S.Korea widens lead in global broadband quality

(Reuters) - South Korea has surpassed Hong Kong and Japan in broadband quality for the second consecutive year, setting a new global benchmark for speed and penetration, a study said on Monday.

The annual survey by the universities of Oxford and Oviedo and sponsored by Cisco Systems found that broadband quality, as measured by download speeds, upload speeds and penetration across 72 countries had improved by 24 percent in a year, and by 50 percent in three years.

Broadband quality has become increasingly important as social networking and the downloading and streaming of video demand better connections.

Some 48 countries in the survey met the requirements to enjoy all major Internet services, up from 38 a year ago, the survey found.

And 14 countries — South Korea, Japan, Latvia, Sweden, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Lithuania, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Portugal, Denmark and Iceland — were already prepared for next-generation Internet applications such as high-definition Internet TV and video communications.

Researchers used data from 40 million real broadband quality tests conducted in May and June 2010 on the Internet speed testing site www.speedtest.net.