The Internet of Things is boosting connection speeds and broadband adoption across fixed and mobile networks, as consumers demand more connected devices.
According to cloud firm Akamai’s ‘Third Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report’, the global average connection speed remained above the 4Mbps threshold, despite a 2.8% decline to 4.5Mbp in the third quarter of 2014.
"One need only look to the sheer number of connected device- and smart home-related announcements that came out of the 2015 International CES to see that consumers are continuing to adopt and expect more from connected technology and services," said David Belson, editor of the report.
"The strong year-over-year growth trends illustrated in this quarter’s report show that the Internet is evolving and expanding to meet the growing demands of our increasingly connected lifestyles."
On a country-by-country basis, Singapore saw the largest quarter-by-quarter growth growing 18% to 12.2Mbps, while the least growth was in Japan, up 0.8% to 15Mbps from the second quarter.
In addition to Singapore and Japan, the eight other countries in the top 10 included South Korea (25.3 Mbps), Hong Kong (16.3 Mbps), Switzerland (14.5 Mbps), Sweden (14.1 Mbps), the Netherlands (14 Mbps), Ireland (13.9 Mbps), Latvia (13.4 Mbps) and Czech Republic (12.3 Mbps).
The global average peak connection speed also saw a slight decline in the third quarter, dropping 2.3% to 24.8 Mbps. This was partly driven by countries among the top 10 that saw average peak connection speeds decline compared to the previous year. Hong Kong had the highest average peak connection speed at 84.6 Mbps, followed closely by Singapore with 83 Mbps.
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However, all 10 countries saw significant increases in average peak connection speeds compared to the previous year. Uruguay led the group with a year-over-year change of 334%, and Luxembourg saw speeds more than double.
The report also revealed that the adoption rates of global high broadband, which is defined as 10Mbps or more, fell 0.5% in the third quarter.
On a year-over-year change, the global high broadband adoption rate was up 22%, which was lower than the 65% increases seen in both the first and second quarters of this year.
Akamai’s report also detailed that 790 million unique IPv4 addresses from 246 countries connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform – a 0.3% increase when compared with the previous quarter and 3.9% more than in the third quarter of 2013.
