UK outperformed on broadband speeds - The Telegraph - 3 Aug 2010

Romania, Latvia, South Korea and Japan all have faster internet speeds than the UK, according to Akamai, a digital content delivery network.

The UK has slipped down the global rankings for the average internet speed achieved by web users. It dropped from 23rd to 27th in a list of 201 countries, according to a report from Akamai, a digital content delivery network provider. 

Britons can expect to get an average speed of around 3.8 megabits per second, while those in South Korea, the highest ranked country, enjoy average speeds of around 12 megabits per second. 

Hong Kong also offers lightning fast web access, with average speeds of nine megabits per second, with Japanese web users achieving speeds of 7.8 megabits per second, and those in Romania and Latvia enjoying average speeds of around 6.3 megabits per second, according to the Akamai report. 

Akamai also looked at the top 100 fastest cities in the world for internet access, with Masan in South Korean topping the list, while the Swedish city of Umea was singled out as the European city with the fastest average internet connections. No British city featured anywhere in the list. 

The Government has pledged to improve the speed and availability of high-speed internet services in the UK, rolling out universal broadband services, offering at least two megabits per second, by 2015. 

Ofcom, the communications regulator, warned last week that the digital divide was widening in the UK between rural communities with limited or slow internet connections, and metropolitan areas with higher-speed broadband services. 

Many rural properties and businesses are too far from their local telephone exchange to make the roll-out of higher-speed services financially viable. Instead, Ofcom is allowing internet service providers to use BT’s telegraph poles and underground ducts to “pipe” internet services to these locations, rather than forcing them to invest in new infrastructure. 

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/broadband/7923766/UK-outperformed-on-broadband-speeds.html