UK broadband speeds picking up, but still lagging on world stage

The UK's broadband infrastructure saw impressive growth in the second quarter of 2011 but is still languishing outside the top 10 when it comes to average connection speeds, according to the latest report from Akamai.

The firm's quarterly State of the Internet report put the UK in seventh place behind the likes of the US, China, Germany and Japan in terms of internet penetration, a 36 per cent year-on-year increase.

However, the UK fared less well in terms of connection speeds. The country came 25th globally with 30 per cent of connections above 5Mbit/s, although its ranking went up to 11th in terms of connections above 2Mbit/s.

David Belson, director of market intelligence at Akamai, told V3 that the numbers are encouraging and should see the UK government meeting its target of providing 2Mbit/s broadband for all by 2015, and the European Commission reaching its goal of 30Mbit/s for all by 2020.

"We're still eight to nine years out [from 2020]. Things have changed dramatically in the past eight or nine years [and will again in the next eight to nine years]," he said.

"Bringing 30Mbit/s capability to all is absolutely possible, but whether the end user actually receives that speed is another matter. It might even be possible wirelessly via '5G' by then."

Belson argued that improving connection speeds for all and closing the digital divide in the UK will take a combination of 4G, satellite and fibre.

"A lot of it comes back to whether it makes economic sense to do it. It doesn't make sense to deploy a 4G node to reach three people at the end of a dirt road," he said.

On the threats side, Akamai reported a reduction in attack traffic from Europe, down around nine per cent year on year to 30 per cent of all global attack traffic.

Belson explained that this is likely to be the result of greater security awareness among internet users, leading to better patched and protected systems.

"Hopefully people are being more vigilant and doing a better job of not clicking on suspicious links," he added.