East Asian countries led by South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan are the best wired in the world with the highest number of fast broadband connections to the Internet, a recent report said.
South Korea boasts the world’s highest average connection speed at 14.6Mbps and also has six of Asia’s 10 cities with the fastest link-ups, all with average speeds above 15Mbps.
Japan ranked second, with an average connection speed of 7.9Mbps, followed by Hong Kong with 7.6 Mbps, the report by US-based network provider Akamai Technologies said.
The other countries in the top 10 are Romania, followed by Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, with the US at 18th place, with an average speed of 3.9Mbps.
The survey classifies broadband connections as those of 2Mbps or more, and “high broadband” as 5Mbps and above, while link-ups at 20Mbps and better were categorized as “extremely high speed connectivity.”
In South Korea, 74 percent of connections were “high broadband,” the world’s top rate, while the figure was 60 percent in Japan, followed by Hong Kong with 46 percent, the report said.
Worldwide, the high broadband percentage was 19 percent.
Growing demand for online high-definition video content is driving demand for faster connections, said Akamai’s State of the Internet report for the third quarter of last year.
“As the quantity of HD-quality media increases over time and the consumption of that media increases, end users are likely to require ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth,” the report said.
Semiconductor shares in China surged yesterday after Reuters reported the US had ordered chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, which investors believe could accelerate Beijing’s self-reliance efforts. TSMC yesterday started to suspend shipments of certain sophisticated chips to some Chinese clients after receiving a letter from the US Department of Commerce imposing export restrictions on those products, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed source. The US imposed export restrictions on TSMC’s 7-nanometer or more advanced designs, Reuters reported. Investors figured that would encourage authorities to support China’s industry and bought shares
FLEXIBLE: Taiwan can develop its own ground station equipment, and has highly competitive manufacturers and suppliers with diversified production, the MOEA said The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday disputed reports that suppliers to US-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) had been asked to move production out of Taiwan. Reuters had reported on Tuesday last week that Elon Musk-owned SpaceX had asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan given geopolitical risks and that at least one Taiwanese supplier had been pushed to relocate production to Vietnam. SpaceX’s requests place a renewed focus on the contentious relationship Musk has had with Taiwan, especially after he said last year that Taiwan is an “integral part” of China, sparking sharp criticism from Taiwanese authorities. The ministry said
US President Joe Biden’s administration is racing to complete CHIPS and Science Act agreements with companies such as Intel Corp and Samsung Electronics Co, aiming to shore up one of its signature initiatives before US president-elect Donald Trump enters the White House. The US Department of Commerce has allocated more than 90 percent of the US$39 billion in grants under the act, a landmark law enacted in 2022 designed to rebuild the domestic chip industry. However, the agency has only announced one binding agreement so far. The next two months would prove critical for more than 20 companies still in the process
CHANGING JAPAN: Nvidia-powered AI services over cellular networks ‘will result in an artificial intelligence grid that runs across Japan,’ Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said Softbank Group Corp would be the first to build a supercomputer with chips using Nvidia Corp’s new Blackwell design, a demonstration of the Japanese company’s ambitions to catch up on artificial intelligence (AI). The group’s telecom unit, Softbank Corp, plans to build Japan’s most powerful AI supercomputer to support local services, it said. That computer would be based on Nvidia’s DGX B200 product, which combines computer processors with so-called AI accelerator chips. A follow-up effort will feature Grace Blackwell, a more advanced version, the company said. The announcement indicates that Softbank Group, which until early 2019 owned 4.9 percent of Nvidia, has secured a
RSS