The Asia-Pacific region is the best place for broadband, with the US and Europe training behind, according to new research.
According to Akamai’s State of the internet report, 69 of the top 100 cities were placed in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by 24 cities in the United States and seven in Europe.
The fastest city was placed in South Korea where average broadband speeds reached 21.7Mbps.
In the fourth quarter of 2011, more than 628 million unique IPv4 addresses from 236 countries and regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform.
This represents 2.1 percent more IP addresses than connected in the third quarter of 2011, and an increase of 13 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.
Among those countries listed in the top 10 list for the number of unique IP addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform during the quarter, the UK represented the most significant quarter-over-quarter increase at 13 percent, increasing to more than 25 million IP addresses. Germany (rank #4), France (#6) and Italy (#9) gained 3.2 percent, 2.5 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.
European countries dominate the Top 10 country/region listing for high broadband adoption connectivity
The fastest European city was placed in Sweden, at an average speed of 11.3Mbps.
The Netherlands closes 2011 as the European country with the highest average connection speed at 8.2 Mbps
Umea in Sweden is the fastest European city, with average connection speeds of 11.3 Mbps.
Nearly 33 percent of all observed attack traffic originated from Europe (up from 28 percent last quarter).
Mobile Connection Speeds and Data Consumption
A German mobile provider had the highest average connection speed at 5.2 Mbps, and was the only mobile provider of the 100 known global providers listed to achieve an average connection speed in the ‘high broadband’ (5 Mbps and above) range.
An additional 27 mobile providers achieved average connection speeds in the ‘broadband’ (2 Mbps and above) range, while another 48 achieved average connection speeds above 1 Mbps in the fourth quarter.
During the fourth quarter of 2011, users on eight mobile providers consumed on average 1 GB or more content from the Akamai platform, while users on 75 other mobile providers around the world downloaded more than 100 MB of content from Akamai per month.
According to Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic doubled year-over-year, growing 28 percent between the third and fourth quarters of 2011.
Despite a fall of 25 per cent quarter-over-quarter, Italy remained the country responsible for the highest level of observed attack traffic from known mobile network providers.
UK fails to make global broadband league table
Despite generating the biggest increase in IP adresses, broadband speeds in the UK actually slipped.
In the final three months of 2011, Blighty’s broadband customers saw a drop in average download speeds from 5.1Mbit/s in the previous quarter to 4.9Mbit/s, a decline of 3.5 per cent.
However, it wasn’t exclusively the UK that saw a regression of broadband internet speeds, according to Akamai.
The global average connection speed saw an unusual, and fairly significant, decline in the fourth quarter of 2011, dropping to 2.3Mbps. It was reflected in declines in eight of the top 10 countries, as well as the US.
The report added that 91 per cent of UK broadband connections were now over 2Mbps, therefore reaching the current government’s target of 2Mbps for all by 2015.
The overall figure of 91 per cent however failed to change from last years report, therefore ranking the United Kingdom 16th in European leagues based on average speeds.
Following criticisms that the UK government had not invested enough in broadband, Chancellor George Osborne said that the “explicit industrial strategy” set out in his budget would transform Britain into a leading technology hub, with clear investments in fibre optic broadband to boost speeds.
Key UK findings include:
• 13% Quarter on Quarter rise of unique IPv4 addresses seen by Akamai at 25,383,604. Putting the UK 5th in the global list of unique IPv4 addresses seen
• No UK city features in the top 100 global cities by average connection speed table. The slowest of those cities clocked an average connection speed on 7.0Mbps
• The UK is 16th in the table measuring Average Measured Connection Speed by European Country. A speed of 4.9Mbps was recorded, up 14% year on year, but down 3.5% on the previous quarter.
• UK is 14th for Average Peak Connection Speed by European Country at 20.4Mbps, a year on year increase of 21%
• 91% of UK Broadband Connections were measured as above 2Mbps, placing it 7th in the ranking of Fast European Countries
Source: www.akamai.com
