Bulgaria ranks fifth in the world in quality of broadband Internet, according to results of a research by Cisco Systems Inc, conducted by the Oxford University.

The first four places are taken by South Korea, Japan and Sweden, while countries like Finland, Romania and Denmark are placed after Bulgaria.

Among the cities, Sofia ranks 11th in quality of the Internet connection, followed by Lisbon, New York City, Hong Kong, Paris and Copenhagen.

"Having in mind the Internet speed, I would like to live in Sofia," said Fernando Gil de Bernabe, senior director at Cisco.

The broadband quality ranking measured the proportion of households and businesses with access to broadband, combined with Internet-connection speed.

The quality was defined by taking into account the download speed, upload speed and the average latency.

Sofia residents download with an average speed of 14,7 Mb/s and upload with an average of 7 Mb/s, while the latency is 52 ms.

Bulgaria, however, has showed a slow progress in the distribution of Internet in the country. It ranks last among the 23 countries.

Most of the Eastern European countries have shown a tendency for high quality and low distribution among the population in comparison to the countries that have more developed economies.

"The quality of the Internet connection in Bulgaria is developed enough. The country needs to do more about the penetration of the connection among the population. In order for this to happen, there has to be political will and initiative," Bernabe said.

According to the survey, Bulgaria occupies the 20th place for the ratio quality-distribution.