Pando Networks, the content delivery network company that opened up its traffic data to show that Idaho has the United States' slowest Internet connections has released a "State of the World" tally of Internet speeds across most of the globe, revealing how 224 countries stack up in terms of network speeds.
Based on 27 million downloads by 20 million different computers between January and June 2011, Pando has come up with its own official average world download speed: 580KBps.
via chartsbin.com
What is somewhat surprising is that the U.S. is only just slightly above average with 616KBps. Unsurprisingly, however, is the fact that long-running data infrastructure leader South Korea was far ahead of the pack with 2,202KBps and developing nations in Southeast Asia, Central America, and Africa were at the bottom of the list.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo officially has the slowest Internet in the world, creeping in at just 13KBps.
"The disparities we found were striking. While, in general, developed economies outpaced the developing world in average download speeds, big names such as the US, UK, France, China and Canada were not even close to being the fastest. Instead, we saw high speeds in markets such as Eastern Europe where focus on infrastructural development and favorable geography promote a higher level of connectivity,” said Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks.
The speeds in Eastern Europe were generally quite high, as Romania (1,909KBps) and Bulgaria (1,611KBps) took the number two and three spots behind South Korea in the fastest nation category.