CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 25, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai
Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in content
delivery network (CDN) services, today released its Fourth
Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report. Based on data
gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides
insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds and
broadband adoption across fixed and mobile networks, overall attack
traffic, global 4K readiness, and IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6
implementation.
The report also includes insights into several high-profile
security vulnerabilities, including Poodle, UPnP attacks, DNS
flooders and Yummba Webinject.
Data and graphics from the Fourth Quarter, 2014 State of the
Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the
Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for
iOS and Android devices. State of the Internet Report
discussions are also taking place on the Akamai Community.
"Over the course of 2014, we've seen healthy global growth
across all of our key metrics for Internet connectivity, broadband
adoption and 4K readiness," said David
Belson, editor of the report. "The positive trends make an
interesting contrast to a recent study that found 4.4 billion
people around the world do not go online, indicating a strong need
for continued efforts to improve and deploy Internet infrastructure
globally."
Highlights from Akamai's Fourth Quarter, 2014 State of the
Internet Report:
Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband
Connectivity
For the third consecutive quarter, the global
average connection speed remained above the 4 Mbps "broadband"
threshold, increasing a nominal 0.7% to 4.5 Mbps.
Quarterly global average connection speed changes were mixed
across the top 10 countries/regions, with six seeing increases,
three seeing decreases and Switzerland (14.5 Mbps) remaining unchanged.
Among the regions/countries where average connection speeds grew
quarter-over-quarter, the largest increase was seen in Sweden (14.6 Mbps), with a modest 3.5% gain.
Globally, a total of 98 qualifying countries/regions saw average
connection speeds increase in the fourth quarter, with growth rates
ranging from 78% in Nepal (2.5
Mbps) down to a meager 0.1% in the Czech
Republic (12.3 Mbps). The average connection speed increased
20% globally year-over-year with increases seen in 132 qualifying
countries, including growth rates ranging from 0.3% in Morocco (2.4 Mbps) to 146% in Congo (1.3 Mbps).
Similar to the average connection speed, the global average peak
connection speed increased slightly in the fourth quarter by 8.4%
to 26.9 Mbps. Hong Kong again had
the highest average peak connection speed at 87.7 Mbps, but all of
the top 10 saw average peak speeds greater than 60 Mbps. On a
global basis, 114 out of 142 qualifying countries/regions
experienced average peak connection speed increases from the third
quarter, with growth ranging from 0.1% in Slovenia (39.3 Mbps) to 90% in Congo (10 Mbps). One hundred six qualifying
countries/regions' average peak connection speeds increased from
the fourth quarter of 2013.
Global high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption rates increased
2.9% in the fourth quarter, after a slight decline in the third
quarter. South Korea's 79% high
broadband adoption rate remained far ahead of second-place
Hong Kong with a 60% adoption
rate. Among the 65 qualifying countries/regions that qualify for
this metric, 42 saw quarter-over-quarter increases, ranging from
Norway's 1% bump to 35% high
broadband adoption up to Qatar's
significant 282% jump to 20% adoption. Only China saw a year-over-year decline in high
broadband adoption, dropping a surprising 37% to a 1.1% adoption
rate. Across the 63 qualifying geographies, yearly increases ranged
from 8% in Austria (26.4%
adoption) to a massive 2,000% in Qatar (20% adoption).
The global broadband (>4 Mbps) adoption rate decreased
slightly in the fourth quarter, losing 0.7% to 59% adoption. One
hundred four countries/regions qualified for inclusion for this
metric, 76 of which saw quarterly growth in broadband adoption
rates. Bulgaria had the highest
level of broadband adoption in the fourth quarter at 96%, just
edging out last quarter's leader South
Korea, which experienced a 0.1% decline in its adoption
rate. Quarter-over-quarter increases ranged from 0.2% in
Switzerland (93% adoption) to 186%
in Nepal (17% adoption). The
global broadband adoption rate increased 7.8% from the fourth
quarter of 2013, slower than the 12% seen in the previous quarter,
continuing the downward trend of yearly growth rates that has been
observed over the last several quarters.
4K Readiness
Following the introduction of "4K
Readiness" in the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet
Report, Akamai continues to identify candidate geographies that
are most likely to sustain connection speeds above 15 Mbps, as
Ultra HD adaptive bitrate streams typically require bandwidth
between 10 and 20 Mbps. The findings do not account for other
"readiness" factors, including availability of 4K-encoded content
or 4K-capable televisions and media players.
In total, 55 countries/regions qualified for inclusion this
quarter, and 12% of the global connections were at or above the 15
Mbps threshold. While quarter-over-quarter readiness increased by
only 0.6%, it grew year-over-year by 37%. South Korea remained the country at the
highest level of 4K readiness, with two-thirds of its connections
to Akamai at or above 15 Mbps.
Attack Traffic and Security
Akamai maintains a
distributed set of unadvertised agents deployed across the Internet
to log connection attempts that the company classifies as attack
traffic. Based on the 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. It
is important to note, however, that the originating country as
identified by the source IP address may not represent the nation in
which an attacker resides.
In the fourth quarter of 2014, Akamai observed attack traffic
originating from 199 unique countries/regions. As seen in previous
reports, China once again remained
well ahead of the other countries/regions (41%), originating more
than three times the observed attack traffic than the U.S. (13%),
which saw an approximate 20% quarter-over-quarter decline, back
down to second-quarter levels. China and the U.S. were again the only two
countries to originate more than 10% of observed traffic during the
fourth quarter – the remaining countries/regions were all below 5%.
Germany (1.8%) and Hong Kong (1.3%) joined the top 10 this
quarter, pushing out Indonesia and
Venezuela, while India was the only remaining top-10 country to
see observed traffic percentages decline, dropping slightly from
2.9% in the third quarter to 2.4%.
The overall concentration of observed attack traffic decreased
once again, with the top 10 countries/regions originating 75% of
observed attacks, down from 84% and 82% in the second and third
quarters, respectively. The majority of attack traffic continued to
originate from the Asia Pacific
region (59%). Europe had the next
highest concentration of observed attack traffic at 19%, up
significantly from 11% the previous quarter, while the lowest
volume (1%) originated from Africa.
In total, attack traffic targeting the top 10 ports comprised
79% of all observed attack traffic in the fourth quarter, a
substantial increase from 38% in the previous quarter. Port 23
(Telnet) remained the most popular target in the fourth quarter,
accounting for 32% of observed attacks, a significant increase to
more than 2.5 times previous levels. In addition, all other ports
in the top 10 increased their percentages, with significant
increases for Ports 445 (Microsoft-DS), 8080 (HTTP Alternate), 3389
(Microsoft Terminal services) and 22 (SSH).
Reported Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack
Traffic
In addition to observations on attack traffic, the
State of the Internet Report includes insight into DDoS
attacks based on reports from Akamai's customers. Customers
reported 327 attacks during the fourth quarter of 2014, an increase
of more than 20% over the third quarter. The Commerce and
Enterprise segments again accounted for the majority of attacks,
while all industries except Enterprise saw increases in attacks
from the third to fourth quarter.
During the fourth quarter Akamai saw increased attacks in all
regions, with the Americas experiencing the majority of the growth,
with 35% more reported attacks than the previous quarter (177). The
Asia Pacific region saw a 17%
quarterly increase in the number of attacks at 98, while
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) experienced marginally greater
growth at 18% with 52 attacks.
IPv4 and IPv6
In the fourth quarter of 2014, nearly
803 million unique IPv4 addresses, from 239 unique
countries/regions, connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform.
This is 1.5% more than in the third quarter of 2014, and 2.5% more
than in the same quarter last year. The number of unique IPv4
addresses seen globally by Akamai grew by about 12 million quarter
over quarter. Among the top 10 countries in the fourth quarter, the
unique IP count in the U.S. was the only one to decline, showing a
3.4% loss compared to the previous quarter. The United Kingdom and South Korea showed the largest gains, at 8.1%
and 6.6%, respectively. Seventy percent of countries/regions across
the globe had higher unique IPv4 address counts year-over-year. In
all, 27 countries saw yearly growth rates above 50%, while three
countries saw IPv4 address counts decline more than 50%.
Norway saw an 88%
quarter-over-quarter jump in IPv6 traffic, although Belgium remains in the lead with 32% of
content requests made over IPv6, more than double that of
second-place Germany. As seen in
previous quarters, cable and wireless providers continued to drive
the number of IPv6 requests made to Akamai, many of which are
leading the way for IPv6 adoption in their respective countries.
Verizon Wireless and Brutele saw more than half of their requests
to Akamai made over IPv6, with Telenet close behind.
Mobile Connectivity
In the Fourth Quarter, 2014
State of the Internet Report, 50 countries/regions qualified
for inclusion in the mobile section. The United Kingdom had the fastest average
connection speed at 16.0 Mbps. The next closest country,
Denmark, had just over half that
speed, at 8.8 Mbps. New Caledonia
had the lowest average mobile connection speed at 1.0 Mbps.
As seen in previous reports, average peak mobile connection
speeds again spanned an extremely broad range in the fourth
quarter, from 157.3 Mbps in Singapore down to 7.5 Mbps in Argentina. Japan (116.3 Mbps) and Australia (129.9 Mbps) were the only two
countries in addition to Singapore
to see average peak speeds above 100 Mbps, and only Turkey (69.1 Mbps) and the United Kingdom (61.8 Mbps) had speeds above 50
Mbps.
The report also examines the percentage of connections to Akamai
from mobile network providers at "broadband" speeds (more than 4
Mbps). In the fourth quarter, Venezuela, Denmark, Saudi
Arabia and Sweden led the
pack, each with a tremendous 97% level of mobile broadband
adoption. Bolivia and New Caledonia both had adoption rates below
1%.
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. For
additional information on the metrics in the report and how they
are analyzed, please visit http://akamai.me/sotimetrics. To learn
more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit
http://www.stateoftheinternet.com/soti-reports. To download the
figures from the Fourth Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet
Report, please visit:
http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q414_figures.zip.
About Akamai
As the global leader in Content Delivery
Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable
and secure for its customers. The company's advanced web
performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery
solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer,
enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere.
To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are
helping businesses move faster forward, please visit
www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on
Twitter.
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Tom Barth
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Media
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617-444-2987
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617-274-7130
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tbarth@akamai.com
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.