High-speed broadband access is increasing across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, but connectivity gaps between urban and rural areas are widening.
This is according to a new OECD report, “Closing Broadband Connectivity Divides for All: From Evidence to Practice”, which shows that as of June 2024, OECD countries averaged 36 fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, with fibre making up 45% of all fixed broadband subscriptions, up from 27% in 2019.
Despite these gains, persistent and growing divides in broadband performance and availability remain between urban and rural areas.
Using novel data from OECD countries, Ookla, Opensignal and GSMA Intelligence, the report analyses broadband speed, latency, and service consistency across 61 countries, offering an innovative subnational view of connectivity divides.
Connectivity performance improves, but disparities increase
Between 2019 and 2024, median fixed broadband speeds more than tripled, from 53Mbps in Q4 2019 to 178Mbps in Q4 2024.
However, the absolute gap of fixed broadband speeds between metropolitan areas and regions far from metropolitan areas across the OECD widened from 22Mbps to 58Mbps over the same period.
In 2024, fixed download speeds in metropolitan areas were, on average, 44% higher than in regions far from urban centres.
The good news: median mobile download speeds improved across all regions of the OECD from 2019 to 2024, coinciding with the launch of 5G networks. Across the OECD, median speeds more than tripled, reaching 113Mbps at the end of 2024, up from 30Mbps in Q4 2019.
As the latest mobile networks tend to be deployed first in urban areas, these quality improvements are also coupled with an increase in the absolute gap in the levels of mobile speeds between metropolitan regions and regions far from metropolitan areas, which grew from 5Mbps to 45Mbps based on Ookla data.
These trends highlight that while overall infrastructure deployment is improving, broadband quality in rural areas is not advancing at the same pace.
Country differences in connectivity divides
The relative connectivity gap in fixed broadband download speeds between urban and rural areas varied considerably across OECD countries: from 4 to 50 percentage points below national averages.
On average, rural regions recorded speeds 24 percentage points lower than urban areas across the OECD. The widest gaps were observed in Colombia, Greece, and Türkiye, while Korea, the Netherlands, and Norway showed minimal regional differences.
For mobile broadband, the average rural-urban gap across OECD countries was 35 percentage points. Some countries, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy recorded gaps of less than 15 percentage points whereas in Belgium, Colombia, Poland, and the United Kingdom, the gap exceeded 50 percentage points.
The absolute urban-rural connectivity gap of experienced median fixed broadband download speeds across regions also varied significantly among OECD countries, ranging from less than 1Mbps to more than 100 Mbps at the end of 2024, based on Ookla data. This urban-rural divide was especially pronounced in Colombia (106Mbps), Switzerland (94Mbps), Canada (71Mbps), Poland (63Mbps), the UK (58Mbps), and the US (57Mbps).
However, in some countries such as Canada, Hungary, Switzerland and the US, rural regions – despite large domestic gaps – still achieved fixed broadband median speeds above the OECD average for remote areas (132Mbps).
These findings highlight that geography continues to shape digital access and quality, underscoring how subnational disparities require both overarching and targeted policy responses.
Next-generation networks are expanding, but performance gaps remain
By end-2024, 5G networks were deployed in 37 out 38 OECD countries and they covered 84% of the population, according to GSMA Intelligence data.
Despite this increased coverage of the latest mobile networks, performance gaps remain: in 19 OECD countries, users in urban areas experienced mobile download speeds at least 40% higher than those in rural regions, according to Opensignal data.
Average 5G mobile download speeds experienced in cities across OECD countries reached 223Mbps, compared to 174Mbps in rural areas – a 28% difference. Notably, the 5G “speed gap” between rural and urban areas is smaller than the overall mobile speed gap (37%), suggesting that as 5G continues to progress, broadband performance across all regions should improve.
5G download speeds across all regions in the OECD were, on average, three times higher than overall mobile download speeds, underscoring the transformative potential of 5G. Korea stands out as a global leader delivering the highest 5G speeds across all regions. Notably, rural users in Korea experienced faster 5G speeds than urban users anywhere else in the OECD.
Beyond the OECD, countries face additional challenges
Challenges for partner economies often include limited electricity and transport infrastructure, making mobile networks the dominant source of connectivity, particularly in rural and remote areas. Mobile download speeds in partner economies remain consistently higher in urban areas than in rural ones.
However, the scale of the divide varies. In some partner economies (e.g. Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru, South Africa), regional differences are relatively narrow.
Nevertheless, as observed in OECD ember countries, countries with narrow absolute gaps tend to have lower speeds across all regions, and gaps are wider across regions in countries with higher overall speeds (for example, Bulgaria, Croatia and India). In G20 countries, mobile download speeds in urban areas were on average 32% higher than in rural areas at the end of 2024.
Policy action is essential to prevent widening divides
As digital technologies become increasingly embedded in daily life and public services, ensuring access to high-quality broadband for all regions is a key policy challenge. The benchmarks for adequate connectivity continue to evolve with the deployment of new technologies and the growing complexity of digital applications.
Without proactive and adaptive policy responses, territorial disparities risk becoming more entrenched.
The new OECD report provides concrete, evidence-based policy recommendations to help governments close these divides:
- Leverage broadband mapping and spatial data to guide investment decisions, improve transparency, and ensure that public resources are directed where they are needed most.
- Strengthen institutional and regulatory frameworks to promote competition, reduce barriers to infrastructure deployment, and encourage private investment in high-quality networks.
- Adopt tailored approaches – such as public-private partnerships, community-led initiatives, and targeted public funding – to reach areas and populations where market forces are not sufficient to drive investment.
The OECD is an international organisation comprised of 38 member countries that aims to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.