Average Internet speed in India is 1Mbps. Really?

The average Internet connection speed in India was 1Mbps in the Jan-March quarter, a growth of 16 per cent quarter-over-quarter. And, though the country registered an increase in average speed, it still ranks 112th globally, according to Akamai's First Quarter 2012 'State of the Internet' report The country's year-over-year growth in average internet speed grew more than 20 per cent, however, lagged far behind other Asia Pacific countries like South Korea (15.7Mbps) and Japan (10.9Mbps).

The peak internet speed in the country stood at 6.9Mbps, far behind global leader Hong Kong's 49.3Mbps.

Beginning with this report, Akamai has redefined the terms 'broadband' and 'high broadband', with the revised definition of 'broadband' now more in line with speed targets set out by the United States, China and the European Commission. Broadband connections are now defined as 4 Mbps or greater, while high broadband now includes those connections to the Akamai Intelligent Platform at 10 Mbps or greater.

Only 1.2 per cent, of connections in India have a speed of over 4Mbps, the new standard for broadband. This, however, represents an 85 per cent increase in adoption rate in broadband speed.

Taking this new definition into consideration, global adoption of high broadband reached 10 percent, up 19 percent quarter-over-quarter. Among the top 10 countries for high broadband adoption, South Korea topped the list with 53 percent penetration.  Japan (37 per cent), Hong Kong (28 per cent), Latvia (26 per cent) and the Netherlands (24 per cent) rounded out the top five.   The other key findings are:

Global Average and Peak Connection Speeds:

When it comes to average connection speeds, all of the top 10 countries experienced positive year-over-year changes in average connection speeds. Globally, a total of 125 countries experienced year-over-year increases and only 10 countries that qualified for inclusion saw declines in connection speeds.  The global average connection speed in the first quarter was 2.6 Mbps.

Once again, South Korea (15.7 Mbps) featured the fastest average connection speed. Countries/regions rounding out the top 5 included Japan (10.9 Mbps), Hong Kong (9.3 Mbps), the Netherlands (8.8 Mbps) and Latvia (8.8 Mbps).

Year-over-year, the global average peak connection speed increased by 25 percent, and increases were also seen across all of the top 10 countries.  Globally, nearly 130 qualifying countries saw year-over-year increases in average connection speeds, ranging from 3.8 percent growth in Pakistan (to 5.9 Mbps) to a 213 percent jump in Libya (to 3.8 Mbps). Only five countries saw a yearly decline in average peak connection speed, with the greatest loss in Tanzania, which dropped 21 percent (to 5.1 Mbps).

In the first quarter, Hong Kong took the top spot for average peak connection speed (49.3 Mbps), dropping South Korea (47.8) to second place. The remaining top 5 included Japan (39.5 Mbps), Romania (38.8 Mbps) and Latvia (33.5 Mbps).

Mobile Connection Speeds

In the first quarter of 2012 Akamai found that a mobile provider in Germany delivered the fastest average connection speed at slightly less than 6 Mbps. Of all mobile operators tracked, five had an average connection speed of greater than 4 Mbps, while 65 mobile operators had average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps.  Only three providers had average connection speeds below 500 kbps.

When looking at peak connection speeds for the mobile providers worldwide for which Akamai analyzed data, a provider in Hong Kong offered the highest average peak connection speed of 32.2 Mbps. A German provider came in a close second at 31.2 Mbps. Overall, six mobile operators had average peak connection speeds of greater than 20 Mbps – double the number of the previous quarter.  31 providers had average peak connection speeds above 10 Mbps and all providers had average peak connection speeds above 2 Mbps.

Global Internet Penetration

More than 666 million unique IP addresses from 238 countries and regions around the world connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform in the first quarter of 2012. This represents a six percent increase when compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 and almost a 14 percent increase versus the first quarter of 2011.

The unique IP address count across the top 10 connecting countries represented nearly 66 percent of the global figure, a concentration level approximately one percent lower than in the fourth quarter of 2011. When looking at year-over-year changes in IP address connections, China, Brazil, Italy, and Russia all once again maintained growth rates in excess of 20 percent.

Following the World IPv6 Launch in June, where a number of organizations permanently “turned on” IPv6 support for their web sites, Akamai anticipates beginning to see a greater number of IPv6 connections.  This will also be driven by providers rolling out native IPv6 connectivity to their subscribers, and greater availability of popular content over IPv6.