Global internet averages 5.1 Mbps in Q3 – Akamai

15% percent of the unique global IP addresses connected to Akamai at average “4K-ready” connection speeds of 15 Mbps or above, up 5.3% from the second quarter. That 4K-readiness figure, which is becoming more important as Netflix, Amazon and MVPDs look to expand their 4K streaming libraries, is up from 5.3% in Q3 2015, according to Akamai.

From a global perspective, the average broadband speed increased 0.2 percent quarter-over-quarter and 14 percent year-over-year to 5.1 Mbps, while the global average peak broadband speed decreased 0.9 percent. Hong Kong came in 5th (15.8Mbps), with Japan at 7th (15.0Mbps) and Taiwan at 33rd (10.1Mbps). While Portugal’s growth still left only 5.2% of unique IP addresses in the country with 25Mbps or above, Europe, along with table leader South Korea, dominated Akamai’s broadband connectivity top table.

“The investments that are being made in improving broadband and improving connectivity are in fact paying off. What we’re seeing also is increased Internet usage, and it shows also that it’s still obviously worth investing in improving broadband connectivity”, Belson said.

South Korea (20.5 Mbps) has maintained the top position globally, with Sweden (17.4 Mbps) coming in second, followed by Norway (16.4 Mbps). This means a 30% year-over-year growth. Quarterly increases among these countries ranged from 14 per cent in Switzerland to 48 per cent in Norway.

Global broadband speeds experienced some ups and downs in Q3 as average connection speeds rose versus the previous period along with a small decline in average peak speeds, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet Report.

Akamai notes that 126 countries saw an average connection speeds year over year, ranging from 0.2 percent in Japan to a 147 percent rise in the Congo.

On a global basis, close to 60 per cent of the countries/regions surveyed saw a quarter-over-quarter increase in unique IPv4 address counts in the third quarter. The top five countries for DDoS attacks in the third quarter were the United Kingdom (26%), China (21%), the United States (17%), India (7%) and Spain (7%).

In terms of the IPv6 migration, Akamai notes that Verizon Wireless (72%) and Belgium’s Telenet (53%) continued to lead as the two companies with more than half of their requests to Akamai made over IPv6.

Nine of the top 20 providers had at least one in four content requests to Akamai via IPv6, down from 11 in the second quarter.