The UK is lagging behind many of its European peers in terms of broadband connectivity, new figures from Akamai have revealed.

According to the organisation's latest State of the Internet report, the UK's average broadband speed stands at 5Mbps, making it the 25th fastest country in the world.

Peak connection rates were measured at 18.9Mbps, while speeds of more than 2Mbps and 5Mbps were available to 91 per cent and 30 per cent of subscribers respectively.

While the results represent an improvement on Akamai's previous State of the Internet report, when the UK's average speed was clocked at 4.6Mbps, they still left Britain lagging behind the likes of Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The Netherlands was named as the fastest European country with an average connection speed of 8.5Mbps and peak rates of 25.3Mbps.

Some 95 per cent of Dutch broadband users could enjoy speeds of more than 2Mbps, while greater than 5Mbps connectivity was available to 68 per cent of customers.

Across the world as a whole, Akamai discovered 27 per cent of all broadband connections were made at high broadband speeds of over 5Mbps, with the Netherlands topping the list for penetration of this service.

Seven of the top ten countries for broadband uptake were in Europe, with more than 23 million unique IP addresses recorded in the UK alone.

Mobile broadband connection rates varied from a global low of 209Kbps to a high of more than 5Mbps, with approximately 75 per cent of providers surveyed achieving speeds of greater than 1Mbps. The fastest peak capability was 23.4Mbps, while the slowest was 1.2Mbps.

"Of all such mobile providers, three boasted average peak connection speeds above 20Mbps, 27 achieved average peak connection speeds above 10Mbps and 47 recorded average peak connection speeds greater than 5Mbps," Akamai explained.

"Only one mobile provider (located in South Africa) did not record an average peak connection speed above 2Mbps."

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