Lately, while traveling on business trips through other European countries, I have encountered the "big" problem of slow internet speed. Although I know that in Europe the internet speed is lower than in Romania, I keep wondering why?

I know that one cause could be the fact that the infrastructure in developed countries was built many years ago, when fiber optics had not yet appeared or was so expensive that the investment was not worth the effort. Meanwhile, in Romania, the data infrastructure was built directly on fiber optics.

Thinking about the myth that we are somewhere in the top 5 worldwide in terms of speed, I did some research out of curiosity to see where we stand as a country in the internet speed ranking. And I found out that the myth is just a myth; or we were there at some point.

I notice that Romania, according to the statistics at the end of the third quarter of 2016 (these being the latest statistics available online – Akamai), ranks 11th in Europe, referring strictly to the average internet speed – 14.9 MB/sec. In terms of maximum internet speed, we can be proud of a 1st place with a speed of 85 MB/sec.

At the global level, however, for average speed we are 19th, and for maximum speed 10th.

Here is what the top lists look like (we will go with the top 10):

European Average Connection Speeds (IPv4)	European Average Peak Connection Speeds (IPv4)
Global Average Connection Speeds (IPv4)	Global Average Peak Connection Speeds (IPv4)

And yet we can be proud that we surpass many capitalist and much more developed countries than Romania. But as we well know, it is hard to reach the top, but it is much harder to stay there.