Even though internet access is everywhere, from coffee shops to public busses, Vietnam ranks near the very bottom in Asia when it comes to speed.
The quarterly ‘State of the Internet' report complied by content delivery network, Akamai, found that the Vietnam’s average internet speed outranks only India’s in Asia and ranks 117th globally.
The report found that the average Internet connection speed in Vietnam is 2 Mbps with the global average at 3.9Mbps.
"The global average connection speed continued its gradual increase heading into 2014, growing 1.8 per cent quarter over quarter to reach 3.9Mbps. Given the long-term trending seen for this metric, it is likely that the global average connection speed will finally reach, and hopefully surpass, the 4Mbps broadband threshold in the second quarter," says the report.
Not surprisingly, South Korea (23.6Mbps), Japan (14.6Mbps) and Hong Kong (13.3Mbps) were the speed leaders in Asia.
However, a Vietnamese Internet expert took issue with the report's measurement methods:
“The expert, employed by a local Internet Service Provider (ISP), and speaking on condition of anonymity, said although new subscribers in Viet Nam have increased rapidly, they rarely have international access, so the average bandwidth measured by Akamai has been decreasing.”
Between 2009 and 2013, the number of Internet users in Vietnam increased by 170%.
Whether the data in this survey is representative or not, in our experience, Vietnam’s internet speed is average at best.
[VietNamNet // Photo via Steven Jurvetson]
