India’s average Internet speed continues to be one of the slowest among countries in the Asia-Pacific region, that were part of the study conducted by content delivery network Akamai Technologies for its Q1 2015 State of the Internet report. The country came in second worst for the second quarter in the row with an average connection speed of 2.3 Mbps, higher than 2 Mbps last quarter, and marginally higher than the last standing Indonesia with 2.2 Mbps.

The report is based on data collected by Akamai’s Intelligent Platform across several metrics. This report provides insight into internet connection speeds, broadband adoption rates, mobile connectivity, and attack traffic.

Overall India’s average internet speed grew by 11% QoQ and 31% YoY, and ranked 115th globally. South Korea continued to have the fastest average connection speed in the region and globally at 23.5 Mbps followed by Hong Kong at 16.7 Mbps (3rd globally) and Japan at 15.2 Mbps (6th globally). Singapore and Taiwan were the other two countries in the region with average connection speeds above 10 Mbps.

As we have mentioned time and again, the 2 Mbps average internet speed appears to be too high for India, as the TRAI defines broadband as internet connections above 512 Kbps. Keeping this in mind 2 Mbps average speed in India is practically impossible. However, the possible reason for this bloated number is perhaps the fact that for the study Akamai only takes into consideration data gathered from its Intelligent Platform.

Akamai’s definition of broadband internet on the other hand, is internet connections with speeds above 4 Mbps. In Q1 2015, India had 9.9% connections above the 4 Mbps threshold, an increase from 72% from last quarter and 101% YoY. India was the second lowest ranked country in the Asia-Pacific region with the global rank 99, with only Indonesia doing worse in the APAC region with a 6.0% adoption rate.

High speed broadband adoption:

Akamai defines broadband connections with speeds over 10 Mbps as high-speed broadband. The adoption of high speed broadband in India stood at 1.8%, a 60% increase QoQ and 135% increase YoY. As of now, the country ranks 68th internationally, with some Asian countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and, surprisingly, China lagging behind India.

In South Korea, 77% of the internet connections were above the 10 Mbps mark, while 96% were above the 4 Mbps mark. Japan and Hong Kong also had an impressive adoption rate with 56% and 60% of the connections in each country above 10 Mbps, and 89% and 92% above 4 Mbps respectively.

Mobile speeds:

In the first quarter of 2015, India registered an average mobile internet speed of 2.8 Mbps, higher than its average broadband speeds. The peak speeds with reference to mobile data stood at 15.9 Mbps with around 19% of the connections experiencing speeds over 4 Mbps.

4K readiness:

There is a growing demand for 4K (Ultra HD) video content globally and even in India, given that 4K TVs are available for as cheap as Rs 37,000. According to Akamai, 10-20 Mbps bandwidth is the minimum speed required for seamless streaming of 4K videos. The 4K readiness metric tries to determine which countries or regions already have that capability.

South Korea ranked first by this metric, with 58% 4K readiness, followed by Hong Kong and Japan at 39% and 33% respectively. In India the 4k readiness increased 112% YoY and stood at 0.6%, an increase of 66% from last quarter.

Attack Traffic:

This time around, Akamai published a separate security report which it claims includes data previously published by Prolexic in its DDoS attack report. This time around India stands 6th with reference to origin of attack traffic globally. China continues to be the biggest source of attack traffic overall internationally, with 23.45% of attack traffic originating in the country, followed by Germany, the source of 17.39% of attack traffic and USA with 12.18% of attack traffic.

Downloads:

State of the Internet report (pdf) & State of Internet security report (pdf)

Also read:

– India loses slowest average Internet speed crown to Indonesia: Akamai

– India continues to have the slowest internet speeds in Asia-Pacific: Akamai

– Updated: Average Internet speed in India is 2 Mbps; Still the slowest in Asia-Pacific: Akamai