The global average internet speed grows by 23%

The recent quarterly State of the Internet Report of Akamai has revealed that the Global average connection speeds have risen by as much as 23% year over year to 6.3 Mbps in the first quarter of this year. The report also indicated a raised 8.5 percent of users which now have the broadband connectivity of at least 25 Mbps.

The report further mentioned that 138 countries experienced an increase in average connection speeds year over year and 8 countries saw their average connection speeds decrease year over year. The highest loss of internet speed incurred to Syria, a decline of 23 percent forced the speed to 1.4 Mbps.

The data revealed the exponential increase in speed up gradation with percentages in double digits, for at least the top 10 countries. Globally the adoption of speeds, 25 Mbps and greater, had user percentage of 8.5 percent showing an increase of 86 percent.

The mobile traffic statistics indicated that the Mobile voice traffic almost remained constant while the Mobile data showed an exponential rise. Average mobile internet speed ranged from 27.9 Mbps in the UK to 2.2 Mbps in Algeria.

The average internet speed in Pakistan was reported at 2.5 Mbps while the average peak internet speed was clocked at 16 Mbps and about 4.8% pf people had a 4 Mbps broadband as compared to the global penetration of 73 percent. About 8.5% people worldwide have broadband connectivity of 25 Mbps which is greater than the percentage of Pakistani people with 4Mbps broadband. About 0.1% Pakistanis use broadband of 15 Mbps or greater.

It is evident that although the world has been putting off every limit of internet speeds, Pakistan is significantly lagging behind. As per a recent report, it was brought forward that the 3G/4G subscriber growth rate has hit second lowest of past 10 months in Pakistan which appears to be in close conformity with the findings of this report. The 3G/4G auction was indeed a breakthrough but more of such encouraging and progressing initiatives are direly needed.