Global investments in better broadband infrastructure are paying dividends in the form of faster speeds for consumers, with a new report from Ookla showing that both download and upload speeds jumped more than 25% year on year.
As of November 2022, the median global download speed hit 74.54 Mbps, up 28% from 58.02 Mbps the year prior. Median upload speeds jumped at an even faster rate – rising 30% to 31.75 Mbps – but remained less than half of the download rate.
Download rates in the countries with the top ten fastest speeds were significantly higher than the overall median, however. Chile led the way, increasing its median download speed from 173.08 to 216.46 Mbps. China snagged the number two spot with a median rate of 214.58, improving significantly from its sixth place ranking and median rate of 146.62 in November 2021. Singapore was just behind it in third with a median download rate of 214.23 Mbps.
In other notable moves, the U.S. jumped two spots to sixth, with a median downlink of 189.48. Spain, which was ranked ninth in November 2021, fell out of the top 10 and was supplanted by the United Arab Emirates. The UAE placed eighth with a speed of 186.76 Mbps.
Ookla analyst Mark Giles in a statement to Fierce attributed the speed gains to a variety of factors, including “growing penetration of fiber” as well as broader adoption of “more advanced Wi-Fi” technology, such as Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E.
Chile’s dominance comes after the country’s government in March 2022 completed construction of a fiber project designed to help connect more than 500,000 users in the southern regions there.
In July 2022, Chile’s telecommunications regulator released a report which noted there were 4.37 million fixed internet connections in the country as of April 2022, with 59.7% of these fiber. It added 34.3% of connections remained on hybrid fiber coaxial technology and another 2.5% were on ADSL.
It’s not entirely clear why Spain would fall out of the top 10 speed ranking given operators there have been working hard to rapidly roll out fiber and the country has a fiber penetration rate of nearly 70% according to data from the FTTH Council Europe.