Quarterly Akamai, an Internet performance management company, releases reports detailing worldwide Internet connection statistics. Akamai gathers data over a global server network and releases country-by-country statistics based on variables like peak connection speed, high and low broadband adoption, average connection speed, and statistics on possible Internet attacks.
I have written about the geographic distribution of Internet speed, both nationally and internationally before (Link to http://www.plumvoice.com/blog/the-internet-worldwide), but the figures just released update the previous data and show some sweeping changes from just a little over a month ago.
Akamai tracked web traffic originating from 192 unique countries around the world. According to ReadWrite Web, Taiwan was the top attack traffic source with about 10% of total attack traffic originating from the country. Burma (Myanmar) and the United States held the second and third places.
How about the places most rapidly acquiring high-speed broadband connections? Last time around South Korea won the title, but this time The Netherlands comes in first in terms of high-speed broadband connectivity per capita. Interestingly enough Hong Kong, South Korea, Belgium, Latvia, Japan, Czech Republic, Romania, Denmark, and Switzerland round out the top ten countries claiming the highest percentage and frequency of high-speed broadband connections. For everyone wondering, the US places thirteenth on the list.
In the US, Rhode Island usurped the fastest connection speed title from Delaware to become number one. Delaware came in second followed by DC, Utah, Vermont, California, New Hampshire, Virginia, Washington, and New York. Aside from Utah, whose connectivity increased on both the quarter and the year, the highest Internet speeds are primarily found on the coasts. In terms of city by city breakdown, 6 of the top 10 cities with the fastest connection speeds are in California, and more than that, in Northern California.
In terms of global connectivity worldwide, the US doesn’t even crack the top ten cities. A majority of the top ten are Japanese cities punctuated by an occasional South Korean city. A huge number of cities with the fastest connectivity are in Asia, and the US’s first mention comes in at 29th with San Jose, CA. However, the inclusion of San Jose might be skewed owing to the fact that the city is located smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley and much of the connectivity in the city is due to a network of pipelines powering large tech companies as opposed to personal high speed Internet connections.
Much like the last report, this report on the global status of the Internet shows that the Asian and European countries have managed to establish the highest functioning, reliable wireless networks as part of their infrastructure countrywide. This could be because they occupy a smaller amount of physical surface area, making connectivity by proximity much easier to achieve, but it also shows that the U S is lagging when it comes to establishing tech infrastructure, and has room for improvement in terms of technology distribution.
