Australian broadband still trailing global peers

Australia continues to perform poorly compared to its peers in terms of average broadband speeds, languishing in the middle of the charts in terms of both average and peak speeds, according to Akamai.

The CDN provider’s latest State of the Internet report shows that Australia ranked a low 46th in the world in terms of average connection speeds during the second quarter, with a recorded average of 7.8 Mbps.

While average speeds have improved 4.8% quarter-on-quarter and 8% year-on-year, Australia fell four positions on the charts. The year-on-year improvement was also significantly below the 17% year-on-year increase in global average connection speeds to 5.1 Mbps.

Australia meanwhile ranked 47th in the world in terms of the average peak connection speeds, which were recorded at 40.3 Mbps, Akamai said.

The nation was also a mere 50th globally in terms of penetration of internet connections providing speeds above the current 4 Mbps broadband threshold, 44th in terms of the proportion of 10 Mbps or higher connections and 39th in terms of 15 Mbps broadband adoption.

The average page load time for broadband connections in Australia was recorded at 4407 ms, down from 4703 ms last quarter.

Across the Tasman, New Zealand ranked one position ahead of Australia at 43rd, with an 18% year-on-year increase in average connection speeds to 8.4 Mbps.

The nation ranked 50th in terms of average peak connection speeds, up two positions from Q1, with a 12% year-on-year increase to 38.1 Mbps.

These gains likely reflect the nation’s progress with the Ultrafast Broadband national fibre network and concurrent Rural Broadband Initiative.

Image courtesy of Andrew Mager under CC