Six million times faster: A new internet speed record — and how Australia compares

At this speed, you could download 12,500 movies in about a second, researchers say.

Australia's home internet speed has long been a cause for frustration in a growing population with an increasing need for fast internet. Credit: Trevor Williams/Getty Images

There's a new global internet speed record — and it's about six million times faster than Australia's average.

A team at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) hit 402 terabits per second (tbps), breaking their previous record of 321 tbps, set in 2023.

Australia's average internet speed pales in comparison, at about 66 megabits per second (mbps), according to Speedtest.net

How fast is the world's fastest internet?

One terabit is one trillion bits; so the speed the NICT team clocked would equate to 402,000,000 mbps.

At that speed, 12,500 movies could be downloaded in about a second.

"If the average world download speed is, let's say 100 mbps, then our data rate is indeed 4 million times faster than that," Ben Puttnam, NICT chief senior researcher, said.

He said it's unlikely a 402 tbps connection would be used in a household. Instead, it would likely sit "in the core of a network"

"So you could think of it as a big data pipe that could connect four million homes each using 100 mbps, for example," he said.

If a 3 mbps connection is needed to stream a movie on Netflix, Puttnam said a 402 tbps connection could support 130 million simultaneous streams.

Gamers could also expect a hitch-free virtual reality experience playing games like Baldur's Gate 3 or Call of Duty.

How do Australian internet speeds compare internationally?

According to Speedtest.net, the global average download speed for fixed broadband internet is 93.93 mbps.

By that measure, this new record speed is a few million times faster than what most of us get in our homes in Australia.

At 66.58 mbps, Australia is ranked 82 on SpeedTest's June index of fixed broadband speeds worldwide, behind Oman and Czechia and just above Uzbekistan.

Australia performed better on mobile internet speeds — ranking 22 with 94.28 mbps, behind Croatia and Estonia.

The global mobile internet speed average is 56.43 mbps.

Could Australian's ever have access to 402 tbps speds?

Not anytime soon.

While the recent world record was set using standard commercially available optical fibre, the speed test occurred in ideal lab conditions.

Commercial deployment of technology that would enable such speeds won't be coming to an internet provider near you anytime soon.

In addition to researchers from NICT, the record-setting team included academics from Aston University's Institute of Photonic Research in the UK and researchers from Nokia Bell Labs in the United States.