Akamai: Akamai State of the Internet Report Spotlights Latest Global Speed and Attack Trends from Fixed and Mobile Internet Connections

• The Netherlands achieves the highest percentage of connections in the 5-10 Mbps speed range in the world
• Average mobile connection speeds for providers in Germany more than double
• Constanta, Romania, ranked as fastest European city

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, today announced the release of its 3rd Quarter, 2010 State of the Internet report available for download at www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet. Leveraging information gathered from its global server network, the Akamai report provides insight into key Internet statistics such as broadband adoption, mobile connectivity, and attack traffic, as well as trends over time.

European Highlights from Akamai's quarterly report follow: 

Internet Penetration

In the third quarter of 2010, over 533 million unique IP addresses, from 235 countries/regions, connected to the Akamai network – 20% more than the same quarter a year ago. The Top 10 regions/countries, which account for around 70% of the globally observed IP addresses, again demonstrated strong yearly growth. Spain (ranked #10) achieved 15% year-on-year growth, followed by the UK (ranked #6) up 12%. Germany (ranked #4) saw 5.9% growth, while France (ranked #5) was up 9.9% year-on-year.

Average Connection Speeds

Overall, average connection speeds in Europe continued to increase and strong double-digit percentage changes were seen in the year-on-year figures for Romania (12%), Netherlands (14%), and Latvia (27%).

Of the six European countries ranked in the Top 10 regions/countries, Romania once again led the way with an average connection speed of 7.0 Mbps, followed by the Netherlands (6.3 Mbps), Latvia (6.0 Mbps), Czech Republic (5.4 Mbps), Switzerland (5.3 Mbps), and Denmark (5.0 Mbps).

Average Peak Connection Speeds

European average peak connection speeds (indicative of Internet connection capacity) leapt ahead this quarter. Strikingly, Romania was just one of four countries/regions around the world to achieve average peak connection speeds of 30 Mbps or more – ranking alongside South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. Monaco (23 Mbps) and Latvia (23 Mbps) increased 65% and 64% respectively compared to the same period last year, while Portugal (19 Mbps) and Belgium (20 Mbps) increased their average peak connection speeds in excess of 40%. Sweden (19 Mbps) achieved the most modest year-on-year increase at just under 4%.

Broadband Connectivity

European “high broadband” (>5 Mbps) adoption rates continued to show consistent growth. Five European countries appear in the Top 10 region/country high broadband connectivity ranking. In Romania 50% of connections are now at speeds greater than 5 Mbps, followed by the Netherlands (49%), Latvia (42%), Denmark (35%) and Belgium (35%).

Globally, the Netherlands had the highest percentage of connections to Akamai in the 5-10 Mbps speed category.

100 Fastest Cities Worldwide

Akamai again examined the average measured connection speeds of cities around the world. Cities in Asia overwhelming dominated the list, accounting for three-quarters of the list, with Taegu, South Korea holding the top spot with an average connection speed of 18.3 Mbps.

Reviewing the Top 100 fastest cities around the world in the third quarter of 2010 reveals:

• Constanta, Romania ranked as the fastest city in Europe (#48out of 100), overtaking Umea, Sweden which previously held the top slot
• In total ten European cities made the list (four from the Netherlands, three from Romania, and one each from France, Germany, and Norway)
• The average peak connection speeds for the top European cities ranged from 39.2 Mbps (Constanta, Romania) to 26.9 Mbps (Coimbra, Portugal)

Attack Traffic

The United States was the top source of observed attack traffic, followed by Russia; together these countries accounted for just over 20% of observed attack traffic. However, the aggregated continental figures reveal Europe was again responsible for the highest percentage (35%) of observed attacks in the third quarter (down from 39% in the second quarter).

In regard to attack traffic from mobile providers, Italy remained in the top spot (28%) while the UK saw the largest quarterly increase (nearly 80%) in observed traffic from known mobile network providers.

Mobile Connectivity and Consumption

A mobile provider in Russia took the top spot for the highest average connection speed among the world’s mobile networks, reaching nearly 6 Mbps, while a mobile provider in Slovakia once again topped the average peak connection speed ranking at nearly 23 Mbps (up 2.5 Mbps from the second quarter).

During the quarter, average mobile connection speeds for providers in Germany more than doubled.

Globally, average data consumption experienced by mobile providers grew during the third quarter, with providers in Slovakia, Germany, France and Austria experiencing users who consumed on average more than one gigabyte (1 GB) of content from Akamai each month.

UK Highlights

• The UK was 2nd in the originating mobile attack traffic list, accounting for 11% of traffic. It also had the largest quarter on quarter increase at just under 80%
• The UK’s Internet Penetration has had a 12% year on year increase to 21,665,959 unique IP addresses being observed by the Akamai network. This is a 8.1% increase in the last quarter
• No UK city features in the global top 100 average broadband connection speed table
• The average UK connection speed is 4Mbps, with 85% of connections achieving 2Mbps or more. 17% achieved connections above 5Mbps.

About the Akamai State of the Internet report

Akamai's unique level of visibility into the connection speeds of systems issuing requests to the Akamai network has created a one-of-a-kind view into broadband adoption around the globe. Leveraging that data, Akamai's quarterly State of the Internet report identifies both the countries and U.S. states with the fastest and slowest average connection speeds exhibited by IP addresses originating from those respective geographies. To learn more, and to access the archive of past reports, please visitwww.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet. 

To download the figures from the Q3 2010 State of the Internet, please visit:http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti_q310_figures.zip.

For additional information about the report, Akamai is hosting an interactive State of the Internet webinar on January 26, 2011 at 8:00 am ET and again at 1:00 pm ET. Details can be found at:http://www.akamai.com/html/misc/soti_webinar.html

About Akamai 

Akamai® provides market-leading, cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure e-commerce. Combining highly-distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai's global platform is transforming the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate. To learn how the world's leading enterprises are optimizing their business in the cloud, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter. 

For information:

Duncan Gurney
Ascendant Communications
dgurney@ascendcomms.net