According to findings from Point Topic, residential downstream speeds are getting faster around the world.

The “Broadband Tariff Benchmark Report” found that only in two regions, North America/Canada and the Middle East/Africa, have average residential downstream speeds remained relatively unchanged.

In Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, South and East Asia and Asia Pacific speeds increased significantly from Q2 2007 to Q3 2007.

“The most significant changes were seen in Asia Pacific and South and East Asia,” said Fiona Vanier, analyst at Point Topic. “This is due to operators such as China Tietong and NTT which have introduced services with downstream speeds as high as 100 Mbps.”

The largest change was seen in South and East Asia, where the average downstream speed increased by over 130%.

The next-largest increase was in the Asia Pacific region, where download speeds were up nearly 39%.

Increased download speeds are not merely a technical issue—they are good news for online retailers, because the faster the speed, the easier the shopping.