UK and Australia fail to impress in Internet speed report

by Steven Mostyn - Aug 2 2010, 15:37

While it’s unlikely regional Internet speeds will ever carry sufficient importance to influence where we all decide to live, a new list of international broadband standards might be shocking enough to loosen a few suitcase straps in the UK and Australia.

More pointedly, the latest quarterly ‘State of the Internet’ report published by online speed specialist Akamai shows the UK languishing at a lowly ranking of 27th across a list of 201 broadband countries (a fall of four places since the last report), while Australia sits even further down the pile at a dismal 50th.

In terms of upper-tier performance, South Korea continues to lead the way, thanks to an average broadband speed of 12Mbps, followed by the likes of Hong Kong with 9Mbps and Japan with 7.8Mbps.

By way of comparison, the UK can muster an average Internet speed of just 3.8Mbps and is one of only two countries on the list (other than Germany) that failed to register any accelerated growth in Internet penetration during the first quarter.

According to Akamai’s report, Australia can only deliver an average speed of 2.6Mbps, which leaves its languishing in the shadow of its neighbour New Zealand, which offers a slightly better return of 2.9Mbps (for 42nd place on the chart).

Internet users in the United States enjoy a tad more online oomph than the Brits and the Aussies, thanks to an average speed of 4.7Mbps – although that’s still only good enough to secure 16th place on the chart.

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