Once again we’re ending 2024 by taking a look back to see how the United Kingdom’s position, at least in terms of the top 50 fastest countries for both fixed broadband ISP and mobile (4G, 5G) data speeds, has changed since 2023. Overall, the UK fell from 51st to 53rd for mobile and jumped from 56th to 44th for fixed lines.

The following report was created by harnessing data from Ookla’s popular Speedtest.net service for benchmarking internet connections around the world, which admittedly does have its caveats. For example, the data can be impacted by other aspects of the connection (e.g. slow Wi-Fi, local network congestion, the performance of speedtest.net’s own servers and consumer package choice), but these issues are shared by all of the countries.

NOTE: Data is gathered in November each year and the figures are all ‘median‘ averages.

However, the main differentiator for speeds between countries tends to stem from the balance between network availability and the take-up of faster connection types. For example, countries with a high coverage of gigabit-capable broadband networks (FTTP, DOCSIS 3.1 – 4.0 etc.) or strong 5G mobile services (ideally with plenty of radio spectrum for them to harness) will naturally rank highest in the table.

In terms of the UK, we’ve seen a strong and continuous improvement in the availability of both faster fixed and mobile networks. For example, Ofcom recently revealed (here) that 1Gbps capable fixed gigabit broadband networks had reached 84% of premises (up from 78% last year), which falls to 69% when only looking at full fibre / FTTP lines (up from 57%).

As for 5G mobile, it is now available from at least one MNO (operator) in the vicinity of around 90-95% of UK premises (up from 85-93% last year) or 61-79% when looking at outside areas with availability from all operators combined.

Top 50 Fastest Countries for Broadband in 2024

The data below reveals that fixed line broadband and mobile speeds have continued to improve across the world. But despite some noted improvements in 5G coverage, other countries still seem able to improve their real-world mobile performance at a faster or similar pace. On the flip side, the UK has seen its first ranking improvement for fixed line performance in several years, which reflects the growing coverage and take-up of full fibre lines.

We’ve summarised some of the key changes below.

UK Fixed & Mobile Speeds vs The World (2024)

Otherwise, the following tables show how the countries compare, using only download speed as the key measure, across the top 50 countries.

Sadly, Ookla doesn’t make it easy to do the same table for uploads or latency.

Fastest 50 Countries for Fixed Broadband Speed (DL) in 2024

Fastest 50 Countries for Mobile Speed (DL) in 2024