Irish mobile broadband download speeds were ranked 72nd in the world during the final two quarters of last year.

That is according to the latest speed report from broadband speed rating service Ookla, which found Ireland placed behind Azerbaijan and ahead of the Maldives when it came to mobile broadband internet pace.

The findings are based on 395,325 speed test data samples from almost 86,000 unique users here.

They found mean mobile download speeds during the period were 19.97Mbps, with mean upload rates clocking 8.67Mbps.

Despite the relatively low international ranking, Ookla says the result actually represents a 23.7% increase over the previous country's average of 16.14Mbps a year earlier.

However, compared to our nearest neighbour, Irish mobile broadband providers are in the slow lane, with UK mean mobile broadband speeds 32% higher.

When it came to networks, Vodafone registered the quickest service on average followed by Eir and 3.

The Ookla data shows wide variation in mobile broadband speeds in different places.

Perhaps not surprisingly among the three quickest areas were subsections of Dublin with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown coming in as fastest, South Dublin third fastest and Dublin City fifth fastest.

The county with the second highest speeds was County Kildare while the fourth fastest was Cork City.

In the slow lane were Leitrim with a mobile download speed of 13.45 Mbps and Mayo at 14.78 Mbps. Tipperary came in third slowest.

"We're optimistic that improvements to LTE and the expansion of gigabit could increase speeds in the near term and hope that these innovations spur further investment," Ookla said.

When it came to fixed line speeds during the quarters in question the picture is a little better, with Ireland ranking 42nd globally, clocking download rates of 38.81Mbps and upload speeds of 13.42Mbps.

The fixed line survey was based on 3.37 million tests by 608,284 unique users.

Virgin Media registered the quickest service with an Ookla Speedtest Intelligence score of 79.53.

The next best provider by speed was Eir with a score of 32.05, followed by 3.

The fixed line data confirms the well-known urban/rural divide on fixed-line high-speed broadband.

The three fastest areas are South Dublin, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and Dublin City, with the slowest counties Donegal, Leitrim and Mayo.

Surprisingly, Waterford just edged out Dublin as being the city with the fastest fixed line speeds.