Internet speed declines in India
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 12 May 2011, 03:48 IST   |    6 Comments
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Bangalore: As the country heads towards a phase where speed should have no limit, India suffered a 9.1 percent decline in average Internet connection speed in 2010. According to the Akamai's report on the 'State of the Internet', the average internet speed was 0.8mbps in the third quarter of the previous year. While the yearly decline was 9.1 percent, the third quarter recorded a 6.9 percent decline. Among the 12 Asian countries covered in the study, India was the only country to suffer a fall in internet speed. The average internet speed in the world was reported at 1.9mbps and India was ranked at 143 in the list. The fastest Internet connection is in South Korea which has an average connection speed of 13.7 Mbps and Hong Kong comes in second with 9.4 Mbps followed by Japan with 8.3 Mbps. These are called 'high broadband' as it crosses the 5 Mbps threshold. Akamai report also revealed that over 35 percent internet connections in India had a speed of 256 kbps or less. While Japan was ranked No.1 for high broadband connectivity, India is placed at 80th position globally with 0.4 percent connections measured to have a speed in excess of 5 Mbps. India ranks 43rd globally in narrowband consumption with 35 percent of its internet connections below 256 Kbps. However, the adoption of broadband in India in 2010 was at 4.5 percent. Although the number of internet penetration is increasing in India, the quality of the connections remains to be poor which will be a huge setback for businesses that depend on high speed internet. "Though online research appears to indicate that the Indian government considers connections above 256 Kbps to be 'broadband', the continued growth in the percentage of connections below that threshold (2mbps) should be of some concern," the report said. What do you feel about the speed of your internet connection? Who do we blame the slow connection for?