Telecoms Tech

Hong Kong has overtaken South Korea in having the fastest broadband in the world for both mobile and fixed connections.

The latest State of the Internet report from content delivery providers Akamai showed that Hong Kong’s average peak connection speed hit 49.2Mbps in the first quarter of 2012, with long-time leader South Korea relegated to second place with 47.8Mbps.

These two nations were streets ahead of Japan (39.5), Romania (38.8) and Latvia (33.5) who comprised the top five peak speeds.

South Korea still rules the roost in terms of average measured connection speed, however, with an average of 15.7Mbps. Japan (10.9) and Hong Kong (9.3) made up the top three.

To put it in perspective, the United Kingdom languished in a miserable 22nd and 21st place respectively, with an average peak connection speed of 23.7Mbps and a measured speed of 5.6Mbps.

The United States was 8th in peak speed (28.7Mbps) and 12th in measured connection speed with 6.7Mbps.

Australia, however, suffered the biggest decline of any country with a 49% peak decrease from 2011’s fourth quarter. Akamai attributed this to “issues seen with a single large network provider within the country”.

The report noted that “long term trends were once again very positive, reflecting a continuing shift toward higher speed connectivity”, with 125 countries experiencing year-on-year growth in average broadband connection speed.

Similarly, seven more countries topped the 1Mbp average mark this quarter, with the number of countries averaging below that number down to 24, from 31 last year.

It was also noted that, since the fourth quarter of 2011, there was a 6% global increase in the number of unique IP addresses submitted to Akamai.

Akamai summarised that, in terms of mobile, average broadband connection speeds ranged from 6.0Mbps to 322 kbps.

These figures all look impressive, but were we expecting anything different to do with broadband uptake? What do you think the next quarter figures will reveal?