New Zealand's average internet connection speed has improved while Australia's fell in the latest world rankings.

Photo: AFP

That was according to the latest quarterly report by the American cloud service provider Akamai, which ranked New Zealand 42nd in the world and Australia 44th.

Network engineering expert at RMIT University in Melbourne Mark Gregory said the difference between the countries was largely because New Zealand had stuck with a fibre-to-the-home network.

"The key difference between New Zealand and Australia is that New Zealand made the decision to do fibre-to-the-premise, they've stuck with that decision," he said.

He aid the Akamai report was a reputable review and Australia's relative decline was because many other countries were moving forward apace with new and upgraded networks.

The country with the fastest average internet connection speed was South Korea, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and Sweden.