Akamai releases second quarter 2015 ‘State of the Internet’ report

Akamai Technologies has released its Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions and IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

Data and graphics from the Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for iOS and Android devices. State of the Internet Report-related discussions are also taking place on the Akamai Community.

“We continued to see healthy increases in key connection speed metrics, particularly on a year-over-year basis,” said David Belson, editor of the report. “The improvement in connection speeds is vital as more content, not the least of which is video at increasingly higher levels of quality, is being delivered over the Internet. Ongoing progress and innovation in these areas, as evidenced in the report, will play a key role in helping address consumer demand for access to content where and when they want it.”

European Highlights from Akamai’s Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report:

Average and Peak Connection Speeds: European growth trends continued
The global average connection speed increased 3.5% to 5.1 Mbps in the second quarter of 2015. Quarterly changes were positive for the top 10 countries/regions, with the exception of South Korea (23.1 Mbps), which decreased 2.1% from the first quarter. The quarter saw seven European countries feature in the global top 10 countries/regions listing: Sweden (#4), Switzerland (#5), the Netherlands (#6), Norway (#7), Latvia (#8), Finland (#9) and Czech Republic (#10).

All European countries surveyed in the second quarter again achieved average connection speeds above the 4 Mbps broadband threshold, with 17 countries in total achieving average connection speeds at or above the 10 Mbps threshold (Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Romania, Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland). As a consequence of the revised calculations, Sweden regained the top spot with a 16.1 Mbps average connection speed, up 1.6% from the first quarter.

Year-over-year changes in average connection speeds were again consistently positive for Europe, pointing to continued improvements in Internet connectivity within surveyed countries. Norway posted the largest gain at 38% while a further six countries saw gains of at least 20%: Slovakia (34%), Portugal (31%), Finland (27%), Poland (25%), Spain (22%), and Germany (21%).

In the second quarter of 2015, global average peak connection speeds increased 12% to 32.5 Mbps. In Europe, nine countries saw quarterly declines which ranged from 0.2% in Slovakia to 3.7% in Norway, while increases among other European countries ranged from 0.5% in Finland to 7.1% in Belgium. Nine of the European countries surveyed had average peak connection speeds of at least 50 Mbps, with Romania holding onto its first quarter leader spot with an average peak connection speed of 72.1 Mbps.

Year-over-year changes for the European countries surveyed were all positive. Norway achieved the largest year-over-year growth, with an increase of 34% over the previous year, with the remaining European countries posting gains ranging from 4.1% (Austria) to 31% (Finland).

Broadband Connectivity: Sweden led Europe in 25 Mbps broadband adoption rates
Last quarter, the State of the Internet reported for the first time on the percentage of IP addresses connecting to Akamai at average speeds of above 25 Mbps, the new benchmark broadband speed adopted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in January 2015. Globally, 4.9% of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, a 7.5% increase over the previous quarter. Despite a 5.5% quarterly decline to a rate of 29%, South Korea again led the world in 25 Mbps broadband adoption.

The second quarter of 2015 saw seven European countries make an appearance in the top 10 country/region listing for 25 Mbps adoption; Sweden (#4) headed up the European contingent with a 15% adoption rate, followed by Latvia (#5), Switzerland (#6), Lithuania (#7), Norway (#8), Finland (#9) and the Netherlands (#10). Year-over-year gains ranged from a mere 0.8% in Latvia to a sizeable 133% in Lithuania – the only country in the top 10 global list to see adoption rates more than double compared with the previous year.

The global percentage of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai that met the 4 Mbps broadband speed threshold increased 1.1% to 64% in the second quarter of 2015. That quarter, all surveyed European countries again demonstrated consistently high levels of 4 Mbps adoption, with at least 7 out of every 10 unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai at speeds of 4 Mbps or greater and a total of eight countries posting adoption rates of 90% or above; the Netherlands (95%), Romania (94%), Denmark (93%), Switzerland (93%), Sweden (92%), Belgium (91%), Austria (90%) and Finland (90%).

In the second quarter of 2015, 27% of unique IP addresses globally connected to Akamai at average speeds above 10 Mbps, an increase of 2.1% over the previous quarter. In Europe, Switzerland and the Netherlands led the pack, with both countries achieving a 60% 10 Mbps adoption rate, while Romania, Sweden and Belgium all saw more than half of their unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai at average speeds of at least 10 Mbps. Yearly gains were observed across all surveyed European countries, ranging from 60% in Portugal to 9.3% in Ireland.

Fourteen percent of unique IP addresses globally connected to Akamai at average connection speeds of 15 Mbps or above, up 2.5% from the first quarter. In Europe, Switzerland and Sweden led the way with 34% adoption rates, followed closely by the Netherlands with a 32% adoption rate. Italy posted the lowest adoption rate, with a mere 3.0% of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai at speeds of 15 Mbps or more. Quarterly gains in the second quarter ranged from 0.7% in Poland to 28% in Portugal, with seven countries seeing increases of at least 10%; quarterly losses ranged from 0.8% in Ireland to 4.2% in Romania. Year-over-year, Austria saw the smallest gain at 0.6%, while Portugal achieved an impressive 92% increase in adoption.

As with previous quarters, the second quarter saw a number of announcements underscoring the continued growth of fast broadband connectivity in Europe. In Ireland, the broadband provider Eircom announced a €2.5 billion infrastructure investment to deploy gigabit-speed services across the country – including hard-to-reach rural communities. In the United Kingdom, the government stated its Broadband Delivery UK program had enabled an additional 2.5 million premises to achieve broadband levels of at least 24 Mbps. Meanwhile, in June, Virgin Media announced the expansion of its 152 Mbps broadband services to 150,000 new homes in Manchester; the expansion is part of Virgin Media’s ‘Project Lightening’ program that ultimately expects to bring high-speed cable broadband to an additional 4 million UK homes in the next five years.

IPv4 and IPv6: European countries continued to lead the world in IPv6 adoption
Reversing the trend seen in the first quarter of 2015, the number of unique IPv4 addresses worldwide connecting to Akamai dropped by about 8.6 million in the second quarter. Six of the top 10 countries saw a quarterly decline in unique IPv4 address counts in the second quarter, compared with three in the previous quarter. Of the three European countries featured in the top 10 global country/region listing for the second quarter of 2015, France experienced a 2.6% quarterly decline in unique IPv4 address counts, while the UK and Germany achieved a quarter-over-quarter growth of 1.4% and 0.6% respectively.

European countries continued to dominate the 10 countries/regions with the largest percentage of content requests made to Akamai over IPv6 in the second quarter of 2015. Similar to previous quarters, Belgium maintained its clear lead, with 38% of content requests being made over IPv6. Switzerland (23%) saw the largest increase, enjoying a 168% jump over the previous quarter, moving into second place globally, with nearly a quarter of content requests coming over IPv6. As with the previous quarter the only two non-European countries among the top 10 were the U.S. and Peru.

Belgium’s Telenet (53%) joined Verizon Wireless (71%) and Brutele (67%) in the second quarter in seeing more than half of their requests to Akamai made over IPv6, though Verizon and Brutele’s figures were unchanged from the previous quarter.

Internet Disruptions and Events
This quarter’s report also highlights Internet disruptions and events in Gabon, Cameroon, Iraq and, most notably, those affecting Nepal as a result of the deadly April 25 earthquake. Immediately following the disaster, Akamai saw traffic to the country drop to 11% of previous levels, before recovering over the following days. A May 12 aftershock caused additional problems before traffic again returned to normal over the course of several hours.

Mobile Connectivity: Mobile data traffic increases 55% year-over-year
The number of mobile data subscriptions has been increasing rapidly and driving growth in data traffic, along with a continuous increase in the average data volume per subscription. Based on traffic data collected by Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic grew by 15% between the first and second quarters of 2015, and increased 55% year-over-year.

Mobile connection speed and browser usage data are absent from this quarter’s report due to ongoing changes being made to further refine Akamai’s mobile network identification algorithms.