The top recorded speed of 54.1 megabits per second was documented in Hong Kong in the third quarter of 2012, according to the State of the Internet report issued by Akamai Technologies yesterday.

No country previously had gone beyond 50 Mbps.

“It wouldn’t have been possible without changes in policy earlier to force competition between internet service providers,” Edmon Chung Wang-on, chief executive of DotAsia, and vice chairman of the Internet Society of Hong Kong, said yesterday.

“Without the competitive environment we wouldn’t have such a good network at such a low cost. Before there were only a couple of providers, and when the new guy came in things started to move.”