The latest quarterly State of the Internet report (.pdf, registration required) from content delivery provider Akamai has revealed Hong Kong now takes top spot in broadband speeds -- knocking South Korea from its perch based on last quarter.

Asian countries hold the tradition of topping the global broadband charts -- whereas countries including New Zealand and the United States often lag behind. In this quarter, Hong Kong has managed to secure the fastest speeds in the world for both mobile and fixed connections.

Hong Kong secured the top spot with an average peak connection speed of 49.2Mbps; whereas South Korea managed to reach 47.8Mbps. Japan claimed third place with 39.5Mbps.

In comparison, the United States currently weighs in with the 8th spot at a peak speed of 28.7Mbps. The UK only managed 21st place with an average connection speed of 5.6Mbps.

Australia suffered a blow to fixed and mobile connect speeds; dropping 35 percent from the previous quarter to secure only 48th place with an average of just 3.5Mbps. However, the report states that this anomaly may be due to "issues seen with a single large network provider within the country".

The State of the Internet report sees long-term trends as "very positive". The top ten countries, as well as the U.S., have seen improving year-on-year changes in the average speed of connection. In particular, Japan, Latvia, Switzerland, Ireland, and Finland have seen boosts to speeds topping 30 percent higher than in the last quarter.

On a global level, 125 countries have seen year-on-year increases to average connection speeds -- ranging from a boost of 195 percent in New Caledonia (to 3.6 Mbps), to Hong Kong increasing 1.3 percent (to 9.3 Mbps). Hong Kong's highest average speeds jumped 7.1 percent and 25 percent year-on-year.

Libya remains the country with the lowest average connection speed, up 75 percent from the last quarter but still only a sluggish 0.5 Mbps.

For more details, view: ZDNet: The Internet is getting faster