Global connection speed increased 23% yoy to 2.1Mbps

And cities in Asia reported the fastest internet connection in the world.

According to a release, Akamai Technologies, Inc., a provider of cloud optimization services, released its 1st Quarter, 2011 State of the Internet report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Internet platform, which carries between 15-30 percent of the world’s Web traffic at any one time, the report provides insight into key global Internet statistics such as the world’s fastest and slowest regions for connection speed, origins of attack traffic and thehighest-performing geographies for mobile connectivity.

Highlights from Akamai's 2011 first quarter report:
Internet Penetration
In the first quarter of 2011, more than 584 million unique IP addresses from 237 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Internet platform. This represents 5.2 percent more IP addresses than connected in the fourth quarter of 2010, and an increase of 20 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Consistent with last quarter’s report, the top ten countries/regions accounted for nearly 70 percent of the total IP addresses, indicating that the majority of the world’s unique IP addresses are concentrated within a proportionally small number of geographies. This report welcomed Italy into the top ten with its 11 percent quarter-over-quarter growth and saw Canada drop out of the top ten.

Mobile Consumption & Connectivity
In the first quarter of 2011, the average measured connection speed for known mobile providers worldwide ranged from a high of slightly more than 6 Mbps to a low of 163 kbps. The report also identifies a service provider from Poland delivering the highest average mobile connection speed in the first quarter 2011, bumping last quarter’s fastest provider from Greece to the number two spot.

Consumption figures indicate that during Q1 2011, users at seven percent of the surveyed mobile providers consumed an average of 1 GB per month from Akamai’s platform. Users at 73 percent of surveyed providers consumed an average of 100 MB of content fromAkamai, and users on the remaining 20 percent of providers consumed less than 100 MB.

As a result of Akamai’s recently announced partnership with Ericsson, the report now includes data collected by the equipment provider. Overall mobile data traffic, as measured by Ericsson, experienced 130 percent yearly growth in the first quarter, and is now more than double thevolume of voice traffic.

100 Fastest Cities Worldwide
In the first quarter of 2011, analysis of the top 100 fastest cities around the world, based on average connection speeds, reflected the following:

Cities in Asia dominate the list, including 61 cities in Japan, five cities in South Korea, and Hong Kong.
Lyse, Norway is the fastest city in Europe (#33 out of 100)
18 U.S. cities made the list, with Riverside, CA ranking as the fastest U.S. city (#39 out of 100)

Getting Away from Narrowband
Looking at the world’s narrowband connections (connections to Akamai at speeds slower than 256 kbps), the report shows global adoption of narrowband decreased by 15 percent in the first quarter 2011. Only 3.3 percent of all connections to Akamai were made at narrowband speeds. France led with the lowest narrowband adoption rate of .3 percent.