Average Internet Connection Speeds on a Decline
According to Akamai, the typical Internet user is browsing websites with a bandwidth of 2.3 Mbps. Internet users lost, on average, about 14 percent of their Internet connection speed in the fourth quarter for 2011.
However, Akamai admits that Q4 may have been a sequential, seasonal blip from Q3 as the annual average climbed by 19 percent. South Korea remains the country with the fastest Internet connections that now average 17.5 Mbps, followed by Japan with 9.1 Mbps and Hong Kong with 9.1 Mbps as well. The world's fastest Internet area is South Korea's Taegu, in which people have access to an average connection of 21.8 Mbps.
The United States has not been part of the top 10 of the fastest Internet nations for more than a decade. According to Akamai, the average Q4 2011 connection speed was 5,812 Kbps, which, however, ranks above nations such as Canada (5,635 Kbps), Germany (5,033 Kbps), UK (4,909 Kbps), and Australia (4,917 Kbps). There are plenty of nations left that average at less than 1 Mbps, including Venezuela (889 Kbps), Indonesia (882 Kbps), India (886 Kbps), the majority of African countries and nations in the Mideast. The slowest connection speeds can be found in Eritrea (107 Kbps) and Cuba (121 Kbps).
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Douglas Perry was a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware covering semiconductors, storage technology, quantum computing, and processor power delivery. He has authored several books and is currently an editor for The Oregonian/OregonLive.
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blazorthon Is this including dial up and devices that use mobile networks in the numbers? Some of those countries are known for having even up to between 250MB/s and 1Gb/s connections available to their general populace at affordable prices. Of course, many areas would probably not have such high speeds available (especially far from cities), so maybe a lot of people use slow connections and the two sides of the equation just provide extremes that more or less balance out in this data. Seeing the minimum and maximum common connection speeds (at least one to five percent of the population) in addition to the average would be nice.Reply
If this includes mobile internet connectors, then that could explain why the average internet speed is going down... 3G users and below would be bringing the average down for any country as the number of 3G devices grows. As 4G becomes more common place, that could be alleviated since it is fast. -
JimmiG If mobile networks are included in the statistics, that would be an explanation for the decline.Reply
I have a 100Mb/s connection at home, but I'm finding myself using my smartphone a lot more these days, and it only manages from 1.5 to 6Mb/s depending on where I am. -
jaquith Yeah...piping your ISP out to the rice paddies are we?! Both USA and Canada are biga$$ Counties. I have had FIOS since day one, no complaints here...Reply
Compare Chicago, New York, LA, etc ... I have no doubt if you're out in the Boonies you'll have dial-up. -
Ohmybad what do you do with internet that fast? i live in the woods with 1.2Mbps and 3g where i live is bad (better then cuba/africa speeds so i can't really complain)Reply -
Plasmid Ohmybadwhat do you do with internet that fast? i live in the woods with 1.2Mbps and 3g where i live is bad (better then cuba/africa speeds so i can't really complain)Reply
Only 1% of Cubans have access to internet just saying, It's also very slow on par with dial-up :)