Akamai Announces First Quarter 2009 State of The Internet Report

* Akamai observed a nearly five percent increase (from the fourth quarter 2008) globally in the number of unique IP addresses connecting to its network
* Japan unseated South Korea for the highest levels of “high broadband” (more than 5 Mbps) connectivity
* The inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama drove record levels of streaming and HTTP traffic across the Internet, and impacted usage of online retail, messaging, and search sites


CAMBRIDGE, MA . - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leader in powering rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced the release of the first quarter 2009 edition of its quarterly State of the Internet report available for download at www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet. Leveraging information gathered from its network and published reports, Akamai’s quarterly report provides insight into key Internet statistics such as origin of attack traffic, network and Web site outages and Internet connectivity levels across the globe.

Some highlights from the report follow.

Attack Traffic
During the first quarter of 2009, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 68 unique countries around the world. The United States and China were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for nearly 50% of observed traffic in total. The top 10 ports saw approximately 90% of the observed attack traffic, with more two-thirds of the traffic likely related to the Conficker worm.

Connectivity
A number of new submarine cable projects were announced or deployed in the first quarter that are expected ultimately to improve Internet connectivity for countries in Africa, Europe, South America and the Caribbean, and Oceania. New WiMAX projects and deployments will bring broadband wireless connectivity to countries in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. Fiber-to-the-home efforts announced in the first quarter will benefit users in New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Latvia, Scotland, and England.

The first quarter also saw nominal advances in IPv6 adoption, including seven more country-level domains enabling their DNS servers for IPv6. In the United States, and countries around the globe, “stimulus funding” was allocated in the first quarter to help improve broadband availability in rural areas.

Broadband Connectivity
Through its globally-deployed server network, and by virtue of the billions of requests for Web content that it services on a daily basis, Akamai has developed a unique level of visibility into the connection speeds of those systems issuing the requests, and as such, of broadband adoption around the globe. Akamai observed a nearly five percent increase (from the fourth quarter of 2008) globally in the number of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai’s network.

Current highlights and historical trends for average connection speeds on a global basis can be found in Akamai’s data visualization tool, available at http://www.akamai.com/dv5. In the first quarter of 2009, one-fifth of the Internet connections around the world were at speeds of greater than 5 Mbps, a 5 percent increase from the prior quarter, and a nearly 30 percent increase over the same period last year. Globally, the average connection speed increased by approximately 11 percent, growing to 1.7 Mbps, and more than 120 countries had connection speeds under 1 Mbps.

Fastest Global Countries
From a global connection speed perspective, Japan unseated South Korea for the highest levels of “high broadband” (more than 5 Mbps) connectivity, though South Korea maintained the highest average connection speed, at 11 Mbps. For the first time since publishing the State of the Internet report in the first quarter of 2008, South Korea no longer had the largest percentage of connections to Akamai at speeds above 5 Mbps, with a significant 25% decline. Akamai also saw fewer unique IP addresses from South Korea during the first quarter, along with a lower average connection speed. The first place spot was taken by Japan, with 57% of connections to Akamai at high broadband levels. Nearly a third of Japan’s connections to Akamai are at speeds between 5-10 Mbps. Sweden showed a similar percentage of connections between 5-10 Mbps, while other countries in the top 10 saw levels below 30 percent.

Fastest U.S. States
Continuing the trend established throughout 2008, the East Coast of the United States continued to lead the country in the greatest level of broadband connectivity, with 8 of the top 10 states on the list. Delaware maintained its top position, with 62% of connections to Akamai occurring at 5 Mbps or greater, and the highest average connection speed in the United States, at 7.2 Mbps. Maine has nearly quadrupled its percentage of high broadband connections to Akamai since the first quarter of 2008.

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. To learn more, and to access the archive of past reports, please visit www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.