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Internet speed is the transmission capacity which refers to data transferred through the World Wide Web. It then reaches the computer network that you or any other person is using. Many of us get angry about too much time that buffering takes while streaming a video. The same happens when we load a program into memory. Would you be surprised if you get a speed of 239 Mbps for your home internet? Unfortunately, if you are not living in Singapore you cannot enjoy the perk of using the fastest internet. Now you might be scratching your heads over it if you are not a Singaporean. To your surprise, it is a fact and not a factoid.
If you want to experience lightning-fast Internet then you should move to Singapore. Internet speed in the island nation is considered to be the fastest not only in Asia but in the whole world. This means that if there is an Olympic event where countries compete for having the fastest Internet, Singapore will take home the gold medal. Singapore Internet reaches up to 239 Mbps on average. And this kind of Internet speed is enjoyed by everyone in the country and not only a select few. In the United States, the average Internet speed is only 181 Mbps, which is ranked 12th in the world. Roughly 89% of both Singaporeans and Americans use the Internet.
Singapore’s Internet
The internet speed was assessed by a company based in the UK. Its report includes 50 countries and compares the internet speed in terms of downloads and uploads. Also, it includes a comparison of the download speed of one hour of Netflix. Precisely, it turned out to be 16 seconds in which one hour of Netflix downloads are completed. Iceland, South Korea, the United States, and Sweden fall behind in the list. While Singapore hovers at the top, you will not see any Southeast Asian country among the top five apart from it.
There are many reasons why the Internet in the city-state is so fast. The average Singapore Internet speed is more than twice that of the global average. One of these reasons is that Singapore is a very small country. It is about as big as New York City. It also has a dense population all over just like San Francisco. Also it is definitely much easier to have fast Internet if you have to cover only a relatively small land area. The U.S., in comparison, is a very large country. Ensuring that everyone in the U.S. has a fast Internet connection is indeed a challenging task.
Singapore, on the other hand, doesn’t have to deal with the challenges present in big countries such as the U.S. The country is only 280 square miles in size. And there are 5.69 million people living in this city and they spread all throughout the country. This makes Singapore one of the most densely populated countries in the world. This means that residents in Singapore are essentially just living in one big city.
Why Is Singapore’s Internet The Fastest In The World?
Another reason why Singapore’s Internet is so fast is that the country has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure since 2010. There is indeed a conscious effort on the part of Singapore officials to place the country at the forefront of cutting-edge fiber-optic Internet connections. The effort is part of a bigger plan to bring government services to the people in a timely and more efficient manner. The country also has plans to become a “smart city” where everyone is connected and where devices in homes and offices are all connected to the Internet. This dream is slowly becoming a reality.
As for fiber optic technology, Singapore depends on a single company. It is financed by the grants that the government awards to this company. The overall finances are gathered through both the public and private sectors. Public subsidies provided by the government contribute to the billions of dollars for the process of upgrading infrastructure. The same goes for private telecommunication companies.
How fast?
So just how fast is the Singapore Internet? How fast is an average speed of 239 Mbps? For you to appreciate this kind of speed, then you should know that Netflix, the online movie streaming service, recommends only a speed of 25 Mbps to stream a 4K video. This means that a normal household in Singapore can stream 4K videos on nine different devices. In Singapore, you only need less than 13 minutes to download all episodes of Game of Thrones in HD video. The speed is almost hard to fathom right? But Singaporeans are enjoying this kind of Internet speed on a daily basis. Its skyrocketing internet usage is evident through the percentage of people using digital devices. By 2020, 98 percent of the population had digital devices. Access to the internet is convenient as the majority of the population uses the internet through mobile phones.
Every desirable thing has one or more inevitable downsides associated with it. Singapore’s fastest internet connection has a downside in that it is expensive. In terms of price, it is ranked 25th for having expensive internet service. The government and those managing this service are not sitting by to let this happen. They are trying to invest more in this department to make the internet cheaper.
Conclusion
Another one can be the privacy concerns of the people using the internet. They are worried about the personal data that the companies obtain. They deal with it by deleting cookies from the browser.
Across the globe, the growth of internet usage is remarkable. If we go back to the 20th century, by 1993, there were only 14 million users. Now, this number might pertain to a single country. If we talk about Singapore, it had 88.5 percent users in 2020. The estimated percentage by 2025 is said to be 93 percent. This is the reason why it has gained top position in many categories in terms of internet service. Singapore is trying to digitalize its businesses. The best part of buying and selling is done online.
Thank you for reading!