UK falling behind in Internet connection speeds

The UK is being left behind when it comes to broadband. A new report from content delivery provider Akamai has found that the country has slipped to 27th place in the league table, down four places from the previous survey.

Akamai's State of the Internet report revealed that the UK had an average broadband speed of 3.8Mbps. The report is an interesting counter-balance with the recent Ofcom report which showed that the average connection speed is rising to 5.3Mbps. According to the Akamai report,  British connection speeds are rising – but the rest of the world's speeds are rising even faster.

Pride of place, once more, is held by South Korea which registered the highest level of what Akamai calls "high broadband" ie connectivity of more than 5 Mbps, the highest average connection speed, at 12 Mbps, and recorded the highest average maximum connection speed, at 33 Mbps.

Second place in the table is held by Hong Kong, with a 9Mbps average, while Japan made it into second place. The US doesn't fare much better than the UK, making it to 16th place with an average speed of 6.3Mbps.

But the report has interesting insight for those who think it will be dominated by the powerhouse economies of eastern Asia and the usual high-flying Scandinavia – fourth and fifth in the table are Romania and Latvia, both recording average speeds of 6.3Mbps.

The report also covered Internet security and found that the country that originated most cyber attacks was, once again, Russia, with the US in second place, although China is fast catching up.