Global average connection speed increases 21 per cent year over year

The average connection speed has increased 21 per cent all across the globe year-over-year, according to third quarter 2016, State of the Internet report.

Data and graphics obtained from Akamai’s State of the Internet report 2016 showed that the global average connection speed increased 2.3 per cent to 6.3Mbps in third quarter 2016, and a 21 per cent increase year-over-year.

Among all the countries, South Korea reportedly had highest average connection speed at 26.3Mbps in the third quarter. In addition to this, the report also provided insight into key global statistics such as broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

According to Akamai’s report, global average peak connection speed increased 3.4 per cent to 37.2Mbps in the third quarter, rising 16 per cent yea-over-year.

Singapore had the highest average peak connection speed at 162Mbps in the third quarter. On the other hand, global 10Mbps broadband adoption rate rose 5.4 per cent quarter-over-quarter, while 15Mbps and 25Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 6.5 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively.

“The holiday season serves as one of the true tests of Internet connectivity as consumers activate slews of connected devices at the same time and more families are at home collectively pushing their broadband capabilities to the limit,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.

“The good news is those limits are getting higher as we have continued to observe positive long-term trends in both average and average peak connection speeds around the world. While ‘batteries not included’ may still cause unwelcome surprises, we’re optimistic that connection speeds won’t spoil the holidays this year.”

The number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform was just over 806 million, which is 0.7 per cent more than the second quarter of 2016.

Belgium remained the clear global leader in IPv6 adoption with 39 per cent of its connections to Akamai occurring over IPv6, up 3.3 per cent from the previous quarter.

Cable and wireless/mobile providers continued to drive the largest volumes of IPv6 requests, with Comcast Cable, AT&T Communications Americas and Verizon Wireless topping the list with 44 per cent, 43 per cent and 80 per cent of their requests to Akamai being made over IPv6 in their regions, respectively.

The average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 23.7Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.2Mbps in Venezuela.