Global Average Connection Speed Increases 26 Percent Year over Year, According to Akamai’s ‘Fourth Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report’

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services, today released its Fourth Quarter, 2016 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 Fourth Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site. State of the Internet Report-related discussions are also taking place on the Akamai Community.

“Internet connection speeds continued to show positive long-term trends around the world, with particularly strong year-over-year increases across all broadband adoption metrics,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report. “When Akamai first published the report in 2008, we defined ‘high broadband’ as 5 Mbps and above, which nine years ago had an adoption rate of 16% globally. We’re now seeing a 15 Mbps adoption rate of 25% worldwide. The upward trends are encouraging as businesses create and deliver even richer experiences for bigger audiences across the Internet, but accentuate the need for organizations to optimize those experiences for the myriad connected devices their customers are using.”

Highlights from Akamai’s Fourth Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report:

Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Adoption

• Global average connection speed increased 12% to 7.0 Mbps in the fourth quarter, a 26% increase year over year. 
• South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 26.1 Mbps in the fourth quarter. 
• At 26.7 Mbps, the District of Columbia led the United States in average connection speed. 
• Global 4, 10, 15 and 25 Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 15%, 31%, 37% and 45% year over year, respectively.

IPv4 and IPv6 

• In the fourth quarter of 2016, nearly 807 million unique IPv4 addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, which is a 0.4% decrease as compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. 
• There was significantly less IPv4 allocation/assignment activity in the fourth quarter, with 6.4 million addresses allocated/assigned versus 16 million in the third quarter. 
• With 47% percent of its content requests to Akamai coming over IPv6, Belgium maintained its significant global lead in IPv6 adoption with a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase.

Mobile

• Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 26.8 Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.9 Mbps in Venezuela. 
• Among the qualifying surveyed countries/regions, 30 had an average mobile connection speed at or exceeding the 10 Mbps broadband threshold (up from 24 in the previous quarter), while 58 achieved average speeds at or above the 4 Mbps broadband level (up from 52).

Disruptions and Events 

• During Hurricane Matthew in October, Internet traffic to the Bahamas dropped to approximately one-tenth of normal levels for the country. 
• Internet traffic levels to The Gambia abruptly dropped to zero on November 30th, shortly ahead of the country’s December 1st elections, and returned to normal on December 2nd. 
• On several dates, the Iraqi government continued its policy of blocking Internet access across the country to prevent cheating during middle and high school national exams. 
• Technical issues at the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) were blamed for a sudden drop in traffic to the country in December.

About the Akamai State of the Internet Report

Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet – Connectivity” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. For additional information on the metrics in the report and how they are analyzed, please consult this blog post. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit the Quarterly Reports site. The figures from the Third Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report are available for download.