Akamai’s “Third Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report,” states that global average Internet speeds increased 21% year over year during the quarter, and peak speeds increased 16% year over year.  The report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation, and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in the data over time.  Here are a few highlights by category:

Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Adoption:

• Global average connection speed increased 2.3% to 6.3 Mbps in the third quarter, a 21% increase year over year.
• South Korea had the highest average connection speed at 26.3 Mbps in the third quarter.
• US lags far behind, ranking No. 16 with average connection speed of 15.3 Mbps, a 7.7% rise from the prior quarter.
• Global average peak connection speed increased 3.4% to 37.2 Mbps in the third quarter, rising 16% year over year.
• Singapore had the highest average peak connection speed at 162 Mbps in the third quarter.
• Global 10 Mbps broadband adoption rate rose 5.4% quarter over quarter, and 15 Mbps and 25 Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 6.5% and 5.3%, respectively.
• Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 23.7 Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.2 Mbps in Venezuela.

IPv4 and IPv6:

• The number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform was just over 806 million, which is 0.7% more than the second quarter of 2016.
• Belgium remained the clear global leader in IPv6 adoption with 39% of its connections to Akamai occurring over IPv6, up 3.3% from the previous quarter.
• Cable and wireless/mobile providers continued to drive the largest volumes of IPv6 requests, with Comcast, AT&T and Verizon Wireless topping the list with 44%, 43% and 80% of their requests to Akamai being made over IPv6 in their regions, respectively.