Average global internet connection speed increased to 5.1 Mbps, reveals study

Media Brief

Washington, December 16, 2015

Average global internet connection speed increased to 5.1 Mbps in the third quarter of 2015, accounting for a 14% increase year-over-year, according to a report by Akamai Technologies, a leader in content delivery network (CDN) services.

The Third Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report, which is based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform, provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

According to the report, South Korea had the top average connection speed at 20.5 Mbps, despite a year-over-year drop of 19% since the third quarter of 2014.

After a 12% quarterly increase in the second quarter, the global average peak connection speed declined a slight 0.9% to 32.2 Mbps in the third quarter. This accounts 30% year-over-year growth.

Singapore (135.4 Mbps) and Macao (73.7 Mbps) saw double-digit quarterly gains at 25% and 18%, respectively. Singapore also retained its position as the country/region with the highest average peak connection speed.

Globally, 5.2% of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, a 6.3% increase over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, global 25 Mbps adoption increased by 15%, in contrast to the 0.5% yearly decrease seen in the second quarter.

“While we did observe an increase in the number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to Akamai, the third quarter of 2015 saw the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for North America completely exhaust its available inventory of IPv4 address space,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.

“The continued depletion of IPv4 space, in both North America and around the world, should further spur organizations to expand or accelerate their own IPv6 adoption, particularly as the cost of obtaining IPv4 address space may rise as scarcity increases,” added Belson.