Akamai Q1-2014 Report Shows Average UK Internet Speeds Reach 9.9Mbps

Akamai, a content delivery network, has today published its latest State of the Internet report for Q1 2014 and revealed that average global broadband download speeds have increased by just 1.8% over the last quarter to 3.9Mbps (Megabits). Meanwhile the UK saw its performance rise by 5.5% to top 9.9Mbps, making us the 15th fastest country (down from 13th in Q4-2013), but most still aren’t ready for 4K video streams.

The report also found that 80% of broadband users in the United Kingdom experienced broadband download speeds of above 4Mbps (up from 79% in Q4-2013), while 32% were able to receive speeds of 10Mbps+ (up from 30%) and 17% managed 15Mbps+. Meanwhile the country’s top peak speed reached 42.2Mbps, which is actually down slightly from 43.5Mbps at the end of last year.

David Belson, Report Author, said:

“While there continues to be room for improvement in high broadband adoption and average peak connection speeds in some areas of the world, the trends we’re seeing remain very positive. Steady year-over-year growth suggests that a strong, global foundation is being built for the enjoyment of next generation content and services like 4K video and increasingly connected homes and offices, and that connectivity will continue to evolve to support the growing demands these emerging technologies will place on the Internet.”

The results mean that the majority of people in the United Kingdom will fall short of Akamai’s 4K Readiness metric (i.e. the 15Mbps+ speeds proportion) for Ultra High Definition TV (UHDTV) and video, at least they would when using Akamai’s servers as these results do not reflect general end-user connectivity. Akamai claims that most 4K streams require between 10-20Mbps of bandwidth, which is supported by Netflix (here).

As for Mobile Broadband, average mobile connection speeds ranged from 1.0Mbps in Argentina to 14.7Mbps in South Korea. By comparison the United Kingdom scored an average of 5.6Mbps (with a peak speed of 34.6Mbps) and approximately 53% of UK connections were able to get speeds above 4Mbps. The figures will naturally rise as 4G availability and performance improves.

Elsewhere nobody, not even Japan or the Netherlands, seems able to get close to front-runner South Korea which, thanks largely to their national 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) style infrastructure, reported average download speeds of 23.6Mbps (up from 21.9Mbps last quarter). Many of the other top countries also benefit from a similar network but consumer package and speed choice, among many other things (traffic management, CDN limits etc.), can impact the results.

Akamai’s report also includes an overview of performance in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), which places the United Kingdom around mid-table. One small consultation is that we’re above Germany, France, Italy and Spain, but frankly those comparisons represent a fairly low baseline.

Take note that Akamai’s statistics reflect the regional performance of their 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 end-user speeds. By comparison Ofcom’s recent report gave the UK an average speed of 17.8Mbps (here), which is well above Akamai’s 9.9Mbps.

Akamai’s State of the Internet Q1 2014 Report
http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/