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Average worldwide broadband speed estimated at 1.5Mb

Tuesday 31 March 2009 1 Comment

The latest batch of survey results looking at the State of the Internet across the globe has been released by research firm Akamai giving valuable insight into average download speeds across the world.

Most interesting of all is the revelation  almost 20 per cent of the world’s broadband users are able to access speeds greater than 5Mb.

Unfortunately the research also highlighted the fact the UK still struggles to keep up to speed with the likes of South Korea (69 per cent accessing above 5Mb), Belgium (31 per cent accessing above 5Mb), or even Ireland (10 per cent accessing above 5Mb), as a comparatively unimpressive 8 per cent can access this fairly average speed. To put this into perspective though, the average connection speed across the globe was found to be approximately 1.5Mb.

In summary, the results collected by Akamai tie in nicely with recent FTTH (Fibre-to-the-home) stats released last month which revealed the world's top 20 super-fast fibre optic broadband countries.

The hope is, once BT begins rolling out its faster FTTC (Fibre-to-the-cabinet) broadband across the UK and offers estimated speeds of approximately 40-60Mb, it will start creeping up the list. Increased take-up of Virgin Media’s 50Mb fibre optic broadband should also help.
 

 

Comments

  • neutral

    by SpeedyWebsites at 14:22 on 1 Apr 2009Report abuse

    All very well, but there are vast swathes of the UK that still suffer from rotten old copper phone lines, no cable service, and certainly no prospect of fibre.

    People living in these areas are likely to have to live with 512k service forever, whilst BT and Virgin spend millions fighting to provide 100 to 200 times that speed in the easiest areas - and to claim that as progress.

    Progress is only real when it is for everyone.

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