Akamai's "State of the Internet" report indicates growing Internet penetration in India

Bangalore, Nov 26 (Business Wire India):Akamai Technologies, Inc. the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced the release of the third edition of its quarterly "State of the Internet" report available for download at www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.

Leveraging published reports and information available on its network, Akamai's quarterly report provides insight into key Internet statistics such as origin of attack traffic, network outages and broadband connectivity levels across the globe. As the Company's third published edition, the report also now provides a quarter-over-quarter view into trends.

Insights on India:

-- India ranked No. 20 in terms of number of observed IP addresses with 2.6 million connections. In Q3, the growth in IP addresses was 23 per cent

- In comparison, China had 38 million and Unites States had 109 million unique IPs, while being ranked at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively

-- India ranks a low No. 153 in terms of number of IP addresses per capita, with 2.3 unique IPs per thousand people

- In comparison, China had 30 unique IPs per thousand people and United States had 360 unique IPs per thousand people, while being ranked at No. 94 and No. 6 respectively

-- The percentage of Internet connections from India with speeds above 256 Kbps was at 74per cent, indicating gradual shift from dial-up speeds to high speed connectivity

-- The percentage of Internet connections from India with speeds above 2 Mbps was at 5 per cent, growing 16 per centcompared to Q2

- In comparison, China had 4.3 per cent connections above 2 Mbps and United States had 64 per cent connections above 2 Mbps

-- India ranked 12th in terms of global attack traffic origination in Q3, contributing 1.6 per cent to observed global attack traffic - last quarter India was ranked at 15th

Commenting on the report, Sanjay Singh, Managing Director - India, Akamai Technologies, said, "During the third quarter of 2008, Akamai observed web-traffic originating from 179 unique countries around the world. Our global network of 40,000 servers across 70 countries enables us to offer unique insight into how the Internet is being leveraged around the world. In Q3, we saw 23 per cent growth in terms of new IPs from India. This increase may be attributable to more people turning to the World Wide Web for news and video content related to the Beijing Olympic Games, which took place in August. We also noted a gradual improvement in terms of IP per capita which increased to 2.3 unique IPs per 1,000 people, and believe India is moving in the right direction and is poised for significant growth in Internet adoption in the coming years."

Global connectivity saw big advances in the third quarter, with various undersea cable projects getting underway or nearing completion, the commercial launch of WiMAX services in a number of countries, and the announcement of fiber-to-the-premises services that will bring gigabit-speed connections to subscribers in Japan, the Ukraine, and the Netherlands.

Regarding global connection speeds, South Korea had the highest levels of high broadband connectivity for the third straight quarter. In the United States, Delaware also maintained its top position, with 55 per cent of connections to Akamai occurring at 5 Mbps or greater. Looking at observed "narrowband" connections, Mayotte and Equatorial Guinea were the "slowest" countries, with 97 per cent and 94 per cent of connections to Akamai, respectively, occurring at speeds below 256 Kbps.

Akamai's unique level of visibility into the connection speeds of systems issuing requests to the Akamai network has created a one-of-a-kind view into broadband adoption around the globe. Leveraging that data, Akamai's quarterly "State of the Internet" report identifies both the countries and U.S. states with the fastest and slowest average connection speeds exhibited by IP addresses originating from those respective geographies.

ANI