UK-based broadband comparison website Cable.co.uk has published its annual global broadband pricing information and put the U.S. in the 119th spot in terms of pricing for consumer Internet access, as spotted by TechSpot. Last year, the U.S. didn't fare much better and ranked 104th.
That's not to say that prices for broadband in the U.S. are going up. Rather, the year-on-year cost has dropped by $17.69 for the average subscription. But that hasn't done much to help the position in the global rankings, since prices for broadband have been falling all over the world.
The cable comparison site noted that global broadband speeds increased by 20.65% on average between 2018 and 2019. Meanwhile, the average price of a broadband package decreased by 19.975% between the end of 2018 and beginning of 2020, it said.
Despite the almost abysmal rankings for pricing on the global scale, the U.S. fares quite well when it comes to broadband speeds. In 2017, the average connection in the U.S. had a speed of 20 Mbps. In 2018 that figure rose to 25.86 Mbps, and in 2019 it jumped to 32.89 Mbps. Consequently, the U.S. is in 15th place when it comes to average broadband speed connections.
Leading the connection speed charts is Taiwan with an average connection speed of 85.02 Mbps, and Yemen takes last place at a meager 0.38 Mbps.
Back to prices. The most expensive country is Eritrea, where the average cost of fixed-line broadband is a painful $2,666.24 per month. Yemen followed closely at $2,466.67, and the third most expensive location was Mauritania with an average cost of $694.63. Note that in many parts of the world, large portions of the population don't use broadband, and less developed countries often rely on mobile data connections rather than fixed-line connections for Internet access.
If you want the cheapest fixed-line Internet access, you'll have to move to Syria, where the average broadband connection costs just $6.60 a month.
