The UK was placed 19th in the world ranking for internet connection speed, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report.

The Q2 2015 report, which is based on data gathered from the cloud-based Akamai Intelligent Platform, found that the UK has an average connection speed of 11.8 Mbps - a 7.6% increase year-on-year.

Average UK peak connection speeds stood at 50.0 Mbps, a year-on-year rise of 8.5%.

The report noted that 85% of broadband adoption in the UK in Q2 was at 4Mbps or more, a small rise of 0.6% on Q1, but an overall increase of 5.9% year on year.

Broadband adoption rates above 10Mbps increased by 0.9% in Q2, a 17% year on year rise, whilst broadband above 15Mbps dropped in Q2 by 3.5% but was still ahead of 2014 by 14%.

The UK’s average page load time for a broadband connection was 3138ms in Q2, whilst for mobile users this was 4724ms.

The data is based on Akamai’s Real User Monitoring (RUM) capabilities, which take passive performance measurements from users in order to provide insight into performance across devices and networks.

Across Europe connection speeds continued to accelerate.

Norway posted the largest gain at a 38% increase year on year, while another six countries saw gains of at least 20%: Slovakia (34%), Portugal (31%), Finland (27%), Poland (25%), Spain (22%), and Germany (21%).

The report cited a global average peak connection speed of 32.5 Mbps, with Romania the fastest peak connection speed in Europe with an average of 72.1 Mbps.

The global average connection speed increased 3.5% to 5.1 Mbps in the second quarter of 2015.

Quarterly changes were positive for the top 10 countries/regions, with the exception of South Korea (23.1 Mbps), which decreased 2.1% from the first quarter.

The quarter saw seven European countries feature in the global top 10 countries/regions listing: Sweden (#4), Switzerland (#5), the Netherlands (#6), Norway (#7), Latvia (#8), Finland (#9) and Czech Republic (#10).

All European countries surveyed in the second quarter again achieved average connection speeds above the 4 Mbps broadband threshold, with 17 countries in total achieving average connection speeds at or above the 10 Mbps threshold: Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Romania, Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

As a consequence of revised calculations, Sweden regained the top spot with a 16.1 Mbps average connection speed, up 1.6% from the first quarter.

Topics