One Country, Two Internets
Ulaanbaatar averages 78 Mbps. Ulaangom, the capital of Uvs aimag in Mongolia's northwest, averages 6 Mbps. The gap is 13x. A video call that works smoothly in the capital stutters and drops in the aimag center. Remote consultations, online classes, and e-commerce all depend on bandwidth that most of Mongolia simply does not have.
Mongolian cities ranked by average internet download speed, Mbps. Ulaanbaatar highlighted.
Ulaanbaatar's Internet Is 13× Faster Than the West
Median download speed by city, Q4 2024. The gap between UB and the west is 13×.
Source: Speedtest Intelligence by Ookla, 2024 (Q4 2024 city medians).
Circle size = internet speed in Mbps. Ulaanbaatar's dot dwarfs all others. Ulgii, Khovd, and Ulaangom — the three western dots — are unlabeled because their circles fall below the minimum radius for legible text.
The West Barely Registers
Circle size = median Mbps. Western Mongolia barely registers on the map.
Source: Speedtest Intelligence by Ookla, 2024 (Q4 2024 city medians).
At 6–8 Mbps, Khovd, Ulaangom, and Ulgii fall below speeds sufficient for stable video calls. Darkhan and Erdenet — Mongolia's second and third cities, both on the rail line north of Ulaanbaatar — fare better at 32–35 Mbps, but still less than half the capital's speed. The divide is not purely geographic distance. It is investment distance: fiber infrastructure follows economic density, and economic density in Mongolia follows one city.
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