The Average Australian Internet Download Speed
With the release of the latest Akamai State of the Internet report, it comes as little surprise how poor the average Australian Internet Download Speed is. The average national internet connection speed comes in at 9.6Mbps, putting the countries average speed in 50th position compared to the rest of the world. Many seem shocked and surprised by this low speed but what is more alarming is that nearly a quarter of Australians still have an internet speed below 4Mbps. This speed growth does equate to 23% year on year, but seems to be lagging behind our countries neighbours, such as South Korea, who in number one position has an average speed of 26.3 Mbps with a growth of 28% versus last year.
The scariest part of all of this is that the planned completion of the NBN, the end of 2020 is still 4 years away and many argue that the technology being rolled out is and will definitely be redundant by this completion date. While many are thankful for the availability of the NBN in their area, having become used to such poor download speeds makes the upgrade to a redundant NBN seem like a breath of fresh air.
How does the average Australian Internet Download speed compare to the rest of the word
If we look at the speed of our neighbours New Zealand, they are a tad ahead of us at 11.3 Mbps but we are in common company with countries such as France who have a similar economy to Australia also at a measly speed of 9. Mbps. What is even more embarrassing about this speed is that we actually sit behind developing nations such as Thailand (11.7 Mbps) and Kenya (11Mbps). Many argue our large nations spread of population makes it harder for us to provide the infrastructure required in this day and age, it is to an extent a valid point. The only problem is that it wasn’t the spread of the nation that lead us to this redundant technology but the politicising of it at the federal election in 2013.
The current Top 10 World Internet Speeds(Mbps)
- South Korea – 26.3
- Hong Kong – 20.1
- Norway – 20.0
- Sweden – 19.7
- Switzerland – 18.4
- Singapore – 18.2
- Japan – 18.0
- Finland – 17.6
- Netherlands – 17.3
- Latvia – 16.9
Information Resources
Akamai – State of the Internet – Dec 2016
