Akamai Releases Second Quarter 2012 'State of the Internet' Report

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Oct 17, 2012, 06:30 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Industry numbers show imminent global exhaustion of IPv4 addresses
Akamai identifies 460 times increase in IPv6 requests over its platform from June 2011 – June 2012
During the quarter, approximately 38 percent of observed attack traffic originated in the Asia Pacific/Oceania region; 36 percent from Europe; 23 percent from North and South America
Among top countries ranked by average measured connection speed, Japan experienced largest year-over-year percentage growth (21 percent)
U.S. experienced 76 percent year-over-year growth in number of connections at high broadband levels (greater than 10 Mbps)

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released its Second Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as Internet penetration, mobile connection speeds, origins of attack traffic, and global and regional connection speeds.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100225/AKAMAILOGO )

Featured analysis in the Second Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report also includes an examination of mobile browser usage by network connection type collected via Akamai IO. In addition, the report provides a review of recent Internet disruptions in China and Syria measured using pertinent traffic patterns across the Akamai Intelligent Platform.

Highlights from Akamai's 2012 second quarter report:

Global Internet Penetration
More than 665 million IPv4 addresses from 242 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform during the second quarter of 2012. The figure represents a 10 percent increase year over year. Given that a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases, Akamai estimates the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.

Of the top 10 countries with the most unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, Brazil experienced the largest growth, increasing 12 percent quarter over quarter, and 40 percent year over year.

Industry data, though, indicates that IPv4 addresses are rapidly being exhausted. RIPE, the European Internet registry, recently announced that it was down to its final block (~16 million) of IPv4 addresses, and ARIN, the regional Internet registry for the Americas, announced that it only had three blocks remaining.

With an IPv6 footprint in more than 50 countries, Akamai helped enable businesses that elected to participate in the Internet Society's June 6^th, 2012 "World IPv6 Launch" make their content available over IPv6. IPv6 traffic on the Akamai Intelligent Platform grew significantly in the second quarter as customers of all sizes IPv6-enabled their Web sites ahead of the launch.

Attack Traffic and Top Ports Attacked
Akamai maintains a distributed set of agents deployed across the Internet that monitor attack traffic. Based on data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks.

Akamai observed attack traffic from 188 unique countries/regions during the second quarter of 2012. This was up from 182 in the first quarter, with China remaining the single largest volume source of observed traffic at 16 percent. The U.S. experienced a slight increase in originated attack traffic while staying in second place with 12 percent. Turkey rounded out the top three with a slight increase in the second quarter to 7.6 percent.

Nine out of the top 10 countries remained consistent, with the exception of Italy displacing Germany from the list. South Korea saw the most significant decrease in attack traffic originations among the top 10, dropping from 4.3 percent in the first quarter of 2012 to 2.1 percent this quarter.

The concentration of observed attack traffic targeting the top 10 ports dropped to 62 percent in the second quarter from 77 percent in the first quarter. The decline is largely attributable to fewer attacks against Port 445 after an unusually large increase in the first quarter. Port 445 was the single-most targeted in the second quarter, accounting for 32 percent of observed attack traffic.

Global Average and Peak Connection Speeds
The global average connection speed increased 13 percent to 3.0 Mbps from the first to second quarters of 2012, continuing a trend of strong growth. South Korea continued to have the highest average connection speed at 14.2 Mbps for the quarter. Japan was second at 10.7 Mbps and Hong Kong was third at 8.9 Mbps.

Only two of the top 10 countries saw an increase in average connection speed during the second quarter, with Switzerland and the Czech Republic rising 4.0 percent to 8.4 Mbps and 0.7 percent to 7.2 Mbps, respectively. The remaining eight countries experienced declines ranging between 0.5 percent in Denmark to 9.8 percent in South Korea.

The most significant quarter-over-quarter increase in average connection speed was in Kenya, which rose 227 percent to 1.8 Mbps. The most dramatic decline occurred in Cote D'Ivoire, where the average connection speed dropped 29 percent to 0.4 Mbps.

Year-over-year trends remained generally positive, with global average connection speeds increasing by 15 percent, including growth in seven out of the top 10 countries.

The global average peak connection speed grew 44 percent year over year, including increases of 10 percent or more across all of the top 10 countries. Worldwide, 126 countries saw increases, six of which grew in excess of 100 percent between the second quarters of 2011 and 2012. In contrast, only eight countries saw year-over-year declines.

Mobile Connectivity
The fastest mobile average connection speed in the second quarter of 2012 was 7.5 Mbps, delivered by a mobile provider in Russia. Six mobile providers had average connection speeds in the broadband (4 Mbps or better) range and 67 had average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps during the quarter.

The fastest mobile average peak connection speed for the quarter came from a provider in the U.K. at 44.4 Mbps. Five providers had average mobile peak connection speeds over 20 Mbps and an additional 33 providers exceeded 10 Mbps. All mobile providers had average peak speeds above 2 Mbps.

Mobile browser data from Akamai IO for the month of June shows approximately 38 percent of requests on cellular networks came from Android Webkit. Some 33 percent came from Mobile Safari; 23 percent from Opera Mini; and about 4 percent from Blackberry. The pattern changes when all networks (not just cellular) are included, with Mobile Safari accounting for an average of approximately 60 percent of requests. Android Webkit represented about 23 percent. All remaining mobile browsers were significantly lower. The information suggests that Android-powered devices are used more frequently on cellular networks, while iOS devices account for the bulk of WiFi usage.

About the Akamai State of the Internet report
Each quarter, Akamai publishes a "State of the Internet" report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.

To download the figures from the Second Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report, please visit http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q212_figures.zip.

About Akamai
Akamai^® is the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere. At the core of the Company's solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.