In Broadband Access Business, "Average" can be Quite Misleading

Hong Kong to has the highest average peak broadband connection speeds in the world, at 49.2 Mbps, with South Korea at second with 47.8 Mbps and Japan at 39.5Mbps, according to Akamai data. 

The number of households buying services advertised at more than 10Mbps is substantial in all three markets. In Hong Kong, 28 percent of customers buy services operating at faster than 10 Mbps. In Japan, 37 percent of consumers buy services running faster than 10 Mbps. In South Korea 53 percent do so.

The average connection speed was 9.3 Mbps in Hong Kong, 15.7 percent in South Korea and 10.9 percent in Japan."

The implication is that, as with most phenomena related to broadband access, "average" does not tell you very much. Whether the issue is supply or demand, a very small number of instances accounts for a huge amount of consumption, while a large number of instances represents quite modest demand. 

About 97 percent of smart phone users, for example, consume 1 Gbyte or less of data each month. The top one percent consumes nearly double that amount. 

In 2010, Comcast notes that the typical user consumes 2 Gbytes to 4 Gbytes a month.