Dominican Republic ranks 136th among 152 countries in Internet speed, a study by the company NET INDEX and proprietors of the measurer www.speedtest.com shows.

It gauged Dominican Republic’s constant download speed at 0.80 megabytes per second (mbps), with Santiago, the second largest city, posting the quickest velocity in the tests with 0.80 Mbps, whereas the capital Santo Domingo was measured at 0.76 mbps.

As to the country’s other major cities, San Pedro came in at 0.70; La Vega with 0.67; La Romana at 0.52 and Puerto Plata the slowest with 0.48.

The list is headed by South Korea with 34.10 Mbps, Latvia with 24.44 Mbps and Moldova Republic with 21.76 Mbps.

Net Index began measuring country speeds from April 17 to May  27 and has only validated the data of those nations which have more than 100,000 consultations  on speed of unique IP addresses and whose users are within a distance of 300 kilometers from the server.

Slow and expensive

In addition to lack of speed, Dominican Republic also has an expensive Web service, according to an expert who requested anonymity.  “Take the case of Spain where service for 1K (1.0 mbps) costs around 20 euros, but here (DR) you have to pay 2,500 pesos (around 25 euros) for that same speed.”

They added that instead of becoming cheaper given better technology and improved infrastructure, the telecoms increasingly charge more for the service.