Topic: UK lags behind in broadband speeds

[Clive]

The UK comes only 26th in the league table of average broadband speeds in research carried out by web monitoring firm Akamai.

South Korea heads the list, well ahead of nearest rivals Japan, Hong Kong, Romania and Sweden. Ireland comes sixth in the list.

Speeds were measured during the third quarter of 2009 with South Korea achieving 14.6Mbps, Japan 7.9Mbps, Hong Kong 7.6Mbps, Romania 6.2Mbps, Sweden 5.7Mbps and Ireland 5.3Mbps.

The UK's average broadband speed is not published in Akamai's State of the Internet report, though it does say that 71 per cent of UK broadband lines reach speeds of over 2Mbps.

A recent report carried out by Broadband.co.uk reckoned that the average broadband speed in the UK was 4.4Mbps.

Globally, the average broadband speed, according to Akamai, is 1.7Mbps. However, the company did name some of the cities in the world enjoying the fastest broadband.

Lausanne in Switzerland has an average speed of 24.7Mbps, making it the top city in Europe, though it isn't the fastest in the world – that honour goes to Sandy, Utah, USA, with a speed of 33.4Mbps.

And despite the dominance of South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, the Asian city with the highest average broadband speed is Beersheva in Israel, with a speed of 25.1Mbps.

[Rodders]

No need to worry in the slightest!

With the help of Entertainment Industry lawyers, our Government has devised a bold and cunning plan to really speed things up, by making it illegal to download stuff through the use of a P2P client.  This will soon result in our position zooming up the broadband speed table to nearly 20th, or something.

Makes you go all votey, doesn't it.

[Clive]

My current broadband speed is a blistering 104 kbs which must help to push the UK's average down quite a lot!  BT seems to think it's quite adequate and will not do anything about it.  Needless to say I am about to become an ex-BT customer. 

[Rik]

It took you long enough, Clive.

[GillE]

Although O₂ don't operate landlines, one of their telesales assistants has promised to call us back in a couple of weeks to discuss landlines.  It was His Lordship who spoke to the assistant, not me, so that's all the info I have.  I'm currently with BT for my landline but use the O₂ ISP/mobile phone package.  It would be great to switch everything over to O₂.

[Rik]

If they have LLU presence, adding voice is very simple, Gill.