Akamai Releases Inaugural "State of the Internet" Report

Quarterly report provides insight into key Internet statistics such as origin of attack traffic, network outages and broadband connectivity levels

CAMBRIDGE, MA.- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced the release of its inaugural “State of the Internet” report available for download at www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.

Beginning with the January to March 2008 time period (first quarter), Akamai will be publishing a quarterly “State of the Internet” report extrapolated from data gathered across Akamai’s global server network. This report will include data on the origins of attack traffic, network outages and de-peering events, as well as a look at broadband connectivity by geography. In addition to providing a quarterly summary, Akamai will document trends seen in this data over time.

Akamai’s report will also aggregate publicly available news and information about notable events seen throughout the quarter, including Denial of Service attacks, Web site hacks, and network events.

During the first quarter of 2008, for example, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 125 unique countries around the world. China and the United States were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for some 30 percent of this traffic in total. Akamai observed attack traffic targeted at 23 unique network ports. Many of the ports that saw the highest levels of attack traffic were targeted by worms, viruses, and bots that spread across the Internet several years ago.

A number of major network “events” occurred during the first quarter that impacted millions of Internet users. At the end of January, undersea cable cuts in the Mediterranean Sea severed Internet connectivity between the Middle East and Europe, drastically slowing communications. De-peering events between major networks impacted Internet communications for selected Internet users in the United States and Europe for a two-week period. A routing change by a telecommunications provider spread across the Internet resulting in a popular Internet video sharing site to go offline for several hours.

Akamai also observed that, from a global perspective, South Korea had the highest measured levels of “high broadband” (5 Mbps) connectivity. In the United States, Delaware topped the list, with over 60 percent of connections to Akamai occurring at 5 Mbps or greater. At the other end of the bandwidth spectrum, Rwanda and the Solomon Islands topped the list of slowest countries, with 95 percent or more of the connections to Akamai from both countries occurring at below 256 Kbps. In the United States, Washington State and Virginia turned in the highest percentages of sub-256 Kbps connections. However, in contrast to the international measurements, these states only saw 21 and 18 percent of connections below 256 Kbps respectively.

“Akamai is in a unique position to provide an in-depth look at the current state of the Internet and illuminate emerging trends,” said Brad Rinklin, vice president of marketing, Akamai. “Our hope is that this report will serve as a key indicator on important developments with the Internet, and provide guidance to companies launching initiatives that leverage the Internet as a primary delivery mechanism.”

Akamai is planning to release its second quarter “State of the Internet” report in August.