The UK is ranked just 25th in the world when it comes to the fastest average broadband speeds, Akamai has revealed.
According to the content delivery provider's State of the Internet report for Q2 of 2011, which monitored the speed of more than 604 million unique IP addresses from 238 countries and regions, South Korea has the fastest average net connection in the world at 13.8Mbps. It's closely followed by Honk Kong with 10.3Mbps and Japan at 8.9Mbps.
However, with an average speed of just 5Mbps, the UK falls far below these regions in 25th place. However, the report did reveal this is 28 percent faster than the broadband speed recorded in last year's State of the Internet report.
The Netherlands, which was named the European country with the fastest broadband connection at 8.5Mbps, was ranked 4th in the world overall. The UK limped in at 15 out of 22.
Akami also revealed the global average connection speed improved by 21 percent to 2.6Mbps and over 80 countries/regions surveyed as part of the report saw their average connection speed increase by 10 percent or more on last second quarter, that's twice as many as those that saw their net connection speed improve from Q4 of 2010. Sadly, the UK wasn't one of these countries, only managing to achieve a nine percent increase on last quarter.
More than a quarter (27 percent) of all broadband connections surveyed by Akamai were 5Mbps or above, a figure the content delivery provider calls 'Higher Broadband'. The Netherlands once again came top with 68 percent of all its connections classed as Higher Broadband. However, the UK once again ranked 25th with just 30 percent of the population having access to 5Mbps or above, a disappointing fact especially since seven of the ten countries with the biggest 'Higher Broadband' adoption are in Europe.
According to the report, 91 percent of the UK are getting speeds of 2Mbps or above.
Comments
Neil said: I am lucky to get 1mb off peak and a few 100kbs on peak Scotland How this can take in to account Irish and Scottish speeds I dont understand
gxmccull said: Errrmm funny that I live in Seoul UK ExpatThe broadband speeds advertised here in Seoul might be the fastest in the world but only for sites in Korea and in Korean The minute you go to a website in English outside of Korea the speeds drop back to similar or less than I am used to in the UK using Virgin Cable Broadband 10Mbs service The much vaunted speeds here are just that mythical
sirjohng said: Funny havent I been seeing regular reports from them what are supposed to know that speed is not the issue but bandwith and throttling Why dont they measure that instead of wasting time with silly old speed
sirjohng said: Because the Regulator is rubbish - based in their unbelievably posh offices in London
graham berry said: I am amazed the UK got that high I get around 2mb if I download early morning at peak times dont quite reach 1mband how are companies allowed to advertise up to mb when they know its a phisical imposibility to achieve even a fraction of the offered speeds