The ‘State of The Internet’ report, produced by web hosting company Akamai, shows penetration of 2Mbps-plus connections remained at 49% in the first quarter of 2009 - the same level as the previous quarter.

The report found that, while average connection speeds across the country were 2.8 Mbps, only 13% of users were enjoying connections of more than 5Mbps.

The figures come as the Federal Government continues to spruik the benefits of its planned National Broadband Network through which it promises to deliver connection speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

According to the Akamai report, in the first quarter of this year around 20% of the world’s internet connections were at speeds of more than 5 Mbps. This represented an increase of 5% when compared with the previous quarter.

During the quarter, Japan managed to push South Korea from its top spot in world broadband rankings. Japan now has 57% of its internet users connecting at more than 5 Mbps compared with South Korea’s 52%. Sweden on 49%, Romania on 40% and Hong Kong on 39% round out the top five places. 

Akamai uses a network of servers and monitors to track web speeds and performance around the world. The company also monitors traffic to spot the sources of malicious internet attacks.

During the first quarter of this year, it found more than 50% of all attack traffic originated from either the United States or China. This represented an increase from 42.1% from the two countries in the last quarter of 2008.