Internet speed rankings: Australia behind SL

Australia's internet speed has ranked as the 51st slowest out of 108 countries around the world, lagging behind underdeveloped nations such as Kenya and Sri Lanka.

Internet connections Down Under are considered poorer and slower than 50 other countries, with South Korea topping the list as having the fastest connectivity.

Australia's online bandwidth has pathetic internet speeds compared to the likes of South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong and Switzerland - which all have speed above 20 megabits per second (mbps).

Australia's average speed was recorded at 10.01 mbps, seven megabits behind the USA which hits 17.2mbps, Akamai's State of the Internet report found.

Underdeveloped nations such as Kenya recorded far better connectivity speeds than Australia - the east African country listed at the 23rd fastest in the world with an impressive average of 15mbps.

The Philippines were recorded as having the worst internet speed of all the countries surveyed.

In 2015 Australia was sitting at 48th on the list with an average internet speed of 9.6mbps, but last year the country slipped out of the top 50 entirely.

'Quarterly changes were positive across the board except for Australia, which posted a 1.9 per cent decline in adoption,' the report notes.

Vietnam and India were the only two countries to enjoy double-digit growth.

But mobile connectivity in Australia is topping the Asia Pacific region at 13.8mbps, which is higher than the global average of 7mbps.

The disappointing connectivity in Australia was blamed on its unfinished implementation of NBN across the country.

'Providing fast, reliable internet to a vast rural population of this scale is a challenge that no other country has to deal with,' Akamai said.

It is hard to compare Australia's speeds to a small and densely populated country like Singapore, for example, where a single switch provides hundreds of thousands of people with internet.

The original premise of the National Broadband Network vowed it would make Australia a world leader in internet connectivity. (Daily Mail)