According to the statistics revealed in content delivery provider Akamai's `Third Quarter 2012 State of the Internet' report, even though mobile broadband speeds in Australia are among the best in the Asia-Pacific region, the country is still lagging behind in fixed broadband speeds.

The Akamai data showed that Australia's 4.3 megabits per second (Mbps) average connection speed for fixed broadband positioned the country in the 40th place in the world; with its average fixed broadband speeds being notably much lower than the average 14.7Mbps speed of the fibre-to-the-premises networks in top-ranking South Korea. The worldwide average for the 2012 third quarter was 2.8Mbps.

While the Akamai report pointed out that there was a 19 percent year-on-year improvement in Australia's speed during the reporting quarter, the figures were nearly 2.5 percent lower than those recorded in the previous quarter.

However, the statistics also showed that in terms of peak speed, Australia was somewhat better positioned - at the 34th spot - with 22.8Mbps; though the country's performance is still very poor when it comes to percentage of connections above 10Mbps, with just around 4.1 percent of connections found to be above 10Mbps.

Nonetheless, despite being found sluggish on fixed broadband speeds during the 2012 third quarter, Australia fared comparatively much better in mobile broadband speeds; with its average mobile speed being 2.4Mbps, and average peak speed being 14Mbps.