While culture secretary Jeremy Hunt is rightfully worried that the UK is taking too long to build high speed internet infrastructure, we
can take some pride in the fact that average download speed in the country is still among the better speeds in the world. Speaking at Royal Television Society Convention in Cambridge, the culture secretary said, "We need to ensure we do not make the same mistake in broadband that we made in railways - building our high-speed network 45 years after the French and 62 years after the Japanese.” Wise words, eh!
So, at this time, a study conducted by Pando Networks, a digital game delivery company, is a welcome news. The report suggests that the average download speed in the UK is above the global average and the bad news is that it woefully lags behind the global leader, South Korea.
South Korea is comfortably zooming on information highway at 2,202 KBps, while UK clocks 599 KBps. Does not look so good now, right! But hey, even the US clocks only a little better at 616 KBps. The average global download speed is 580 KBps.
So, what are we going to do about our internet infrastructure? The government is planning to connect 90 percent of UK household to broadband grid by 2015. However, the plan seems to be getting derailed by the continuous spat between the telecom companies. The companies are mostly haggling over rentals of underground ducts and telegraph poles. Culture secretary has emphasized that, "PIA [physical infrastructure access] has to be sorted out - and quickly – in a way that allows fair competition with different providers able to invest in our broadband infrastructure.” Amen to that.