The ITIF (Information Technology & Innovation Foundation) has recently released it’s 2008 Broadband Rankings report which shows the average Broadband Internet download speed for Australians at a very slow 1.7Mbps!

The non-partisan research think tank ranked Australian Broadband in position 12 which is one in front of the UK (13th) and two in front of United States (14th) respectively. Although Australia’s overall composite score is above the UK and US, it still lags those countries, and others, significantly in average Broadband Speed.  South Korea is rated 1st with an average speed of 49.5Mbps followed by Japan with 63.6Mbps and Finland coming in 3rd with 21.7Mbps. Even countries ranked 27th (Czech Republic), 28th (Slovak Republic) and 29th (Turkey) from the top 30 list have faster average Broadband speeds than Australia!

Released within the new report, Explaining International Broadband Leadership, the 2008 ITIF Broadband Rankings are a composite measure of national broadband performance that represent the sum of standard deviation scores for three indicators: household broadband penetration, average speed weighted by percentage of subscribership (in megabits per second (Mbps)), and lowest available price per Mbps.

Source: ITIF.org
Top 30 List: PDF