For the second consecutive quarter, the global average connection speed remained above the 4 Mbps "broadband" threshold; however, it saw a slight decline in the third quarter of 2014, dropping 2.8 percent to 4.5 Mbps, according to Akamai's new State of the Internet Report.
Six of the top ten countries saw increases in global average connection speeds, and all of the top ten remained well above the 10 Mbps "high broadband" threshold. Among those increasing in average connection speed quarter-over-quarter, Singapore experienced the largest rise (12.2 Mbps), an 18 percent improvement. The smallest growth was in Japan (15 Mbps), which was only up 0.8 percent from the second quarter. In addition, Ireland (13.9 Mbps) joined Singapore in seeing an increase of 10 percent or more from the previous quarter. Yearly increases were seen in 129 qualifying countries/regions, with rates ranging from 150 percent in Jersey (9.7 Mbps) down to a modest 0.2 percent in Ecuador (3.6 Mbps).
Similar to the average connection speed metric, the global average peak connection speed also saw a slight decline in the third quarter, dropping 2.3 percent to 24.8 Mbps. Hong Kong once again had the highest average peak connection speed at 84.6 Mbps, followed closely by Singapore (83 Mbps). All ten countries/regions saw significant increases in average peak connection speeds compared to the previous year. Uruguay (58.6 Mbps) led the group with a year-over-year change of 334 percent and Luxembourg (54.4 Mbps) saw speeds more than double, up 130 percent. A total of 135 qualifying countries/regions saw average peak connection speeds increase from the third quarter of 2013.
Global high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption rates fell 0.5 percent in the third quarter, after seeing strong quarterly growth earlier in the year. In contrast to previous quarters, changes among the top ten countries/regions were limited, with increase ranging from a half a percent in Japan (55% adoption) to 8.4 percent in Sweden (44% adoption). Among the 63 qualifying countries/regions for this metric, just 28 saw quarter-over-quarter increases. The global high broadband adoption rate was up 22 percent, which was lower than the 65 percent increases seen in both the first and second quarters of this year. Among the top ten countries/regions, Japan was the only one to see a year-over-year change below 10 percent, while both Romania (49% adoption) and Israel (44% adoption) saw adoption rates more than double. Across the other 62 geographies, yearly increases ranged from 6.3 percent in Japan to a massive 3,015 percent in Uruguay (7.3% adoption).
The global broadband (>4 Mbps) adoption rates reached 60 percent, an increase of 1 percent quarter-over-quarter. Ninety-nine countries/regions qualified for inclusion for this metric, 55 of which saw quarterly growth in broadband adoption rates. Israel (92% adoption) was the only country in the top ten countries/regions to see its adoption rate increase more than 1 percent. South Korea remained the country with the highest level of broadband adoption at 96 percent, with Bulgaria following at 95 percent. The global broadband adoption rate increased 12 percent from the third quarter of 2013. While still positive, the yearly growth rate has continued to decline over the last several quarters. Broadband adoption rates were also up year-over-year across all of the top ten countries/regions, with increases ranging from 1.3 percent in Curacao to 18 percent in Bulgaria. All but nine qualifying countries saw broadband adoption levels increase over the past year with growth rates ranging from 0.7 percent in Czech Republic (83% adoption) to 1,884 percent in Indonesia (35% adoption).
Following the introduction of "4K Readiness" in the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, Akamai has again identified candidate geographies that are most likely to sustain connection speeds above 15 Mbps, as Ultra HD adaptive bitrate streams typically require bandwidth between 10 and 20 Mbps. The findings do not account for other "readiness" factors, including availability of 4K-encoded content or 4K-capable televisions and media players.
In total, 52 countries/regions qualified for inclusion this quarter, and 12 percent of the global connections were at or above the 15 Mbps threshold. While down 2.8 percent quarter-over-quarter, readiness increased 32 percent year-over-year. South Korea remained the country with the highest level of 4K readiness, with two-thirds of its connections to Akamai at or above 15 Mbps.
In the third quarter of 2014, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 201 unique countries/regions, which was up significantly from 161 in the second quarter, and more in line with the 194 seen in the first quarter. As demonstrated in past reports, the highest concentration of attacks (50%) came from China, nearly three times more than the United States, which saw observed traffic growth by approximately 25 percent quarter-over-quarter. China and the United States were the only two countries to originate more than 10 percent of observed global attack traffic. Indonesia was the only country among the top ten to see observed attack traffic decline, dropping from 15 percent of global attack traffic in the second quarter to 1.9 percent in the third. The overall concentration of observed attack traffic decreased slightly in the third quarter, with the top ten countries/regions originating 82 percent of observed attacks, down from 84 percent last quarter. Furthermore, 64 percent of attack traffic originated from the Asia Pacific region, down from 70 percent last quarter, while the lowest volume (1%) originated from Africa.
The volume of observed traffic targeted Ports 80 (HTTP/WWW), 443 (HTTPS/SSL) and 880 (HTTP Alternate) dropped significantly in the third quarter, with all three ports seeing a fraction of the attack volume seen in previous quarters. Port 23 remained the most popular target of attacks observed to be originating in China, accounting for more than three times more volume than Port 80, the second-most attacked port within the country.
Akamai customers reported 270 DDoS attacks for the second quarter in a row. Overall, this represents a 4.5 percent reduction in attacks since the beginning of 2014 and a 4 percent decrease in comparison to the third quarter 2013.
In contrast to the second quarter's report, the number of attacks fell in both of the Americas, with 142 attacks, and in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, with 44 attacks. However, the number of attacks in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region rose by 25 percent from the previous quarter to 84. The distribution of industries did not change in comparison to the previous quarter; commerce, enterprise, high tech, media and entertainment, and the public sector all saw the same number of attacks as the previous quarter, even though the actual targets of these attacks changed. Compared with the same quarter of 2013, enterprise attacks have fallen by more than a third from 127 to 80. At the same time, attacks against high tech companies have tripled from fourteen to 42.
Akamai saw an increase in the number of repeated attacks against the same target in the third quarter, returning to the 25 percent change of a subsequent attack targeting the same organisation. This represents a drop in unique targets from 184 in the second quarter to 174 in the third.
In the third quarter of 2014, more than 790 million IPv4 addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform from more than 246 unique countries/regions. The global number of unique IPv4 addresses making requests to Akamai grew by nearly two million quarter-over-quarter, a nominal increase after a loss of seven million in the second quarter. Looking at the top ten countries in the third quarter, the unique IP count in the US saw a small gain of approximately 20,000 addresses. In addition to the United States, Brazil, France and Russia saw nominal increases in unique IPv4 address counts, while the remaining six countries saw unique IPv4 address counts slightly decline from the second quarter. Fifty-eight percent of countries saw a quarter-over-quarter increase in unique IPv4 address counts, with 28 countries/regions growing by 10 percent or more.
Cable and wireless providers continued to drive the number of IPv6 requests made to Akamai, many of which are leading the way for IPv6 adoption in their respective countries. Verizon Wireless and Brutele saw more than half of their requests to Akamai made over IPv6, with Telenet close behind. In the third quarter, 54 countries/regions qualified in the mobile section. South Korea continued to have the highest average mobile connection speed, growing from 15.2 Mbps to 18.2 Mbps in the third quarter, Iran had the lowest average mobile connection speed at 0.9 Mbps, and was the only qualifying country with an average speed below 1 Mbps. Slovakia joined South Korea above the 10 Mbps "high broadband" threshold at 10.9 Mbps.
Average peak mobile connection speeds again spanned an extremely broad range in the third quarter, from 98 Mbps in Singapore down to 3.3 Mbps in Iran. Nine countries/regions had average peak mobile connection speeds above 50 Mbps, while another 40 saw speeds above 10 Mbps.
The report also examines the percentage of connections to Akamai from mobile network providers at "broadband " speeds (more than 4 Mbps). In the third quarter, Sweden moved ahead of Denmark for the top position at an adoption rate of 94 percent, whereas Iran, Paraguay, Croatia and Vietnam all had mobile broadband adoption rates below 1 percent in the quarter.
