Average internet connection speeds up by 26 percent globally

  10 Mar 2017 , 11:28

Global average internet connection speed has increased 12 percent to 7.0Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2016 — a 26 percent increase year-over-year, a new report said on Thursday.

According to the “2016 State of the Internet Report” by global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services Akamai Technologies, South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 26.1Mbps in the fourth quarter.

On the average internet speed in India, the report says that the country made rapid strides on this front. The fourth quarter of 2016 saw internet speeds rising to 5.6Mbps, up from 4.1Mbps last quarter. However despite the major jump India continues to remain at the bottom.

Globally, the 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 as per the report.

“When Akamai first published the report in 2008, we defined ‘high broadband’ as 5Mbps and above, which nine years ago had an adoption rate of 16% globally. We’re now seeing a 15Mbps adoption rate of 25 percent worldwide,” said David Belson, editor of the report.

The report provided insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics and notable internet disruptions, among others.

At 26.7 Mbps, the district of Columbia led the United States in average connection speed.

Global 4, 10, 15 and 25Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 15 percent, 31 percent, 37 percent and 45 percent year over year, respectively.

IANS

Trai needs to move beyond 512kbps, and overcome FUP and QoS barriers

Representational Image : Reuters

By Nimish Sawant /  03 Nov 2016 , 17:15

Trai released a directive which mandates all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to ensure that customers get a minimum download speed of 512Kbps, even after the fair usage policy (FUP) limit is up. Mind you, this is not an update to the minimum broadband speed, which is still 512Kbps, according to a July 2013 order.

TRAI Direction 31102016 BBPA by Tech2 on Scribd

Yes. I too did a double take when I read ‘kilobits per second’ and ‘minimum download speed’ in the same line. In 2016. The directive to ensure ISPs and TSPs inform users via SMS or email, when their data limit reaches 50, 90 and 100 percent, is laudable. But having an unlimited plan with an unreliable 512kbps speed hardly serves any purpose. The talks of raising the minimum broadband speed to 2 Mbps has still not gone anywhere.

For a country with the second largest number of Internet users, internet speeds are still being measured in kilobits per second in 2016.

India is second largest internet consumer in APAC region, but has the lowest speeds. Figures indicate millions of users (Image: Statista)

FUP in India is a joke

Let’s get one thing out of the way. FUP limits in India are a joke. FUP, that dreaded policy which lets ISPs and TSPs either cut off or downgrade your internet speeds after you have crossed a certain data limit ceiling, is universally hated and more so in India.

This means, that my ‘Unlimited’ 2Mbps plan will switch to 512Kbps after I have exhausted 16GB data within a month. Despite Trai’s paper on transparency surrounding FUP limits, a lot of ISPs still continue to