Malaysia sees 56% y-o-y growth in average connection speed: Akamai report

• Malaysia achieved a triple digit y-o-y jump of 786% in 15 Mbps broadband adoption
• The average connection speed in the country was 8.2Mbps in Q4 2016

AKAMAI Technologies, Inc on March 9 released its Fourth Quarter, 2016 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, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

“Internet connection speeds continued to show positive long-term trends around the world, with particularly strong year-over-year increases across all broadband adoption metrics,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.

“When Akamai first published the report in 2008, we defined ‘high broadband’ as 5 Mbps and above, which nine years ago had an adoption rate of 16% globally. We’re now seeing a 15 Mbps 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 organisations to optimise those experiences for the myriad connected devices their customers are using.”

The Asia Pacific is a hot spot for digital growth. And while there are notable differences in broadband usage, high-speed mobile connectivity and networks from country to country, there has been, in 2016, positive connectivity growth across the region, with some countries showing particularly strong growth.

In fact, as a region, there continues to be positive long term trends, with four of the top ten countries in the world for 10 Mbps broadband adoption all found in the Asia Pacific.

Malaysia highlights

In line with the Malaysian government’s initiative to grow the country into a global digital hub and develop a digital economy, Akamai Technologies noted a 56% year-over-year growth in average connection speed in the country.

Malaysia enjoyed a 69% rate of 4 Mbps broadband adoption, a hike of 0.7% compared with the last quarter, and a 25% in quarter-over-quarter gain in 10 Mbps broadband adoption (IPv4).

Malaysia achieved a triple digit year-on-year jump of 786% in 15 Mbps broadband adoption (IPv4). This trend was noticed across the board in the Asia Pacific - with eight countries more than doubling their adoption levels compared with the preceding year.

The average connection speed for Malaysia was 8.2 Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2016, showing a 56% year on year improvement.

At 8.2 Mbps, Malaysia’s connection speed is ahead of Sri Lanka (7.3), Indonesia (6.7), China (6.3), and India (5.6) Philippines (4.5).

Singapore highlights

Singapore is well placed to tap the economic benefits the digital economy brings with its solid Internet Infrastructure and network readiness.

According to Akamai, Singapore ranks third in the Asia Pacific and eighth globally with an average connection speed of 20.2 Mbps, an 11% increase from the previous quarter.

Year-on-year, Singapore's growth in average connection speed of 45% is also significantly higher than the global average of 26%.

Furthermore, the Republic sees promising high-speed broadband adoption rate, recording the largest yearly increase of 62% in 15 Mbps adoption and a whopping 202% yearly increase in 25 Mbps adoption among the top 10 countries in the world.

 As the Singapore government commits to help organisations including SMEs to adopt and embrace digital technologies, a reliable Internet infrastructure will be one of the underpinning elements to enable local businesses to reach out easily to the world to expand their markets and reap benefits.

Other highlights from Akamai’s report:

Global average connection speeds and global broadband adoption

• Global average connection speed increased 12% to 7.0 Mbps in the fourth quarter, a 26% increase year over year.
• South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 26.1 Mbps in the fourth quarter.
• At 26.7 Mbps, the District of Columbia led the United States in average connection speed.
• Global 4, 10, 15 and 25 Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 15%, 31%, 37% and 45% year over year, respectively.

IPv4 and IPv6

• In the fourth quarter of 2016, nearly 807 million unique IPv4 addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, which is a 0.4% decrease as compared to the fourth quarter of 2015.
• There was significantly less IPv4 allocation/assignment activity in the fourth quarter, with 6.4 million addresses allocated/assigned versus 16 million in the third quarter.
• With 47% percent of its content requests to Akamai coming over IPv6, Belgium maintained its significant global lead in IPv6 adoption with a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase.

Mobile

• Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 26.8 Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.9 Mbps in Venezuela.
• Among the qualifying surveyed countries/regions, 30 had an average mobile connection speed at or exceeding the 10 Mbps broadband threshold (up from 24 in the previous quarter), while 58 achieved average speeds at or above the 4 Mbps broadband level (up from 52). 

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