Australian internet speeds are lagging behind the rest of the world despite the national broadband network rollout and the scheduled launch of US streaming service Netflix looming large.

Australia ranked 44th in the world based on its average connection speed, which fell 1.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2014 to 6.9 Mbps, according to Akamai's State of the Internet report.

In the slow lane: Australia's internet isn't getting much better in terms of speed.

This places Australia behind a number of other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. Since the previous quarter, New Zealand overtook Australia in terms of average internet speed, coming in at 42nd.

The report suggests Australia's connectivity to high-speed broadband - broadband over 10 Mbps - has not picked up the pace despite the NBN rollout, with only 14 per cent of the country being connected to high-speed internet.

The report also showed that as much as one-third of Australia may not be ready for television and film streaming services such as Netflix, which is expected to launch in Australia on March 31. Only 66 per cent of Australia had between the 10 to 20 Mbps required for 4K (or "ultra HD") video used by streaming services.

The average page load time for broadband was 4.23 seconds and on mobile 4.799 seconds.