The average UK broadband connection speed fell during the last three months of 2011, according to a new report.
The study, carried out by content deliver network vendor Akamai, saw average UK speeds fall from 5.1Mbps in the third quarter to 4.9Mbps during the fourth.
Meanwhile, the worldwide average broadband speed plunged from 2.7Mbps to 2.3Mbps during the same period.
Akamai was unable to explain why speeds fell, but suggested a drop in peak level usage may have been a factor.
Globally, South Korea and Japan saw their broadband speeds increase, with the Asia Pacific region bagging the top spot in the average speed league table.
The Netherlands was the best performing European nation, coming fourth with an average speed of 8.2Mbps, while the UK trailed behind in 16th place.
The Akamai report also looked at internet traffic involved in cyber attacks. China, at 13 per cent, generated the most attack traffic, followed by the US (10 per cent) and Indonesia (7.6 per cent) to round out the top three.
The results were also aggregated by region and showed that Asia Pacific/Oceania generated 45 per cent of attack traffic, Europe was responsible for 33 per cent, and the Americas and Africa were responsible for 20 and 2 per cent, respectively.
Geography appears to have played a role in the frequency of observed attacks on specific ports. For example, Port 23 (Telnet) is a favourite target for attacks that originate from South Korea and Turkey.
Other instances of geography-based port targeting include observed attacks centred on Port 1433 (Microsoft SQL Server) in China and on Port 80 (WWW/HTTP) in Indonesia.
