An annual study commissioned by Cisco has ranked the UK 18 out of 72 in terms of quality and penetration of net services.

The annual report, which saw the UK at number 25 last year, looks at a number of factors, such as the number of homes equipped with broadband and the quality of the services. That is, the speed of the connection and the amount of time it takes data to arrive at a machine.

The countries occupying the “elite” category of being ready for the “applications of tomorrow” include South Korea, Japan, Bulgaria and Portugal. When the study was first conducted in 2008, only Japan was judged “ready for tomorrow”.

The “tomorrow’s applications” include high definition internet television and high-quality video communications, which would require an average download speed of 11Mbps and an upload speed of 5Mbps. The average global upload speed is currently at 1.7Mbps.

Average broadband speeds in the UK are at 6.4Mbps. Fernando Gil de Bernabe, a Senior Director at Cisco, said that despite the UK being unprepared for tomorrow, it has seen significant improvements in the last two years.

Mr. de Bernabe predicts a “step-change” in the UK because of increased fibre optic roll-outs from BT and extensions of Virgin Media’s cable network. Similar developments in over countries have generally led to a 50-60% increase in download speeds in one year.

The British Government has ambitions to be the best broadband economy in Europe by 2015.