Three Asian markets snag world's fastest Web speeds
South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan were crowned the top three markets with the fastest Internet connections worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the latest stats from Web services vendor, Akamai.
In its quarterly State of the Internet report released Wednesday, Akamai pegged the global average speed at 1.9Mbps (megabits per second). Its findings are based on data gathered from its global network of servers.
The Web company noted that South Korea, despite a 3 percent decline in speed compared to the previous quarter, remained at the top position with an average online connection of 13.7Mbps. Hong Kong ranked second with an average speed of 9.4Mbps, while third-placed Japan clocked an average speed of 8.3Mbps.
| Asia-Pacific average connection speeds | ||
| Global Rank | Economy | Average Mbps |
| 1 | South Korea | 13.7 |
| 2 | Hong Kong | 9.4 |
| 3 | Japan | 8.3 |
| 19 | Taiwan | 4.8 |
| 39 | New Zealand | 3.4 |
| 45 | Singapore | 3.1 |
| 51 | Australia | 3.0 |
| 56 | Thailand | 2.7 |
| 105 | Malaysia | 1.3 |
| 123 | Philippines | 1.0 |
| 129 | China | 1.0 |
| 143 | India | 0.8 |
The three Asian economies also dominated rankings of the Top 100 cities with the fastest Internet connections, where 60 cities were located in Japan and 16 in South Korea.
In contrast, the United States was at number 14 with an average of 5.1Mbps and only eight U.S. cities were included in the Top 100 list.
Among the 12 Asia-Pacific economies studied, only seven saw increased broadband adoption quarter-over-quarter, according to the report. Malaysia and the Philippines registered growth rates of more than 10 percent, while other Asian markets saw "more modest" growth. Among those which saw quarter-over-quarter growth declines in terms of broadband adoption, India and Thailand "suffered the most significant losses" at 17 percent and 15 percent, respectively, said Akamai.
Apart from collating Internet speeds of different cities, the company also monitored security attacks and determined that such traffic originated from 207 unique markets. Two Asian markets, Taiwan and China, emerged second and No. 4, respectively, among the Top 5 sources of security attacks which saw Russia at pole position, Brazil in third and the U.S. at No. 5.
Attacks targeted at Microsoft-DS Port 445 made up a majority of observed attacks, accounting for 47 percent of overall attack traffic.
Akamai also highlighted that fourth quarter 2010 saw more distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against its customers than the first three quarters combined.
In terms of attack traffic from mobile networks, Malaysia and China ranked No. 5 and No. 6, accounting for 5.7 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively, of overall attacks from such networks. Italy led the group here, followed by Chile, the United Kingdom and Poland.
Quoting security vendor McAfee, Akamai said mobile device malware will likely continue to increase in the future due to the growth of smartphones, mobile applications and app stores.