Asian Countries Have Fastest Internet Connections
A recent study has found that East Asian countries – led by South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong – are the most wired in the world with the highest number of fast broadband connections to the Internet.
South Korea has the world’s highest average connection speed at 14.6 Megabytes per second (Mbps), with also Asia’s 10 cities with the fastest link-ups at 15 Mbps.
The report, which was taken by U.S.-based network provider Akamai Technologies, found that Japan had the second highest average connection speed at 7.9 Mbps, followed by Hong Kong with 7.6 Mbps.
Other countries in the top ten were Romania, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic. The U.S. placed at 18th with an average speed of 3.9 Mbps.
The survey classified broadband connections as having a speed of two Mbps or more, with "high broadband" coming in at five Mbps or more. Link ups of 20 Mbps or more were categorized as "extremely high speed connectivity."
The report said that 74 percent of connections in South Korea were "high broadband," the world’s top rate, while the figure was 60 percent in Japan, followed by Hong Kong with 46 percent.
Only 24 percent of the United State’s connections were five Mbps or more. The high broadband percent worldwide was 19 percent.
Akamai’s ‘State of the Internet’ report for the third quarter of 2009 said that growing demand for online high-definition video content is driving demand for faster connections.
"As the quantity of HD-quality media increases over time and the consumption of that media increases, end users are likely to require ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth," the report said.
—
On the Net: