Do We Really Have “Broadband”?

Akamai, an internet services company, recently released its quarterly “State of the Internet” report for the third quarter of 2009.  There are some interesting statistics to be had in the report, and if you have the time, may be a valuable resource to keep and read to keep up to date with global broadband developments.  While Malaysia is not specifically covered much in the report (and Singapore too, whose omission seems peculiar to me), a couple of statistics jump out at me as I look at some summary tables.

Unsurprisingly, South Korea tops broadband connection speeds, at almost 15Mbps, followed by Japan and Hongkong at only half that speed.  The poor old US does not even make the Top 10, having to settle for the 18^th spot instead, with an average broadband speed of “only” 3.8Mbps.  This probably illustrates the major difficulty of wiring up a vast continent, I think, a problem which Malaysia is also facing, having a large land mass with a distributed population (but this is not an excuse to get our broadband speeds up to speed, as it were).

The average global speed is 1.7Mbps.  And the sad part is, Malaysia falls below this global average.  Actually, if you look at a screenshot from the report below, it states that our average broadband speed is 818kbps, which I find difficult to swallow and believe, which I personally believe is too high.  Of all the Asia Pacific countries surveyed, unsurprisingly, we suck the most when it comes to average broadband speeds, falling behind China even.  We should hang our heads in shame on this one.  And shockingly, 12% of the connections are still below 256kbps.  We only have 2.5% of connections above 2Mbps, most likely concentrated in the Klang Valley and restricted to the rich, going by the prices charged by TMNet as displayed on this webpage.

The problem is, we seem to be chasing what we think is a static target for broadband penetration and average connection speeds.  The reality is, the goalposts keep moving.  If we aim for what the global average is today, and achieve it in 3 years, guess where the global average is going to be then?  We should be thinking out of the box, to do something that will leapfrong us so that we can arrive at the same destination in the near future as other countries we want to benchmark ourselves against, unless we’re benchmarking against Eritrea, that is.  And this, folks, is what I believe is the core problem today in this country with regards to broadband development.

Click here to download the report (registration required).

Click for a larger image.  Source: Akamai Q3 2009 State of the Internet Report.

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