Newsflash! Aussie ‘net speeds still slow, country ranks behind Kenya

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Still lagging, despite ongoing NBN rollout

In January this year we reported that Australia ranked 50th in the world for ‘net speeds during the third quarter of 2016.

The latest State of the Internet Report from American web company Akamai for the first quarter of 2017 sadly hasn’t seen any change in Australia’s rankings. Despite making some headway in average download speeds, our island nation is still languishing in 50th place.

Slow and steady?

According to the report, the average connection speed in Australia is now 11.4Mbps, a quarter-on-quarter rise of 9.6%. Last year, we only hit 9.4Mbps. 

And despite 2.2 million paying customers currently using the NBN’s optical-fibre infrastructure, the average peak NBN connection speed is only 55.7Mbps, dropping us down to number 64 on the global rankings in that category.

Our neighbours across the Tasman Sea, however, have fared a little better. The average connection speed in New Zealand is 14.7Mbps – a 40% rise since last year – which bumps them up to a ranking of 27th in the world from last year’s 40th.

Heck, even Kenya has put Australia to shame, ranking 43rd in the world for average internet speeds at 12.2Mbps.

For the 19 million Australians who still don’t have access to the NBN, that rollout can’t come soon enough.

Sharmishta Sarkar
Sharmishta Sarkar
Managing Editor (APAC)

While she's happiest with a camera in her hand, Sharmishta's main priority is being TechRadar's APAC Managing Editor, looking after the day-to-day functioning of the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore editions of the site, steering everything from news and reviews to ecommerce content like deals and coupon codes. While she loves reviewing cameras and lenses when she can, she's also an avid reader and has become quite the expert on ereaders and E Ink writing tablets, having appeared on Singaporean radio to talk about these underrated devices. Other than her duties at TechRadar, she's also the Managing Editor of the Australian edition of Digital Camera World, and writes for Tom's Guide and T3.