World's fastest net access speeds

[fragger]

What's the internet access speed like in your neck of the woods? Compare it to this:

Internet connections are fastest in South Korea. South Korea boasts the world's highest average connection speed at 14.6 Megabytes per second. Japan had the second highest average connection speed of 7.9 Mbps, followed by the Chinese territory of Hong Kong with 7.6 Mbps. South Korea has six of the top ten fastest cities in Asia, all with average speeds above 15 Mbps. In South Korea, 74 percent of Internet connections were high broadband, the world's top rate, while the figure was 60 percent in Japan, followed by Hong Kong with 46 percent. Asia, thanks to the growing number of fiber-based broadband connections in countries like China, Japan and South Korea accounts for 59 of the top 100 fastest cities in the world. The United States came twelfth, with just 24 percent of internet connections at 5 Mbps or more.

Source:
https://sites.google.com/site/worldfastcar/internet-connection

Ironically, the above site took about half a minute to come down to yours truly, at the average breakneck speed of around 20 Kbps. That's right, 20 kays, 20 KILObytes, Kilobytes with a K, per second. AND my connection dropped out on me while I was looking at the info, just to rub it in

However, according to another site I looked at, the average net access speed in Australia is 6.28 Mbps. Apparently I am splashing around in the extreme shallow end of this particular information pool. That's what I get for living in the sticks, I guess.

You can also assess your access speed here:

http://www.speedtest.net/

I tried it a couple of times with quite diverse results - 0.47 Mbps DL speed and 0.07 Mbps UL speed on the first test, 1.31 Mbps DL and 0.12 Mbps UL on the second (the tests were about half an hour apart), and a server in Melbourne was picked to test from, which is about two and a half times further away from me than the larger city of Sydney, so take the results with a grain of salt. I mean, like I ever get anything close to those speeds in reality! The fastest DL speed I've ever had is just over 300 Kbps.

But 14.6 Mbps? I can but dream...

[Art Blade]

 I think those numbers are not representative. If Korean users tried to download from a small provider in an even smaller country half across the world, they'd most certainly drop to something like 100k per second. I have a 16Mbit download connection and barely ever see downloads go at the maximum speed. I'm quite happy when I get more than 1,000k/s :) but it is mostly around 500+

[PZ]

Speedtest.net reports my download speed at 12 megs.  I'm very happy now.

[Art Blade]

just tried it:

13.79Mbit download
0.98Mbit upload
22ms ping

[mandru]

Just tried it too but my ISP was the test host locally:

24.44Mbit download
4.23Mbit upload
9ms ping

Hmm I think Art's comment about down loading from smaller providers will knock the speed way down is 100% on the money.  I never see performance that approaches the results the test gave me.

[fragger]

Seems that Speedtest.net takes the fastest server it can find in your locale (or in my case, country - Melbourne is about 800 Kms from me) and links to some super-duper high-speed server at wherever the test site is located. Doesn't take into account slow providers nor slow servers, so it seems Art is indeed correct.

So make that a spoonful of salt, not a grain.

The South Korean stats must be based on the "very best case you can ever possibly get" scenario.

[Binnatics]

I can't see the origin of these quotes, some sort of investigation or what-ever. I've seen these allegations more than once, mostly stating that we, Dutch, have the most connections per inhabitant or so. They might have looked at the average 'sold speed' by the providers. They sell me a 50Mbps download speed and a 5Mbps upload. When I do the speedtest at speedtest.net I get the following:

Ping: 18 ms
Downl. sp.: 49,94 Mbps
Upl. sp.: 4.72 Mbps

I do experience the difference though compared to my 4, 10 or 20 Mbps connection my provider contracted me before. They decided to make it faster every time, sometimes giving me the choice of paying €0,50 extra for e.g. 10 Mbps extra. I just silently agreed all the time ^-^

I like the high speed I have, because a huge downloads through steam for example won't take longer than an hour or two (talking about gigabites of info) but to be honest I don't need that kind of speed normally. I would need it if I HAD TO download 20Gb per day or something, which some freaks need who constantly download movies and such.

I do hope you'll get your broadbandconnection soon Fragger!

[fragger]

Thanks Binn :) I hope so too. Since I rebuilt my rig I'd like to re-download the Half-Life titles from Steam but I know that the three games (known as the "Orange Box", consisting of the original game plus the Episodes 1 and 2 sequels) will take an average of eight hours to DL each, assuming no dropouts. I'm kind of reluctant to commit to a 24-hour DL session at present :-\\

The Orange Box was the first - and last - game(s) I purchased online from Steam and if I'd known how long it was going to take to DL (and how much of my allocation it would use up) I wouldn't have gone for it :D