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Australia's average connection speed up 39 percent YoY: Akamai

Akamai Technologies' First Quarter 2014 State of the Internet Report showed that Australia's average connection speed reached 6.0Mbps during the first quarter of 2014.
Written by Aimee Chanthadavong, Contributor

Australia has yet to crack the top 40 countries in terms of average connection speeds for the first quarter of 2014, according to Akamai Technologies' First Quarter 2014 State of the Internet Report, but has finally crawled over the 6Mbps barrier.

The country's average connection speeds during Q1 2014 was 6.0 megabits pers second (Mbps), representing a 2.6 percent increase quarter-over-quarter. On a year-on-year basis, the average connection speeds in Australia saw an increase of 39 percent.

In comparison, the global average connection speeds was at 3.9Mbps at the end of the quarter, up 1.8 percent from the previous quarter.

This put Australia in 42nd position globally in terms of average connection speeds, up two positions from Q4 2013.

Leading the pack in average connection speeds continues to be South Korea at 23.6Mbps that saw an 8 percent jump during the quarter. It leads Japan, coming in second place, by 9Mbps.

In terms of broadband connectivity adoption, the report showed that Australia ranked 49th position, down five positions from the previous quarter. Broadband coonnectivity adoption was recorded at 55 percent, a 3.3 percent increase quarter-on-quarter, while year-on-year changes there was a 70 percent increase compared to the same period in 2013.

Akamai defines broadband as connectivity above 4Mbps.

Meanwhile, global high broadband adoption rates in the first quarter improved by 9.4 percent quarter-over-quarter, climbing above the 20 percent mark for the first time to 21 percent. Once again, South Korea led with 77 percent, followed by Japan at 54 percent.

"While there continues to be room for improvement in high broadband adoption and average peak connection speeds in some areas of the world, the trends we're seeing remain very positive," said David Belson, the author of the report.

"Steady year-over-year growth suggests that a strong, global foundation is being built for the enjoyment of next generation content and services like 4K video and increasingly connected homes and offices, and that connectivity will continue to evolve to support the growing demands these emerging technologies will place on the internet."

The report also examines the 4K readiness of countries and regions based on connections above 15Mbps, and how capable their connectivity is of streaming 4K content. For example, Australia ranked 34th position globally and the percentage of connectivity recorded about 15Mbps was 4.4 percent, up 17 percent quarter-on-quarter. Year-on-year changes saw a 154 percent increase in Australia compared to the same period in 2013. Akamai said only 11 percent of global connections were 4K ready.

Akamai has also been able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. During the first quarter of 2014, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from source IP addresses in 194 unique countries/regions went by up six from the previous quarter. China was in the top slot responsible for 41 percent of observed attack traffic, this volume is down slightly from the prior quarter, followed by the US that also saw a decline from 19 percent to 11 percent.

Meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region continued to be the second-most popular region to attack at 31 percent. Australia saw a 0.2 percent of attack traffic and New Zealand experienced less than 0.1 percent. However, Akamai noted that even though its customers reported being targeted by 283 DDoS attacks, there was nearly a 20 percent decrease from the previous quarter.

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