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Akamai Reports UK 17th for Average Internet Connection Speed Despite Being 6th Highest User #deappg

Akamai is the world’s largest Content Delivery Network employing 73,000 servers around the globe to deliver its customers’ content. Timico hosts an Akamai box in London.

The trends in traffic patterns flowing through the Akamai network are therefore very much representative of what is happening elsewhere on the internet. It was Akamai that showed us that 23% of the world’s internet usage was coming from the UK during England’s afternoon match in last year’s football world cup.

The Akamai State of The Internet Report states that in Q3 2010 over 533 million unique IP addresses connected to the Akamai network, a 20% growth over the same quarter a year ago. Of these 21.6 million were in the UK. For reference Germany has 31.5 and France just under 23m. Looking at the UK’s global competitors the USA led the pack with 141m, China 63m and Japan 37.5m. By this token the UK creeps in as sixth largest user of the internet.

Looking at the average connection speed the story is different. South Korea leads with 14Mbps, followed by Hong Kong (9.2) and then Japan (8.5). In fact there are 16 countries whose average broadband speed, according to Akamai are faster than the UK including 11 of them in Europe.

The message here is obvious. Whilst the UK seems to occupy a significant place in the rankings for internet usage (which is good) its lowly position in respect of average connection speed is somewhat of an embarrassment.

PC link to the report is included above – you need to register but it is a good 31 page read if you are into this sort of thing.

Trefor Davies

By Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

3 replies on “Akamai Reports UK 17th for Average Internet Connection Speed Despite Being 6th Highest User #deappg”

Its what we have been saying for a long time. What can you expect when the incumbent is tying us all to an obsolete business model to protect their investment in a phone network. The best thing to stimulate investment is for government to waive the voa tax and level the playing field so that other companies can deliver NGA to those who want it. Mainly at this point in time that means the rural areas, but due to the tax on line length companies concentrate resources in the urban areas and use the phone lines. This is the scarcity model which reaps great rewards for BT. Far better to let others into the market in the final third, and the telcos would soon up their game and provide better connections in the towns and cities… We could lead the world, this tiny country could become a major player in the digital revolution instead of being left in the digital slow lane of copper.
chris

How is BT tying us into an obsolete business model and will removing VOA make that much difference?

‘due to the tax on line length companies concentrate resources in the urban areas and use the phone lines. ‘ Please explain, companies concentrate on urban areas because of shorter distances (lower cable costs, more customers per bit of kit) and greater density, it’s obvious.

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