Small cities witnessed the most significant increases in broadband download speeds over the past five years, yet disparities persist between small and large cities and between rural areas and cities
Access to quality Internet plays a crucial role in enhancing the well-being of regions and cities by making services more accessible, improving public services, promoting social inclusion, supporting environmental sustainability, improving healthcare, enhancing education and fostering community engagement. Broadband Internet coverage has progressed steadily in the past decades. However, 16% of households still did not have access to broadband in 2023 and in some of the poorest OECD regions, such as Chiapas, Mexico, only half of households had access.
Despite rapid advancements, people living in rural areas still have lower-quality Internet compared to cities in OECD countries. On average, user-experienced broadband download speeds – a measure of Internet quality – are 13% faster than the national average across cities, while in rural areas, it is 22% slower (Figure 4.23). Over the last 5 years, Internet speed differences between cities and rural areas have decreased by 11 p.p. on average. France and Ireland made the biggest improvements in closing this gap (-80 p.p. and -65 p.p.), while Belgium, Colombia, Greece and Türkiye saw their gaps widen by more than 20 p.p. In these countries, download speeds have at least doubled in all kinds of areas, but improvements in Internet speeds were faster in cities. In Colombia, download speeds in rural areas were 5 times higher in 2024 compared to 2019, while in cities, speeds increased 11-fold over the same period.
Broadband download speeds increased the fastest in smaller FUAs over the past five years and especially during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (Figure 4.24). Although growth has slowed in midsize and large FUAs, small FUAs continued to improve steadily. By 2024, broadband download speeds in small FUAs were more than twice (2.4) as fast as they were in 2021, faster than the increase seen in larger FUAs (2.1 times). In Colombia, the country with the most improvement, cities below 100 000 inhabitants saw their speeds increase sixfold (5.7 times) from 2021 to 2024, while large FUAs (1.5 million inhabitants or more) tripled (3.3 times) their speeds.
Despite these gains in smaller FUAs, large FUAs still have faster (by 14%) broadband download speeds than the national average (Figure 4.25). Some countries like Austria, Bulgaria, Greece and Türkiye have even bigger gaps of at least 25%. Midsize FUAs have Internet access a bit faster than the national average but, in small FUAs, it tends to be slower.
Broadband download speed is also slower in commuting zones compared to urban centres in all OECD countries except Korea and Norway. The difference in speed between urban centres and commuting zones is over 50 p.p. in Austria, Czechia, Italy and Latvia, with the largest gap in Czechia at 55 p.p. (Figure 4.26). Most of the largest gaps are due to urban centres having much faster Internet rather than commuting areas with much slower Internet compared to the national average. However, in about two-thirds of OECD countries, commuting zones have slower speeds than the national average. In Czechia and New Zealand, where the city-commuting zone gap is almost 50 p.p., downloading speeds are around 20% slower in commuting zones than the national average.
