Sick of Slow Downloads? Move to Asia
By Mark Milian
ADVERTISEMENT
|
AROUND THE WORLD
|
Asia is solidifying its place as the
world's epicenter for top-speed Internet access, according to the latest research from Akamai Technologies expected to be published later today.
The top four places, ranked by their average peak connection speeds, were in Asia. Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Singapore had the speediest broadband, in that order, according to the study that looked at traffic flowing through Akamai's global network from July through September. With Taiwan ranking No. 8, regions or countries in Asia made up half of the top 10.
Nearly all of the major Asia-Pacific markets tracked by Akamai improved their peak connection speeds by at least 12 percent compared with the previous year. Indonesia was the only one that dropped - a 30 percent decrease year-over-year to 9.7 megabits per second, putting the country at 115th on the list. India is the only major market in Asia that came in behind Indonesia, with an average peak speed of 9 Mbps. China's 11.3 Mbps average wasn't enough to break into the top 100, either.
People in Asia are certainly taking advantage of the fast connections. Singapore, Japan and South Korea were among the top five countries with the highest mobile-broadband penetration in 2012, according to a report from the International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the United Nations. Each of those countries exceeded 100 mobile-data connections per 100 inhabitants, which suggests people are using multiple connected devices.
The concentration of high-speed Internet in Asia could have positive economic effects that reverberate throughout the region.
|