Australia’s average broadband speed ranking is down but the country is leading the Asia-Pacific region in terms of mobile connectivity, according to Akamai’s State of The Internet report for the last quarter of 2016.
The report evaluates internet broadband performances, along with mobile connection speeds, in 241 countries. Akamai’s gets the data from its global content distribution network (CDN).
In the third quarter of 2016, Australia was ranked 50th in terms of average internet connection speeds, which worked out to be 9.6Mbps. The speed has increased in the fourth quarter to 10.1Mbps but Australia has dropped down to 51st place.
At the end of 2015, Australia was ranked 48th. South Korea took out the number one spot again in the fourth quarter of 2016 with an average connection speed of 26.1Mbps. The global average broadband speed now sits at 7Mbps.
Australia’s speed increase is attributed to the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout, which is ramping up. The NBN project continues to come under fire for its multi-technology mix (MTM) model that predominantly uses fibre-to-the-node (FTTN). But recent moves by NBN Co indicate the company is increasingly turning to fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) – also known as fibre-to-the-distribution point (FTTdp) – which is considered a better technology than FTTN.
While Australia’s broadband rankings slips, it is leading the Asia-Pacific pack in terms of mobile connectivity.
Australia’s average mobile connection speed is 13.8Mbps, which is ahead of the Americas’ region leader Canada (10.3Mbps).
Telstra and Optus continue to work on providing faster mobile speeds to customers as they work towards 5G network rollouts. Both telcos are spending millions in speeding up their mobile networks.
Telstra launched the world’s first Gigabit LTE network in Australia in January. Optus switched on its 1Gbps 4.5G network in Macquarie Park in Sydney.
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