A tangled web
The UK has come 24th in a global league table of countries ranked by the value of their broadband.
Hong Kong has the best value broadband in the world, while Singapore has joined the top 10 for the first time, according to Point Topic's Broadband Tariff Benchmarks Q3 2010.
Japan and Romania came in second and third place in the study that looked at how much consumers in different countries pay for a megabit of bandwidth. Fiona Vanier, senior analyst at Point Topic explained the UK might have ranked low because of its lack of fibre broadband.
"Nine of the ten best value tariffs are either pure fibre or hybrid offerings where fibre is a significant part of the local loop," she said.
The firm believes the rankings could change quickly, as demonstrated by Singapore's rapid ascendency into the top 10 and across the board internet speeds are getting faster.
"Prices are stabilising in many markets around the world and overall in the last quarter there was an average increase globally. However there are plenty of countries that are still rolling out new networks and ISPs that are announcing new tariffs. Even in relatively mature markets, like Singapore or Italy, there is room for improvement as the new tariffs from StarHub and Fastweb demonstrate. Faster downstream speeds do usually mean a lower price per megabit but the bandwidth has to be used for those savings to be achieved," said Vanier.
"Bandwidth will continue to increase as fibre edges closer to the consumer. Higher speeds generally mean better value for the consumer. All that remains is to work out how best to use it," she added.
Here is a chart of the top 10 countries with the best value broadband.
