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A comprehensive report on the global Internet by Akamai Technologies, Inc. presents a mixed picture of Internet progress.
Akamai's "First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report" reveals that global average connection speeds and global broadband connectivity have indeed gotten faster. The report also found out that Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have decreased.
It also said that China was again responsible for originating the most number of "attack traffic" on the Internet.
Based in the U.S., Akamai is a provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications.
Akamai said the global average connection speed rose 1.8% in Q1. This extended its steady growth over recent quarters while year-on-year trends remained positive with a 13% increase.
However, the global average peak connection speeds fell 8.6% in Q1.
The global average connection speed stood at 3.9 megabits per second or Mbps as of Q1 and is expected to exceed 4 Mbps in Q2.
Global average connection speeds year-on-year improved by 24% with increases in all but seven countries/regions.
Nine of the top 10 countries/regions saw increases in average connection speeds. This included an 8% jump for first place South Korea (23.6 Mbps) compared to second place Japan (14.6 Mbps).
Of the top 10 countries, only the Czech Republic saw a drop in average connection speed, remaining in eighth place with a 1.9% drop.
A total of 43 qualifying countries/regions saw quarter-over-quarter increases in their average peak connection speeds, while 92 qualifying countries/regions saw declines.
Since the first quarter of 2013, global average peak connection speeds have increased 13%. Yearly growth rates among the top 10 countries/regions ranged from 0.3% in Hong Kong (66 Mbps) to a huge 206% in Uruguay (45.4 Mbps).
Global high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption rates in the first quarter improved by 9.4% quarter-over-quarter, climbing above the 20% mark for the first time, to 21%.
All of the countries/regions in the top 10 had high broadband adoption rates of 30%, with South Korea (77%), Japan (54%) and Switzerland (45%) topping the list. The year-over-year growth rate was 65%, with six of the top 10 countries/regions seeing increases of 50% or more.
The global broadband (>4 Mbps) adoption rate grew a nominal 1.7% from the fourth quarter of 2013 to reach 56% in the first quarter of 2014.
Of the countries/regions that qualified, 76 had higher broadband adoption rates this quarter - growth ranged from 0.2% in Canada (82% adoption) to 1,208% in Sudan (21% adoption).
"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 report author.
"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."
Globally, 11% of connections were at speeds of 15 Mbps or above in Q1. Seven of the top 10 countries/regions on the 4K readiness list overlapped with those on the global high broadband connectivity list.
South Korea led with 60% 4K readiness while Japan had 32% of its connections at that level in the first quarter. Of the top 10, the Czech Republic had the lowest level of 4K readiness with 17%. Overall, 47 countries/regions qualified for inclusion.
Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 194 unique countries/regions or six more than the fourth quarter of 2013. China was again responsible for originating the most attacks, but dropped slightly from 43% in the fourth quarter of 2013 to 41% in the first quarter of 2014.
The United States followed in second place, but also saw a decline from 19% to 11%. Indonesia saw a slight uptick from 5.7% to 6.8% for third place.
Overall, the concentration of attacks fell significantly as compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, with the top 10 countries/regions originating 75% of observed attacks, down from 88% in the prior quarter.
Mobile Connectivity In the first quarter of 2014, average mobile connection speeds ranged from 1.0 Mbps in Argentina to 14.7 Mbps in South Korea.
