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If you thought France's mobile internet was really slow... this confirms it

Oliver Gee
Oliver Gee - [email protected]
If you thought France's mobile internet was really slow... this confirms it
Wow... I have internet! Photo: Tverdohlib.com/Depositphotos"

France is lagging far behind the rest of Europe when it comes to mobile internet speeds, a new study has found.

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France has finished 31st out of 87 countries in a new ranking of world mobile internet speeds. 
 
While that might not sound too bad, France got absolutely walloped by all its neighbours, and finished behind 21 other European countries.
 
To put that into perspective, here's the full list of European countries with better mobile internet connections than France, in order of their appearance on the list:
 
Norway (which finished second overall), Hungary, Netherlands, Denmark, Lithuania, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Croatia, Finland, Switzerland, Latvia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, UK, Italy, Slovenia, and Germany. 
 
The report, which was carried out by wireless company Open Signal, measured over 1 million users across 87 different countries. 
 
The graph below shows every country's average Mbps, short for megabits per second, or the measure of data transfer speed (France is marked with red, way down the list). 
 
 
Yes, in France, people's typical mobile data connection was measured at 13.43 Mbps - a speed lower than all nearby countries, with Ireland ranking as the nearest country with a lower score.
 
Norway's score - the top in Europe - was 37.8 Mbps. 
 
Essentially, the darker the shade on the map below, the faster the internet is on people's phones. 
 
 
Things were even more grim for France when it came to time spent on mobile WiFi (rather than on a cellular network's internet). 
 
The study showed that French people spend 45.05 percent of their time on WiFi, which is a lower percent of time than every single country nearby (see map below, where a darker shade means a higher percentage of time on WiFi). 
 
In fact, the result was low enough to put France 55th out of the 87 countries in the study, and it fell behind countries including Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. 
 
The Netherlands topped the list, with a whopping 69 percent of people's internet time spent on a WiFi connection. The Dutch can also boast an internet speed of 26 Mbps (double that of France).
 
 
The study didn't explain whether a low percentage of time on WiFi was related to a lack of available WiFi - but in France, it's a likely bet. Even in Paris, many public place are still free of WiFi, with many flocking to safe options like McDonald's or Starbucks for their internet fix. 
 
Outside of Europe, Australia can brag about finishing with the 5th fastest mobile internet at 26.25 Mbps, Canada was 12th, New Zealand was 17th, the UK was 26th - all ahead of France's 31st place finish.
 
The US finished 36th of the 87 countries measured. 
 

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