Broadband speeds in UK lag behind Europe's

The UK is a broadband laggard with an average speed ranking it 31st in the world trailing most of Europe, Thailand and New Zealand.

According to a new report, across the UK, the average broadband download speed is 16.5Mbps. At the speed it takes an hour to download a lengthy Hollywood film such as Lord of the Rings or an entire TV box set.

The average speed in the UK, is less than a third of that of Singapore, which topped the global league table measuring broadband in 189 countries, where it took an average of 18 minutes to download a 7.5Gb film.

The UK fell much short of the average speeds enjoyed by European countries including Germany (18.8Mbps), Spain (19.6Mbps), Sweden (40Mbps) and Hungary (23Mbps). Outside Europe, the UK was behind the US (20Mbps), Canada (18Mbps) and New Zealand (16.6Mbps).

According to the report, overall the UK lagged behind 19 European countries, 17 of them in the EU.

''These results offer us a fresh perspective on where we sit in the broadband world,'' says Dan Howdle, consumer and telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, which produced the report, The Telegraph reported.

''Relatively speaking, we are near the top of the table. However, many of those ahead of us, some a long way ahead, are our neighbours both in the European Union and wider Europe. Is it good enough to lag behind 20 other European countries in terms of broadband speed?''

The findings are based on 63 million broadband speed tests, which were conducted over a year and the results collected by M-Lab. The results were later ranked by cable.co.uk.