Fixed, mobile North American broadband speeds will more than double by 2023, Cisco study says

20 March 2020 by Steve Blum
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Cisco forecast 2018 2023

More and more people around the world will have access to faster and faster broadband connections, with speeds for fixed and mobile service doubling and tripling by 2023, due in large part to increased global deployment of fiber to the premise and 5G technology, according to a white paper recently published by Cisco. Although North America will continue to beat world broadband speed averages, the U.S. will not be among the leaders in advanced infrastructure deployment.

Cisco’s research indicates that the average North American mobile broadband connection in 2018 ran at 22 Mbps, and that will nearly triple to 58 Mbps by 2023. 5G networks will own a large share of that increase, but the U.S. won’t earn a podium spot…

The top three 5G countries in terms of percent of devices and connections share on 5G will be China (20.7%), Japan (20.6%), and United Kingdom (19.5%), by 2023.

Globally, fixed broadband speeds will also jump, particularly in countries that, unlike the U.S., are focused on making fiber infrastructure ubiquitous…

The global average broadband speed continues to grow and will more than double from 2018 to 2023, from 45.9 Mbps to 110.4 Mbps…Several factors influence the fixed broadband-speed forecast, including the deployment and adoption of Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH), high-speed DSL, and cable broadband adoption, as well as overall broadband penetration. Among the countries covered by this study, Japan, South Korea, and Sweden lead in terms of broadband speed largely because of their wide deployment of FTTH.

North America’s average fixed broadband download speed will be comfortably above the global average at 142 Mbps by 2023, according to the white paper. That only earns us second place on the world league table, though. Asia will still be tops at 157 Mbps, and higher growth rates – 30% annually or better – in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa mean that the gap between U.S. broadband speeds and those in the developing world will continue to close.