Dutch top Euro broadband table, but things are slowing

The Netherlands still has the best overall Internet speeds in Europe, but it’s Romania that can boast the fastest, according to new figures from Akamai.

According to the content delivery network’s latest State of the Internet report, which looked at broadband performance for the last quarter of 2011, internet users in the Netherlands had the highest average connection speed in Europe — at 8.2 Mbps. Meanwhile the Romanians ranked first in terms of peak speeds, with connections that topped 35 Mbps. In total, Europe boasted 12 of the top 20 countries worldwide in terms of average speeds, with strong showings from Switzerland, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Belgium too — all of which puts the continent’s brightest broadband nations on a good competitive footing with Asia’s strongest: South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan.