UK slips further down the world internet speed table

UK internet connectivity continues to slip down a worldwide speed table according to a new report by network company Akamai. It found that we have moved to 27th out of 201 countries, compared to a 23rd placing in the previous Akamai report, which is compiled every three months.

Ofcom recently produced a survey showing that average residential broadband speeds in the UK have risen from 4.1Mbps to 5.2 Mbps in the last twelve months. But when it comes to overall speed of internet service the UK has a long way to go before it can compete with South Korea, which grabbed the number one slot with a 12Mbps average net speed.

Following closely behind is Hong Kong, with an impressive 9Mbps, Japan with 7.8Mbps while Romania and Latvia both clock up average speeds of 6.3Mbps and round out the top five countires featured in the most recent Akamai list.

The networking giant has also looked at mobile networks for the first time. Unsurprisingly, their results differed hugely around the globe, from 105Kbps right up to 7.2Mbps. It discovered that 83 of 109 providers offered speeds that were, on average, greater than 2Mbps while UK mobile speed was found to be between 1 and 3.7Mbps.

Overall, cities in Asia dominate the charts for best performing connectivity. More than half were located in Japan. European citers fared less well and the UK didn’t make it into the top 100 at all. However, although South Korea did well in the speed charts, with 100Mbps broadband services widely available, they were still out of reach of many average consumers, costing several hundred dollars a month, according to Akamai.