Akamai: global average speed of Internet access increased by 14% this year and rises up to 5.1 Mbit/s.

The findings of Akamai State of the Internet Report indicate that global average connection speed in the third quarter of 2015 increased by 14% (compared to the same period of previous year) and reached a value of 5.1 Mbit / s. At the same time it was found that only 5.2% of users have a broadband connection to the Internet at a speed of 25 Mbit / s.

According to the report, 126 countries were reported to increase the average speed of Internet access compared to the previous year. Minimum increase is fixed at 0.2% in Japan. In Congo, by contrast, there was a very substantial increase in the speed of access to the Internet, speed increase reached 147%. In 19 countries, the average speed of Internet access has decreased over the year – by 0.6% (up to 1.8 Mbit / s) in Namibia to 64% (up to 1.3 Mbit / s) in Sudan.

The following table lists 10 countries / regions where there is the highest average speed of Internet access. The table presents data of the third quarter of 2015 and relative changes compared to the previous quarter and the third quarter of the previous year, with South Koreans boast the highest average access speed.

It should be noted, in January, US Federal Communications Commission has made changes in the definition of the threshold of a broadband connection. Previously this value was 4 Mbit / s for downloading data, now it threshold went up to 25 Mbit / s. Accordingly Akamai uses this value to refer to the concept of “broadband”. Thus, in the world there are only 5.2% of the users having a broadband connection, which is 15% increase during compared to 2014. The best broadband connection is in South Korea, where 24% of users have high-speed Internet access.

The following table shows 10 countries with the highest prevalence of broadband Internet access.

If we consider the old threshold of broadband (4 Mbit / s), then the total spread of such access exceeded 65% of users, with yearly increase of 9.8%. Internet access speed of more than 10 Mbit / s is now available for 27% of global users, which is 19% of increase compared to 2014. Internet access speed of more than 15 Mbit / s is available for 15% of global users, an increase of 21% compared to 2014.