International broadband speed report polls UK a disappointing 25th fastest in the world

Lee Bell
October 26, 2011
4 Comments
British Broadband Snail

Britain leaving a snail trail of broadband disappointment...

A report on international broadband speeds has ranked the UK just 25th fastest in the world.

According to Akamai’s State of the Internet report for Q2 of 2011, the UK wasn’t even the fastest in Europe; ranked 17th place for its speed out of 23 countries. The report, which monitored the average speed of more than 604 million unique IP addresses from 238 countries and regions, also found that just 30 percent of the British population have access to 5Mbps or above. In comparison to The Netherlands, this is pretty dismal. According to the report, they are Europe’s fastest with an 8.5Mbps average speed, and with 68% of their population achieving 5Mpbs or higher broadband speeds.

This is surprising news considering the UK is at the centre of the igaming universe. The US did better than the UK, but still – not massively – being ranked 18th in the world with a 5.8Mbps average speed.

Wanna know the fastest? That was South Korea with an average net connection speed of 13.8Mbps. Blazing speeds that nearly triple that of the UK, and more than double those recorded in the US. In second place, the top speed was followed by neighbours Hong Kong with a 10.3Mbps average speed and then in third place Japan at 8.9Mbps.

However, it’s not all bad. Akami’s did also reveal that the global average connection speed has improved by 21 percent to 2.6Mbps. So things are speeding up at least. 80 countries 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. But surprise, surprise the the UK wasn’t one of these countries; only managing to achieve a nine percent increase on last quarter. How disappointing – and how strange – considering the fact that seven of the ten countries with the biggest ‘Higher Broadband’ adoption are in Europe.

We need to question what the speed demon South East Asian countries are doing what the Westerners aren’t. With UK ISP Virgin Broadband offering up to 100mbps speed cable broadband as their XXL package, it shows there are the providers out there offering speedier itnernet. Perhaps the reason for the UK’s, as well as the US’ sufficient lag is that their typical population – whom on average may web browse as oppose to game –  just don’t feel the need for super fast broadband speeds?

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Tags: Article, broadband, iGaming, Internet, internet speed, ISP, South Korea, UK, US
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