The rest of the world is faring well, too, in terms of boosting speeds. The fastest countries in the world when measured by average speeds are South Korea and Japan. And as you can see from the chart below, South Korea has managed to get over half of its population buying speeds of 10 Mbps or more. The U.S. is more in line with the global average, but has seen a significant boost in “high” broadband adoption.

What the latest version of the Akamai report shows is how much difference there can be in broadband quality even within countries. It also illustrates the difference in speeds between wireline and mobile connection (only seven mobile carriers even provide Akamai’s 4 Mbps definition of broadband). As our own country attempts to build out gigabit cities near universities – or in at least one city in every state – it’s worth pointing out that the future is clearly here in terms of faster broadband, but it’s unevenly distributed among the types of broadband and within countries.

As a side note, Google Fiber, the gigabit network built in Kansas City (both in Missouri and Kansas sides of town), was perhaps the biggest broadband story of 2012 but doesn’t have a direct impact yet on Akamai’s third quarter numbers in terms of speeds. The first Google Fiber deployment occurred during the fourth quarter, with the launch happening in the third. Yet Kansas saw both a boost in broadband adoption as well as higher average connection speeds that grew to 5.5 Mbps.

Some more fun facts about worldwide connectivity from the report:

• China is still the No. 1 origination country for attack traffic from a quarter-to-quarter basis. It saw a marked increase in the percentage of attack traffic, such as hacking –from 16 percent in the second quarter to 33 percent in the third. In contrast the U.S., which holds the No. 2 spot for origination of attacks saw its attack traffic rise from 12 percent in the second quarter to 13 percent in the third. See other origination countries below:



• Hong Kong’s 54.1 Mbps average peak connection speed (an average of the highest speeds in the country and inclusive of “speed boosting technologies”) in the third quarter marks the first time that an average peak connection speed has exceeded 50 Mbps.
• The average peak connection speed in India has increased nearly 140 percent since the third quarter of 2007, while China’s has increased nearly 250 percent over the same period. In comparison, the U.S. has seen its average peak connection speeds increase by 200 percent during that time frame.
• In the mobile world, only seven providers had average connection speeds in the “broadband” (greater than 4 Mbps) range. None of them were in the U.S. Akamai doesn’t name carriers, only listing them by country.
• An additional 68 mobile providers had average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps in the third quarter.
• Average speeds of mobile connections measured from three U.S. providers topped out 2.7 Mbps, and the peaks topped 9.8 Mbps at one provider.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• LTE changes everything; LTE changes nothing
• Confused about the wireless markets? Here’s a breakdown

Broadband observers should be delighted to note that the U.S. saw a 76 percent year-over-year growth in the number of connections at high broadband levels — speeds greater than 10 Mbps during the quarter. It is not surprising as many U.S. customers are leaving slower DSL connections and are switching to cable or other higher-speed options such as fiber networks.

Some key findings from the report:

• The global average connection speed increased 13 percent to 3.0 Mbps from the first to second quarters of 2012, continuing a trend of strong growth.
• South Korea continued to have the highest average connection speed at 14.2 Mbps for the quarter.
• Japan was second at 10.7 Mbps and Hong Kong was third at 8.9 Mbps.
• Among top countries ranked by average measured connection speed, Japan experienced largest year-over-year percentage growth (21 percent)
• Year-over-year trends remained generally positive, with global average connection speeds increasing by 15 percent, including growth in seven out of the top 10 countries.
• The global average peak connection speed grew 44 percent year over year, including increases of 10 percent or more across all of the top 10 countries.
• The global average peak connection speed one again showed strong improvement, growing 19 percent in the second quarter to 16.1 Mbps.
• Worldwide, 126 countries saw increases, six of which grew in excess of 100 percent between the second quarters of 2011 and 2012.  In contrast, only eight countries saw year-over-year declines.

However, it wasn’t all good news:

• The global high broadband adoption rate declined slightly in the second quarter, losing 1.6 percent.
• Seven of the top 10 countries also had negative quarter-over-quarter changes, with wildly varying magnitudes of change, ranging from a trivial loss of just 0.6 percent in Latvia (to 26 percent) to a much more concerning decline of 24 percent, seen in both the Netherlands and Belgium (to 17 percent and 14 percent respectively).
• After moving up in the first quarter of 2012, the global broadband adoption level saw a minor decrease in the second quarter, losing 2.8 percent and declining to 39 percent.

However, U.S. broadband had a great summer:

• Nine of the top 10 states saw positive quarter-over-quarter changes in average connection speeds, with the largest increase seen in Delaware.
• Top 10 states saw average connection speeds increase on a year-on-year basis.
• With 41.6 Mbps, Delaware had the highest average peak connection speed.
• A total of 37 states and the District of Columbia saw their high broadband (higher than 10 Mbps) adoption levels increase quarter-over-quarter.

In this edition of SOTI, Akamai is introducing a new Mobile Connectivity that includes mobile browser data from Akamai IO for the month of June 2012.

• The volume of mobile data traffic doubled from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2012, and grew 14% between the first and second quarter of 2012.
• The fastest mobile average connection speed in the second quarter of 2012 was 7.5 Mbps, delivered by a mobile provider in Russia.
• A UK The fastest mobile average peak connection speed for the quarter came from a provider in the U.K. at 44.4 Mbps.
• Mobile browser data from Akamai IO for the month of June shows approximately 38 percent of requests on cellular networks came from Android Webkit.  Some 33 percent came from Mobile Safari; and about 4 percent from Blackberry.
• However, add Wi-Fi, the numbers shift in favor of Mobile Safari, which accounted for an average of approximately 60 percent of requests.  Android Webkit represented about 23 percent. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise since many folks own iPod Touches and iPads that use Wi-Fi for connectivity.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Takeaways from mobile’s second quarter
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?

Akamai reports are based on connections to Akamai’s global network from both wired and wireless networks. The data collected by Akamai shows that nearly 27 percent of all connections to Akamai’s network are at speeds in excess of 5 megabits per second. Nearly 68 percent of broadband connections in the Netherlands exceed 5 Mbps. Hong Kong and South Korea are next, with 59 percent and 58 percent, respectively.

• Europe dominates the list of top ten countries with the highest broadband connectivity.
• However, Asian cities dominate the list of the 100 fastest cities in the world, with 10 South Korean cities and Japan alone having 59 cities.
• Brno, in the Czech Republic, is the fastest-ranked city in Europe and is only ranked No. 55.
• Eighteen U.S. cities are on the top 100 list, with San Jose being the fastest —ranked 9 out of 100. The average speed in San Jose was 13.7 Mbps. San Jose also had the highest peak speed in the U.S., 38.7 Mbps.
• The South Korean city of Taegu is the fastest city in the world, with an average Mbps of 15.8 Mbps. South Korea’s Taejon had the highest peak speed, 55.3 Mbps.

Global broadband speeds are getting faster and faster, the data reveals.

• After growing nearly 10 percent in the first quarter of 2011, the global average connection speed once again saw another significant quarterly increase, growing 21 percent, to 2.6 Mbps.
• The global average connection speed grew significantly year over year as well, increasing 43 percent.
• Globally, year-over-year increases in average connection speed were seen in 128 countries/regions, with yearly growth of over 100 percent seen in 17 countries, while an additional 102 grew 10 percent or more over the prior year.
• The global peak speed was 11.4 Mbps, up 7.4 percent from the first quarter of 2011 and 67 percent from Q2 2010.
• The U.S., which is ranked 12th by average measured connection speed, had an average speed of 5.8 Mbps, up 9 percent from the first quarter of 2011 and a whopping 26 percent from Q2 2010. The availability of higher speed tiers (30 Mbps or higher) from cable companies is behind this boost.

The biggest growth has been on the mobile networks, according to Akamai’s data.

• The average measured connection speed for known mobile providers worldwide ranged from a high of slightly more than 5 Mbps to a low of 209 Kbps.
• Approximately three-quarters of the surveyed providers had average connection speeds above 1 Mbps.
• For the 108 mobile providers worldwide for which Akamai analyzed data, 3 boasted average peak connection speeds above 20 Mbps, 27 achieved average peak connection speeds above 10 Mbps and 47 recorded average peak connection speeds greater than 5 Mbps. Only 1 mobile provider (located in South Africa) did not record an average peak connection speed above 2 Mbps.
• Users at 74 of the surveyed providers consumed greater than 100 MB per month of content from Akamai. According to Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic in the second quarter of 2011 doubled year over year and grew 8 percent quarter over quarter.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How to deliver the next-generation web experience
• CES 2012: a recap and analysis
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

In 1999, it was the rapid growth of wired web services that was the top story. Fast-forward to today, and it’s the massive and seemingly unstoppable growth of the mobile Internet that’s all the rage. The demand for mobile Internet (and its subset, mobile web) is upending all expectations and predictions. Between Apple and Google, about 500,000 new portable Internet devices are getting connected to the Internet.

Planet Mobile

In its State of the Internet Report for the second quarter of 2010, Cambridge, Mass.-based content distribution network Akamai notes there are 19 mobile carriers around the world offering connections with average real world speeds of over 6.1 Mbps, while 29 carriers have an average speeds of 1 Mbps.

Here are some interesting tidbits about mobile from the report, which is likely to be released tomorrow:

• Five providers in Canada, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, Germany, and Austria have users, who on average, consumed more than one gigabyte (1 GB) of content from Akamai per month during the second quarter. Speeds of these services vary, but the higher the speeds, higher the data consumption.
• An additional 80 mobile providers around the world had more than 100 MB of data downloaded from Akamai per unique IP address per month during the second quarter of 2010.
• A wireless carrier from United Kingdom was fastest in terms of peak average speeds during the quarter – 36.6 Mbps. A Slovakian carrier came in second with 20.20 Mbps, and a Russian mobile phone company clocked about 19 Mbps on their wireless networks. Russia was one of the first countries to launch WiMAX and LTE-based networks.
• In the U.S., the top peak speed was about 3 Mbps and top average speed was 0.98 mbps.

Speeding It Up

On the wired Internet side, the continuous deployment of fiber-based broadband networks and new DOCSIS 3.0-based cable broadband networks is causing a sharp increase in broadband speeds in some parts of the world.  According to Akamai data, the average connection speed on a global basis was around 1.8 Mbps; up 6.1 percent from the second quarter of 2009, and up 3.8 percent from the second quarter of 2010. Here are some key observations about global broadband trends:

• South Korea is the fastest country in the world with 17 Mbps as an average broadband speed, up 47 percent form second quarter of 2009. Hong Kong was second with 8.6 Mbps, while Japan came in at 8.0 Mbps.
• The peak connection in South Korea was 38 Mbps versus 16 Mbps peak connection speeds in the U.S.
• The United States had an average speed of 4.6 Mbps, up 1.8 percent from the second quarter of 2009 but down 1.8 percent from the first quarter of 2010.

Fastest Cities in The World

• Masan, South Korea is still the fastest city in the world, and it did so by boosting its average speed to over 20 Mbps during the second quarter of 2010.
• There are 20 cities across the planet which have average speeds in excess of 10 Mbps.
• Asia dominates the top 100 cities list with 62 cities in Japan, 12 in South Korea and Hong Kong.
• Europe accounted for 15 cities across eight countries, with Romania ranking highest with five cities in the top 100.
• North America accounted for the final ten, with two in Canada and the remaining eight in the U.S. San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York are not on the list.

The American Broadband Story

• The average broadband speed in the U.S. was around 4.6 Mbps, with Monterey Park, Calif. having the top average broadband speed of around 6.9 Mbps.
• The peak speeds in the U.S. on an average were around 16 Mbps during second quarter 2010.
• Delaware is inching toward nearly 100 percent broadband adoption mark.
• Six other U.S. states have broadband adoption of 80 percent or higher.
• The biggest growth was seen in West Virginia and Rhode Island, gaining 11 percent and 10 percent adoption respectively.
• The biggest losses were seen in Iowa and Arizona, which declined 11 percent and 10 percent respectively.
• Year-over-year changes were more significant, with 11 states posting double-digit increases, led by Alaska’s yearly growth of 44 percent.

Related GigaOM Pro Content (sub req’d):

• Google’s Latest White Space Push: The Smart Grid
• Who Will Profit From Broadband Innovation?
• Telcos Tap Wireless Opportunities In the Smart Grid

Akamai, in the fourth quarter of last year first measured the city speeds but came up with a list that was heavily skewed in favor of academic cities, mostly because university networks are uber-fast. This time around, Akamai has applied an “Academic Network” filter in addition to its metric of “a minimum of 50,000 unique IP addresses that connect to Akamai network.” As a result, the three top-ranked cities from the fourth quarter – Berkeley, Calif., Chapel Hill, N.C., and Stanford, Calif. – are now out of the top 100 list.  After discounting college towns, Masan, South Korea is the fastest city in the world, according to the data collected by Akamai. Here are some relevant stats about the top 100 fastest Internet cities.

* Asia dominates the top 100 list with 59 cities.

* Japan accounts for 30 cities in the list.

* The U.S. has 12 cities in the list, with seven located in California.

* Umeå, Sweden is the fastest city in Europe, and is ranked No. 18 out of 100.

Akamai is likely to release its first quarter 2010 State of the Internet report tomorrow and the report is going to feature a new metric: global average maximum connection speeds. This is a metric that measures the end-user connections. According to this metric:

* South Korea has a average maximum connection speed of 33 Mbps.

* South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan are the top three countries by speed in the list.

* US was eight amongst the top ten countries – with average maximum speed of 16 Mbps.

* European countries make up six of the top ten fastest countries, with each country averaging a maximum speed of 15 Mbps. These include Romania (#4), Sweden (#5), Latvia (#6), Belgium (#7), Portugal (#9) and Bulgaria (#10.)

On the mobile end of things, Akamai measured wireless carriers and their average maximum speeds.

* Eighty-three of the 109 total mobile providers have an average maximum connection speed of over 2 Mbps.

* Thirty-three networks had maximum measured speeds higher than 5 Mbps.

* Six networks had maximum speeds of greater than 10 Mbps.

Here are some other interesting Internet facts from the forthcoming report:

* There are over 487 million unique IP addresses that connect to Akamai network from 233 countries and regions.

* The number of IP addresses grew 7.2 percent in the first quarter of 2010 when compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. The year-over-year growth in IP addresses is about 30 percent.

* The U.S. and China account for about 40 percent of the total IP addresses.

In the U.S., the overall average connection speed was 4.7 Mbps, with 22 states exceeding that average. Delaware is still the fastest state in the Union, while Alaska is the slowest.

• Akamai observed a nearly 5 percent increase (from the fourth quarter of 2008) globally in the number of unique IP addresses connecting to its network. The year-over-year change was 27.51 percent, while the U.S. saw a 20 percent jump in unique IPs. China saw a 37 percent year-over-year annual gain in unique IP addresses.
• In the first quarter of 2009, one-fifth of the Internet connections around the world were at speeds greater than 5 Mbps, up 5 percent from the prior quarter and nearly 30 percent higher than the first quarter of 2008.
• WiMAX is gaining traction around the planet. Many of us focus on Clearwire in the U.S. and often overlook the growth of WiMAX in emerging economies such as Eastern Europe, the Baltics and Africa.
• Plans for four new submarine cables were announced that would bring more bandwidth to the African continent, which is also seeing a massive mobile phone boom, thus driving the need for more bandwidth. These cables include Glo-1 launched by Nigerian operators Globalcom.

Related: State of the Internet reports, Q1 2008 and Q4 2008 Report

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Ups and downs for cleantech in Q1
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution