Report Shows Countries with Fastest Internet

The content distribution network giant Akamai Technologies has released its Third Quarter, 2009 State of the Internet report.

Leveraging published reports and information gathered from its network, the Akamai report provides insight into key Internet statistics such as broadband connectivity levels across the globe and the countries with fastest broadband speeds.

Following is the ranking of countries with percentages of connection speeds to Akamai above 5 Mbps:

South Korea - 74%
Japan - 60%
Romania - 46%
Sweden - 42%
Hong Kong - 39%

The United States ranked 12th with 24 percent of connections to Akamai at speeds above 5 Mbps.

For extremely high-speed connectivity, 16 percent of South Korea's connections to Akamai were greater than 25 Mbps, while 5.7 percent of Hong Kong's connections to Akamai were greater than 25 Mbps. In the United States, 1 percent of connections to Akamai were greater than 25 Mbps.

"We expect that, on a global basis, as the adoption and rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 technology by cable Internet providers, as well as other FTTH initiatives by telecom providers, become more widespread that the percentage of connections in the higher speed 'buckets' will grow over time," stated the report.

The following ranking shows average connection speeds:

South Korea - 14.6 Mbps
Japan - 7.9 Mbps
Hong Kong - 7.6 Mbps
Romania - 6.2 Mbps
Sweden - 5.7 Mbps
United States - 3.9 Mbps

Globally, the average connection speed for the third quarter of 2009 increased 18 percent to 1.7 Mbps.

In terms of broadband penetration, European countries dominate the ranking of countries with the most Internet connections (IPs = unique IP addresses):

Norway - .34 IPs per capita
Monaco - .33 IPs per capita
Denmark - .33 IPs per capita
Sweden - .31 IPs per capita
Netherlands - .31 IPs per capita

The United States had .23 IPs per capita, and globally, there was an average of .03 IPs per capita.

In the third quarter of 2009, slightly more than 444 million unique IP addresses, from 226 countries, connected to the Akamai network – a 4.5 percent increase over the second quarter of 2009, and a 17 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago.

For the sixth consecutive quarter, the United States and China continued to account for nearly 40 percent of the observed IP addresses.

To download the Akamai report, click here.

–Linda Hardesty