Rami Olwan

The UAE leads the Middle East in terms of average broadband speed and penetration, according to Akamai Technologies' recently released 'The State of the Internet (Q3-2009)' report.

With an average connection speed of 2.1Mbps, the UAE is ahead of the global average of 1.7 Mbps, the report revealed.

"During the third quarter [of 2009], 103 countries had average connection speeds below 1Mbps, down from 125 countries in the prior quarter," the report said. Saudi Arabia, with an average speed of 1.9Mbps, trails the UAE and is followed by Kuwait (1.4Mbps) in the third slot.

With 0.07 unique IP addresses per capita, the UAE shares the regional top spot with Kuwait in terms of internet connectivity, followed by Saudi Arabia (0.04) and Egypt (0.01).

At 11 per cent, the UAE is also the regional leader in terms of the proportion of high-speed internet connections (above 5Mbps), followed by Kuwait (4.4 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (1.7 per cent).

Globally, the top spot is bagged by South Korea with a 14.6Mbps average speed, followed by Japan (7.9Mbps) and Hong Kong (7.6Mbps). Others in the Global Top 10 are Romania (6.2Mbps), Sweden (5.7Mbps), Ireland (5.3Mbps), Netherlands (5.2Mbps), Switzerland (5Mbps), Denmark (4.8Mbps) and Czech Republic (4.8Mbps).

In terms of internet penetration, the top five countries were Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands and the US. The US, China and Japan were the top three countries with the highest number of unique IP addresses, it said.

Source:

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20100125060313/UAE%20leads%20in%20broadband%20speed