Global average connection speeds increased 12 percent from the fourth quarter of 2015 to 6.3 Mbps, according to Akamai Technologies’ “First Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report,” which was just released. That’s a 23 percent increase year over year.
Akamai further notes that global average peak connection speed increased 6.8 percent to 34.7 Mbps in the first quarter, rising 14 percent year over year. Global 10 Mbps, 15 Mbps and 25 Mbps broadband adoption also grew significantly in the first quarter of 2016, according to the report, posting year over year gains of 10 percent, 14 percent and 19 percent, respectively.
“Live sports will be at the forefront this summer as we prepare for the games in Brazil, with expectations that this year’s events will be watched by more online viewers than ever,” David Belson, editor of report, observes. “Global connection speeds have more than doubled since the summer of 2012, which can help support higher quality video streaming for bigger audiences across even more connected devices and platforms.”
On the IPv6 front, the number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform reportedly declined 0.2 percent to 808 million. Belgium still tops the global leader IPv6 adoption list with 36 percent of its connections to Akamai occurring over IPv6, down 3.1 percent from the previous quarter.