target of 8 million activated nbn premises by 2020 then we expect to see the overall fixed-broadband speeds in Australia increase significantly.
There is already evidence of this with the latest Akamai State of the Internet report showing Australia’s average speed increasing 26% year on year.
By 2020 we expect 90% of end-users on the nbn’s fixed-broadband networks to be able to access download speeds of at least 50Mbps.
We’ll just add that Australia’s average speed increasing 26% year on year hasn’t stopped our global ranking from slipping further down. While our broadband is getting faster, it appears to be accelerating at a slower rate than many other countries.
[Via Ookla]
I would LOVE something even remotely close to the average of 25.88 Mbps.
I’m lucky to get 4 Mbps these days.
nbnco will simply state that those figures are irrelevant. they’ll spout on about how many fttn connections they’re making and how great they are.
I think everyone accepts that Australia will never have the fastest internet speeds in the world due to population density and an unwilling government, but to be constantly sliding down the rankings must be concerning for the businesses and consumers of the future.
Our net speed ranking is becoming synonymous with wealth meaning Australia is in danger of becoming a 55th world country! GG to our government.
I dispute these figures.
The NBN speeds at my house are much faster.
Why is everyone bitching?
Lol.
Where can I sign up for 25.88 mbps?
This is a fantastic con. My clients struggle to connect reliably to Netflix and Netflix shows a massive difference from the figures shown here. https://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/country/australia/
My friends we are being screwed big time. We are not being told how little Broadband costs are in the super fast countries. We have paid thousands from our taxes for the NBN conglomerate to exist and still have rediculous costs to connect to our own paid for network.
My guess is that the average user is still well shy of an 8 meg unreliable connection.
Everybody on high-speed broadband is keen to run tests to share. The rest of us hide in embarassment.
I agree. I think the stated average of 25 Mbps is grossly over-inflated – even with NBN users, most of whom opt for the entry level speed of 12 Mbps.
On ADSL these speeds are virtually impossible, and even on the old cable networks this speed is unusual.
It doesn’t make sense because the speeds on offer in Australia are usually 12, 25 or 100 Mbps – and nobody ever gets the maximum speed for each tier. So to get an average of 25.88 the majority of users would have to be on plans greater than 25 Mbps.
It simply doesn’t add up.
Firstly, Malcolm Turnbull is NOT a relation.
I must be stoopid but I hooked on the NBN 3 weeks ago on a HFC connection after holding out for 4 months. I dumped my 19 year ISP which used to be the number 1 for service & reliability but after a takeover, is now bottom and went with a bit of a no name which was cheaper and NO contracts. THEY suggested I start on the 50/20 plan with 500GB data whilst finding my feet.
I have now become anal & measure my speed 2/3 times a day and I consistently get between 42-46Mbps down & 18-19 up. I watch Netflix & Amazon in 4k and can use my ipad and laptop with no slow down even in the dreaded night time congestion period. I now dont see a need to move onto a higher & more expensive plan. I am also a heavy downloader.
To me, the NBN is a godsend after max speed of 2.5 Mbps I put up with under ADSL2
How much of this is because 25Mb/s is the standard offering on NBN?
The telcos are in a race to resell NBN. And price seems to be the key driver of business. So most packages don’t even quote speeds. Anything faster than the “standard 25” seems to be sold as an optional extra for more money – so hardly encouraging uptake.