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It's not broadband if it's not 10 Mbps, says Ovum

Prognosticator probes punters, slags slow services

Market researcher Ovum has trotted around 30 countries worldwide to find out what makes people like their broadband provider, and reckons the minimum download speed to satisfy users is 10 Mbps.

Based on both market performance data and qualitative surveys with end users, the analyst firm reckoned customers also expect three second page load times, a reliable and stable connection, and decent tech support.

In its customer experience scores, Ovum ranked Sweden top of the countries it studied, Canada 3rd, the UK, US and Russia equal 8th, and Australia 15th.

While UK regulator Ofcom reckons the average broadband user in its jurisdiction gets 23 Mbps, Akamai is more conservative about Blighty, with its https://www.akamai.com/us/en/our-thinking/state-of-the-internet-report/ State of the Internet report currently showing Brit's just about scrape by the Ovum cutoff with 11.6 Mbps (Australia's average, if Akamai's figures are accurate, are well below the cutoff at 7.6 Mbps).

Fudzilla adds that customers resent latency, buffering and low picture quality.

The bad news, if such was needed? As 4K video spreads, customer experience will demand speeds more like 50 Mbps, leaving today's ADSL2+ services in the shade.

In its canned release, the analyst outfit's practice leader for consumer services Michael Philpott also notes that across the countries studied, the research found there's already an average of four devices connected per household, which pushes up customer demand for faster services.

Australia's broadband users were controversially told last year that their median demand would be just 15 Mpbs by 2023. ®

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