Global Average Connection Speed Increases 15 Percent YoY; India Ranked 89th: Akamai

Akamai Technologies Inc. announced the release of its First Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet Report.

Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

Data and graphics from the First Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for iOS and Android devices. State of the Internet Report-related discussions are also taking place on the Akamai Community.

“Increases in connection speeds and broadband penetration have helped enable the Internet to support levels of traffic that even just a few years ago would have been unimaginable,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.

“One need only look to January’s U.S. Presidential Inauguration, which broke traffic records for live coverage of a single news event delivered by Akamai, largely thanks to the combination of more viewers watching at increasingly higher levels of video quality.”

Highlights from Akamai’s First Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet report:

Global average and peak connection speeds and global broadband adoption
* Global average connection speed was 7.2 Mbps (an increase of 15 percent year over year).
* Global average peak connection speed increased 28 percent year over year to 44.6 Mbps in the first quarter.
* South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 28.6 Mbps in the first quarter.
* Singapore had the highest peak connection speed at 184.5 Mbps in the first quarter.
* Global 4, 10, 15 and 25 Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 13 percent, 29 percent, 33 percent and 42 percent year over year, respectively.

IPv4 and IPv6
* In the first quarter of 2017, more than 814 million unique IPv4 addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, which is a 0.7 percent increase as compared to the first quarter of 2016.
* Belgium remained the clear global leader in IPv6 adoption with 38 percent of its connections to Akamai occurring over IPv6 (down 19 percent from the previous quarter).

Mobile
* Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 26 Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.8 Mbps in Venezuela.
* Germany had the highest peak mobile connection speed at 200 Mbps in the first quarter.
* Among the qualifying surveyed countries/regions, 37 had an average mobile connection speed at or exceeding the 10 Mbps broadband threshold (up from 30 in the previous quarter), while 70 achieved average speeds at or above the 4 Mbps broadband level (up from 58).

Disruptions
* Traffic to Gabon on Feb. 18th and 19th dropped to approximately 25 percent of normal levels due to an outage of unknown cause that affected eight of the country’s networks.
* The Iraqi government continued its practice of blocking Internet access to prevent cheating during national middle- and high-school exams, impacting traffic on several days in February.
* Due to a cut in a submarine cable providing connectivity to Madagascar, traffic to the country dropped suddenly and significantly on Jan. 25th and did not recover to normal levels until nearly three weeks later.
* A submarine cable break also impacted traffic to the Marshall Islands for more than three weeks during which Internet access was restricted to email only, with certain businesses allowed web access on a rotating basis.