By: MarkJ - 28 July, 2010 (8:26 AM) - Score: 5831 - Fixed Line Broadband, Mobile Broadband, Statistics

Akamai, which delivers 20% of global online traffic, has released its latest State of the Internet Q1-2010 report and revealed that the average UK (ranked 27th out of 201 countries) broadband internet connection speed during Q1 was 3.8Mbps (yesterdays May 2010 data from Ofcom recorded 5.2Mbps), while the fastest average maximum UK speed stood at 12.3Mbps.


By contrast the global average broadband connection speed held fairly steady at 1.7Mbps. South Korea maintains the highest average connection speed, at 12Mbps, and recorded the highest average maximum connection speed, at 33Mbps.

Continent (Average Speed) - Broadband Adoption Percentage
North America (3792Kbps) - 57%
South America (1304Kbps) - 17%
Europe (3536Kbps) - 68%
Africa (944Kbps) - 11%
Asia (4400Kbps) - 45%
Australia (2472Kbps) - 44%

As for internet penetration, as a measure of unique IP (Internet Protocol) addresses in use over Akamai's network, the UK manages to come 6th in the world with 20,114,050 active IP's (an IP is assigned to your computer each time you go online). That's a growth of 6.9% on last year, with a quarterly rise of 1.1%.

During Q1 more than 487 million unique IP addresses, from 233 countries/regions, connected to the Akamai network – 7.2% more IP addresses than in Q4-2009, and 16% more than in the same quarter a year ago. The USA had the lions share (no.1) with 129,354,234 unique addresses and a yearly growth of 11%. The quarterly increase was even more impressive, rising by 8% in Q1!

In the first quarter of 2010, average measured connection speeds on mobile ( Mobile Broadband ) network providers around the world ranged from 7.2Mbps, down to 105Kbps (0.1Mbps) – both were observed on mobile providers in Slovakia. Of the 109 mobile network providers listed in the report, 35 achieved average connection speeds above 1Mbps. In the UK the average speed tended to range from 1-2Mbps, although one network claimed 3.7Mbps (further details not provided).

As more mobile providers launch HSPA+ ( HSPA ) and HSDPA networks, as well as networks based on LTE and WiMAX technology, we expect that these average speeds will increase in the future.

Akamai's State of the Internet Q2-2010 Report Download
http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/