Afterword

ThimphuTech was the first technology blog in Bhutan. We started writing it in 2009, just as broadband and mobile internet started to take off. (Although internet in Bhutan was launched in 1999, it was either super-slow or super-expensive, and was only used by a selected few).

In the blog, we wrote about technology and food, but also about plenty of other stuff. The blog became popular and influential in Bhutan. A companion bi-weekly column -- Ask Boaz -- was published for many years in the Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. (The complete Kuensel columns are available as an ebook, Blogging with Dragons).

We stopped updating the blog when we left Bhutan in 2014, but the information within the posts can still prove useful, and thus we decided to keep it online.

We thank all our readers.
Tashi Delek,
Boaz & Galit.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Bhutan broadband is slowest in the world

Bhutan is famous for its relaxed pace of life. Apparently, this is also true when it comes to Internet speeds. According to the Household Download and Household Upload Indexes, consumer broadband speeds in Bhutan are the slowest in the world. The average download speed in Bhutan is 0.14 Mbps, and the average upload speed is 0.06 Mbps, placing Bhutan at the bottom rank of 172 countries.

The average across all countries is 9.05 Mbps and 3.21 Mbps, respectively. The leader is South Korea, with incredibly fast download and upload speeds of 32.93 Mbps and 24.09 Mbps, respectively.


Bhutan vs. Bolivia: The other "Other Final"

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9 comments:

  1. PaSsuTuesday, June 14, 2011

    No Wonder!
    Now the question is, What can be done about it?
    How can you help telecom improve it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jigme ThinleyWednesday, June 15, 2011

    Bhutan Telecom's poor services and getting worst by the day. It will never improve as they are always excusing one way or the other. Happiness is just a place!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. BoazWednesday, June 15, 2011

    @PaSsu, here's how you can help la: Send a link to this post to your charos at DrukNet...

    ReplyDelete
  4. bhutanThursday, June 16, 2011

    First of all speedtest.net does not have a test server in Bhutan
    Second, this test is done with respect to where netindex.com is located
    SO this is a baseless. you can do speed test yourself by downloading and uploading.druknet also has there own speed tester..use that and see for yourself before you bitch about another service. genereally services arent that bad..its us who can't accept things. you should travel sometimes to other countries and then make comparison

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. richFriday, June 15, 2012

      please at-least try running youtube in 480p. I have a 1 Mps Broadband connection

      Delete
  5. AnonymuseSaturday, June 18, 2011

    This is not baseless.

    If you measure speed by downloading from your LAN server, I'm sure you can get close to 100Mbps.

    What is important for the majority of internet users out there is international speeds. Whether speedtest.net has a test server in Bhutan is irrelevant. How much content is served out of Bhutan?

    - Anonymuse, who doesn't live in Bhutan

    ReplyDelete
  6. ~g~Tuesday, June 21, 2011

    @bhutan, I have traveled to other countries and yet druknet happens to be slower! The speedtest with druknet gives me a very low download rating, and proves that you don't get the service they advertise online.

    I agree with Mr. Shmueli, Druknet needs to start upgrading big time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LethoSaturday, June 25, 2011

    ThimphuTech we are in the Quarter finlas, we are now 168th (http://www.netindex.com/download/2,206/Bhutan/)

    ReplyDelete
  8. BoazThursday, June 30, 2011

    @Letho, now up to 167th. I wonder what happened to Bolivia - they are not ranked any more.

    Alas, we're still last on the upload ranking...

    http://www.netindex.com/upload/allcountries/

    ReplyDelete

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