Romania is no longer the country with the highest Internet speed in Europe, found a research by American company Akamai. Romania ranks ninth in the world and fifth in Europe based on the speed of Internet connections in the fourth quarter of 2011. The average speed in Romania went down by 8 percent, from 7 Mbps to 6.4 Mbps.

South Korea is still number one on Internet speed in the world, with an average speed of broadband connections of 17.5 Mbps, up 28 percent on the last quarter of 2010. The Netherlands ranks first in Europe, with 8.2 Mbps. Romania was also outranked by Latvia, Switzerland, Ireland and the Czech Republic.

The only city in the ranking of 100 cities with the highest Internet speeds is Timisoara, ranking 89th, with an average speed of 7.4 Mbps. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Romania had two cities in this ranking- Constanta and Iasi. Cities in South Korea and Japan occupy 68 places in the 100 cities 2011 ranking.

Without citing any reasons for the drop in Internet speed, the report also highlights the increase in speed for mobile connections by over 62 percent, to some 973 Kbps. The average monthly volume of data downloaded via mobile was slightly up, to 118 MB. The Akamai study only used data from one mobile telephony operator in Romania.

The full report can be found here.

editor@romania-insider.com