Australia maintains APAC's highest peak mobile speeds: Akamai

Australia registered the highest peak mobile connection speeds in the Asia Pacific region for the second quarter, according to Akamai's Second Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report, as it did for the prior three month period.

Based on data gathered from Akamai itself, the report said Australia recorded peak mobile speeds of 171.2Mbps and was one of only five countries globally to achieve peak mobile speeds above 100Mbps, along with Germany, Israel, Thailand, and the UAE.

Globally, Australia sits at 56th for average peak connection speeds (IPv4) at 51.1Mbps, a 16 percent quarter-on-quarter increase and a 24 percent increase year-on-year; while its average connection speeds in Q2 put it 51st globally, down from 48th in Q1 but showing a 6.8 percent year-on-year increase.

For Q2 adoption of broadband speeds above 15Mbps, Australia remained 46th globally with a percentage of 9.7, but registered a 33 percent increase year-on-year.

Australian fixed-line broadband again saw the least growth in the APAC region, with an average speed for the quarter of 8.5Mbps, up 6.8 percent year on year and ranked 51st globally. This was down from last quarter's 8.8Mbps. Australia also had a peak speed of 51.1Mbps, up 24 percent year on year and ranked 56th, the same position as last quarter.

Australia's 171.2Mbps peak mobile speed was followed in the APAC region by 127.7Mbps in Thailand, 105.1Mbps in the Philippines, 97.7Mbps in New Zealand, 93.2Mbps in Japan, 67.6Mbps in South Korea, 61.3Mbps in Singapore, and 50.3Mbps in Hong Kong. On average mobile speeds, Australia's 8.9Mbps came after South Korea's 11.1Mbps, Japan's 9.5Mbps, and New Zealand's 9.7Mbps, but preceded Singapore's 8.1Mbps, Hong Kong's 5.7Mbps, and Thailand's 5.8Mbps.

Ahead of Australia on average speeds were South Korea, up 17 percent year on year to 27Mbps; Hong Kong, up 15 percent to 19.5Mbps; Japan, up 5.1 percent to 17.1Mbps; Singapore, up 27 percent to 17.2Mbps; Taiwan, up 51 percent to 15.6Mbps; Thailand, up 63 percent to 13.7Mbps; and New Zealand, up 26 percent to 10.6Mbps.

On peak fixed-line speeds, Australia lagged behind Singapore, which was up by 44 percent year on year to 157.3Mbps; Hong Kong, up 21 percent to 114.3Mbps; South Korea, up 33 percent to 110.1Mbps; Japan, up 14 percent to 85.3Mbps; Taiwan, up 23 percent to 88.8Mbps; Thailand, up 42 percent to 77.6Mbps; New Zealand, up 32 percent to 53.8Mbps. Indonesia saw a peak speeds of 91.9Mbps, a year-on-year change of 355 percent, but down from last quarter's 110.2Mbps.

Akamai said Australia's high average peak mobile connection speeds are likely due to proxies/gateways in the mobile networks, making those speeds more reflective of the speeds between those boxes and Akamai, rather than the mobile devices and Akamai.

David Belson, editor of Akamai's State of the Internet Report, previously told ZDNet that Australia's mobile speeds can be attributed to both the high uptake of 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks, and the way in which Akamai records mobile speeds.

"My recollection is that there's strong LTE deployment down there, and I believe that there's even some initial LTE-Advanced deployment among one or more of the carriers. LTE-Advanced has a much higher bandwidth capability, so it's likely that the Australian providers are leveraging the advanced LTE capabilities to provide the higher signal connections."

Within the other global regions, the highest average peak mobile connection speeds for the Americas, Europe, and Middle East/Africa were respectively in Peru at 72.1Mbps; Germany, at 172.8Mbps; and Israel, at 136Mbps.

"The continued increase in average connection speeds is a reassuring trend as online retailers prepare for the busy holiday shopping season," Belson said today. "However, recent internet disruptions caused by everything from government-ordered blackouts to a lone monkey sparking a widespread outage are reminders of the many factors that can affect access to and use of the internet."

Telstra made the top 20 network providers using IPv6 globally in terms of traffic volume with 6.5 percent of requests, Comcast led the pack by volume with 46 percent of traffic using IPv6, followed by fellow US ISPs AT&T at 43 percent, Time Warner with 21 percent, Verizon recorded the highest IPv6 traffic percentage at 74 percent, and Cox at 24 percent.