Akamai Q2: Global Internet data
October 18, 2012
Akamai Technologies has released its Q2 ‘State of the Internet’ Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform, the report provides insights into key global statistics.
Highlights from the report include:
Global Internet Penetration
– More than 665 million IPv4 addresses from 242 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform during the second quarter of 2012. This represents a 10 per cent increase year-over-year. Given that a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases, Akamai estimates the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.
– Of the top 10 countries with the most unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, Italy achieved an impressive year-over-year increase of 25 per cent, followed by the UK with 17 per cent.
– Industry data, though, indicates that IPv4 addresses are rapidly being exhausted. RIPE, the European Internet registry, recently announced that it was down to its final block (~16 million) of IPv4 addresses, and ARIN, the regional Internet registry for the Americas, announced that it only had three blocks remaining.
High Broadband Connectivity
– Switzerland had the highest level of high broadband adoption among surveyed countries in Europe, with 22 per cent of connections to Akamai at speeds above 10 Mbps. Three European countries saw quarter-over-quarter adoption rates increase in excess of 10 per cent; Czech Republic (up 21 per cent), the UK (up 17 per cent) and Switzerland (up 15 per cent).
– A review of year-over-year changes reveals Sweden had the smallest increase, growing 14 per cent, in contrast to Spain which achieved an impressive growth of 132 per cent. Among the countries that declined year-over-year, losses ranged from 1.1 per cent in Ireland (to 8.1 per cent) to 27 per cent in Portugal.
Average and Peak Connection Speeds
– The global average connection speed increased 13 per cent to 3.0 Mbps from the first to second quarters of 2012, continuing the trend of strong growth.
– In the second quarter of 2012 a total of six European countries were ranked in the global top 10 listing. Latvia (#4) headed up the pack with an average connection speed of 8.7 Mbps, followed by Switzerland (#5), the Netherlands (#6), Czech Republic (#7), Denmark (#8) and Finland (#10).
– Among the European countries that saw quarterly growth in the second quarter of 2012, Austria had the largest increase (11 per cent) to achieve 6.3 Mbps. Spain had the smallest increase, gaining just 0.5 per cent to 4.6 Mbps.
– The global average peak connection speed grew 44 per cent year-over-year, with increases of 10 per cent or more across all of the top 10 countries. Switzerland (#6) in the top 10 global listing achieved an impressive 25 per cent growth, followed by Bulgaria (#10) with 17 per cent growth, while Romania (#4) and Hungary (#9) both achieved 15 per cent year-over-year growth.
– A number of European countries saw their average peak connection speed grow by 20 per cent or more year-over-year. These include Poland (up 38 per cent), the United Kingdom (up 28 per cent), Spain (up 28 per cent), Austria (up 21 per cent) and Germany (up 20 per cent).
Mobile Connectivity
– The fastest mobile average connection speed in the second quarter of 2012 was 7.5 Mbps, delivered by a mobile provider in Russia, while a mobile provider in the UK had the fastest mobile average peak connection speed at 44.4 Mbps.