Akamai Q2-2014 – Global Internet Speeds Top 4.6Mbps vs 11.1Mbps in UK

The latest State of the Internet Q2-2014 report from Akamai has claimed that average world broadband Internet download speeds increased by an impressive 21% in Q2 to hit 4.6Mbps. By comparison the UK saw its performance jump by 12% to reach 11.1Mbps, making us the 16th fastest country (down from 15th in Q1); although our peak speeds rank a place higher.

It’s worth keeping in mind that since Q1 Akamai has adopted a so-called “4K Readiness” rating, which identifies candidate geographies that are most likely to sustain connection speeds above 15Mbps (Megabits per second) because “Ultra HD adaptive bitrate streams typically require bandwidth between 10 and 20Mbps“.

As for how the United Kingdom performed, the report found that 81% of broadband users experienced Internet download speeds of above 4Mbps (up from 80% in Q1 – 2014), while 36% were able to receive speeds of 10Mbps+ (up from 32%) and 21% managed 15Mbps+ (up from 17%). Meanwhile the country’s top peak speed reached 46.6Mbps (up from 42.2Mbps).

As ever there’s no surprise to find that country’s dominated by true fibre optic based Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH/P) style broadband infrastructure are at the top, although it’s interesting to note that the fairly saturated markets of South Korea and Japan have seen much slower growth than their closest counterparts.

Meanwhile the UK seems to be improving at a slower pace than many of our closest competitors, which means that other countries are starting to push us down the table and that’s despite the recent uptick in Broadband Delivery UK deployments using BT’s FTTC technology.

As for Mobile Broadband, average mobile connection speeds in the United Kingdom reached 6.1Mbps (up from 5.6Mbps) and a peak speed of 36.9Mbps (up from 34.6Mbps). Approximately 63% of UK mobile connections were able to get speeds above 4Mbps. By comparison Slovakia delivered the fastest mobile data speeds in Europe on 8.0Mbps, although their peak speeds were identical to ours. The figures will naturally rise as 4G availability and performance improves.

But always remember that Akamai’s statistics reflect the regional performance of their Internet focused Content Delivery Network (CDN) and its connections with related ISP servers around the world, which means that the results should not be taken as a reliable reflection of actual end-user connection speeds.

Akamai’s State of the Internet Q2 2014 Report
http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/