Akamai: Global average internet speeds have doubled since last Olympics

With the Summer Olympics in Rio fast approaching, Akamai pointed out that global average and average peak internet connections have more than doubled since the previous Games in London.

In its latest State of the Internet report, Akamai said that global average connection speed increased 12 percent quarterly to 6.3 Mbps, a figure which also represented a 23 percent annual increase. Global average peak connections rose 6.8 percent quarterly to 34.7 Mbps, good enough for a 14 percent annual increase. And global broadband adoption of speeds including 10, 15 and 25 Mbps were all up significantly over the year-ago quarter.

Among other advantages, improved internet speeds means better video experiences for streaming service users.

"Global average and average peak connections are now more than double those seen at the time of the England 2012 summer games," said David Belson, senior director of industry and data intelligence for Akamai, in the report. "This means that these streams can be encoded at a higher bit rate, resulting in higher-quality video, and that more users have internet connections capable of consuming these high-quality streams of their favorite events."

Belson added that many viewers will likely be using smartphones and tablets as second or even third screens during the Games in order to watch multiple event simultaneously, a prediction that correlates with Akamai's findings on mobile connection speeds.

Overall, the report said that global average mobile connection speeds have increased over the previous quarters, though wide gaps remain between the countries with the fastest mobile speeds and the ones with the slowest. The United Kingdom topped Akamai's study with an average mobile connection speed of 27.9 Mbps, while Algeria had the slowest average mobile speed of 2.2 Mbps.

In North America, the United States scored an average mobile connection speed of 5.1 Mbps during the first quarter, well behind Canada's average of 8.8 Mbps.

For more:
- read the report

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