The global average internet connection speed increased 12% sequentially to 7Mbps in the fourth quarter, a 26% increase year over year, according to Akamai.
The CDN provider's latest State of the Internet report indicates that South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 26.1Mbps in the fourth quarter.
Internet connection speeds continued to show positive long-term trends around the world, the report states, with particularly strong gains across all broadband adoption metrics - global 4Mbps, 10Mbps, 15Mbps and 25Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 15%, 31%, 37% and 45% year over year, respectively.
“When Akamai first published the report in 2008, we defined ‘high broadband’ as 5Mbps and above, which nine years ago had an adoption rate of 16% globally,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.
“We’re now seeing a 15Mbps adoption rate of 25% worldwide. The upward trends are encouraging as businesses create and deliver even richer experiences for bigger audiences across the internet, but accentuate the need for organizations to optimize those experiences for the myriad connected devices their customers are using.”
Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 26.8Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.9Mbps in Venezuela.
Among the qualifying surveyed countries/regions, 30 had an average mobile connection speed at or exceeding the 10Mbps broadband threshold (up from 24 in the previous quarter), while 58 achieved average speeds at or above the 4Mbps broadband level (up from 52).
The quarter also saw a series of disruptions, including technical issues at the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) which were blamed for a sudden drop in traffic to the country in December.