Tag Archives: IPv6

Opinion

Global Connection Speeds and Broadband Adoption Trending Upward; Belgium Leads On IPv6, According to Akamai ‘First Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report’

[news release] Akamai Technologies, Inc., the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services, today released its First Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

Akamai Technologies logoData and graphics from the First Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for iOS and Android devices. State of the Internet Report-related discussions are also taking place on the Akamai Community.

“Live sports will be at the forefront this summer as we prepare for the games in Brazil, with expectations that this year’s events will be watched by more online viewers than ever,” said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report. “Global connection speeds have more than doubled since the summer of 2012, which can help support higher quality video streaming for bigger audiences across even more connected devices and platforms.”

Highlights from Akamai’s First Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report:

Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Connectivity

  • Global average connection speed increased 12% from the fourth quarter of 2015 to 6.3 Mbps, a 23% increase year over year.
  • Global average peak connection speed increased 6.8% to 34.7 Mbps in the first quarter, rising 14% year over year.
  • Global 10 Mbps, 15 Mbps, and 25 Mbps broadband adoption also grew significantly in the first quarter of 2016, posting year over year gains of 10%, 14% and 19% at each threshold, respectively.

IPv4 and IPv6

  • The number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform declined 0.2% to 808 million.
  • Belgium remained the clear global leader in IPv6 adoption with 36% of its connections to Akamai occurring over IPv6, down 3.1% from the previous quarter.

Mobile Connectivity

  • Average mobile connection speeds ranged from a high of 27.9 Mbps in the United Kingdom to a low of 2.2 Mbps in Algeria.

About the Akamai State of the Internet Report

Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet – Connectivity” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. For additional information on the metrics in the report and how they are analyzed, please visit akamai.me/sotimetrics. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit https://www.akamai.com/us/en/our-thinking/state-of-the-internet-report/global-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-reports.jsp. To download the figures from the First Quarter, 2016 State of the Internet Report, please visit: wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q116_figures.zip.

About Akamai

As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company’s advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere. To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are helping businesses move faster forward, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

This Akamai news release was sourced from:
https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2016-press/akamai-first-quarter-2016-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report.jsp

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry, New gTLDs

Daily Wrap: .SHOP/.SHOPPING Auction Gets Weird, and Nordic Domain Days

IIS .SE Sweden logoThere is an auction coming up for the .shop and .shopping gTLDs and Domain Incite reports that it is getting “weird”.

The report notes that there are three ways the auction could play out, and it’s possible that the winning bidder(s) may not have to pay out anything in the auction.

There is reportedly a growing issue with security and DDOS attacks and IPv6 according to a report in Dark Reading. According to the report “because IPv6 occupies such a relatively small space, Internet security implementations that take it into full consideration are also lagging. This leaves a lot of networks vulnerable to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.”

Nordic Domain Days is coming in late November and will be held in Stockholm. Nordic Domain Days will be part of the long-running and very popular Internet Days (Internetdagarna) organised by IIS, the registry for .se and .nu.

There will be a focus on the interaction between registrars and registries. Representatives from more than 10 registries including .se, .no, .fi, .dk, .nu, .de, .nl, .cloud, .global and .one will be present.

Registration costs 1000 SEK (approximately €106) plus 250 SEK (VAT) and more information, along with registration, can be found here.

Opinion

ARIN Allocates Last Of North America’s IPv4 Addresses

The last of North America’s IPv4 addresses has been allocated from the “free pool”, the body responsible for allocating internet protocol addresses in North America, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) announced.There are addresses that will continue to become available, and ARIN will continue to process and approve requests for IPv4 address blocks. Those approved requests may be fulfilled via the Wait List for Unmet IPv4 Requests, or through the IPv4 Transfer Market.On the transfer market, there are reports that IPv4 addresses have been selling for $10-12 each according to IDG.But the depletion of IPv4 addresses is spurring on IPv6 adoption. The latest State of the Internet report from Akamai shows that in the second quarter of 2015 “reversing the trend seen in the first quarter, the number of unique IPv4 addresses worldwide connecting to Akamai dropped by about 8.6 million in the second quarter. Six of the top 10 countries saw a quarterly decline in unique IPv4 address counts in the second quarter, compared with three in the previous quarter.”On IPv6 growth, the report shows “European countries continued to dominate the 10 countries/regions with the largest percentage of content requests made to Akamai over IPv6 in the second quarter of 2015. Similar to previous quarters, Belgium maintained its clear lead, with 38% of content requests being made over IPv6. Switzerland (23%) saw the largest increase, enjoying a 168% jump over the previous quarter, moving into second place globally, with nearly a quarter of content requests coming over IPv6. As with the previous quarter, the only two non-European counties among the top 10 were the U.S. and Peru, both of which saw significant double-digit quarterly improvements to adoption rates of 19% and 17%, respectively.”Further, BT announced that by the end of 2016 its entire network will be able to use IPv6 according to BBC News and in India, the Kerala government has rolled out a roadmap to implement Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) across the state, reported the Financial Express.

Domain Name Registrants, Opinion

Akamai Releases Second Quarter 2015 ‘State of the Internet’ Report

  • European countries continued to dominate with largest percentage of content requests made to Akamai over IPv6
  • number of unique IPv4 addresses worldwide connecting to Akamai dropped
  • Global average connection speed increases 17% year-over-year; South Korea leads at 23.1 Mbps
  • Global average peak connection speed reaches 32.5 Mbps; up 26% year-over-year
  • Gabon, Cameroon, Nepal and Iraq experience significant Internet disruptions

Akamai Technologies logo[news release] Akamai Technologies, Inc., the global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services, today (23/9) released its Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions and IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

Data and graphics from the Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for iOS and Android devices. State of the Internet Report-related discussions are also taking place on the Akamai Community.

“We continued to see healthy increases in key connection speed metrics, particularly on a year-over-year basis,” said David Belson, editor of the report. “The improvement in connection speeds is vital as more content, not the least of which is video at increasingly higher levels of quality, is being delivered over the Internet. Ongoing progress and innovation in these areas, as evidenced in the report, will play a key role in helping address consumer demand for access to content where and when they want it.”

Highlights from Akamai’s Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report:

Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Connectivity

The global average connection speed increased 3.5% to 5.1 Mbps in the second quarter of 2015. Quarterly changes were positive for the top 10 countries/regions, with the exception of South Korea (23.1 Mbps), which decreased 2.1% from the first quarter. Japan (16.4 Mbps) saw the largest quarterly gain at 7.8%, while the remaining eight countries experienced modest gains ranging from 1.5% in Hong Kong (17.0 Mbps) to 4.6% in Switzerland (15.6 Mbps). Average connection speeds among the top 10 countries/regions all remained well above 10 Mbps and like the previous quarter, six of the 10 had average connection speeds above 15 Mbps. Globally, 110 out of 144 qualifying countries/regions saw average connection speeds increase from the previous quarter, with growth rates ranging from a modest 0.4% in Senegal (1.5 Mbps) to a substantial 67% in Tunisia (2.8 Mbps). Like last quarter, year-over-year changes were consistently positive in the top 10, except for South Korea, which declined 11% compared with the second quarter of 2014. On a global basis, the average connection speed increased 17% year over year.

In the second quarter, global average peak connection speeds increased 12% to 32.5 Mbps. Speeds increased in every top 10 country/region except Sweden (62.8 Mbps), which remained unchanged from the first quarter. Singapore (108.3 Mbps) saw the only double-digit quarterly gain, with a 12% increase, while the remaining eight countries saw increases ranging from 0.6% in Romania (72.1 Mbps) to 7.8% in Macao (62.6 Mbps). Eight of the top 10 saw average peak speeds greater than 70 Mbps, while Sweden and Macao saw speeds above 60 Mbps. On a global basis, 107 of the 143 qualifying countries/regions saw average peak connection speeds increase from the first quarter, with growth ranging from 0.1% in Trinidad and Tobago (34.9 Mbps) to 100% in Egypt (23.4 Mbps). Year-over-year all of the top 10 countries/regions saw increases in average peak connection speeds except Israel (71.4 Mbps), which posted a 14% decline.

Last quarter, the State of the Internet reported for the first time on the percentage of IP addresses connecting to Akamai at average speeds of above 25 Mbps, the new benchmark broadband speed adopted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in January 2015. Globally, 4.9% of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, a 7.5% increase over the previous quarter. Despite a 5.5% quarterly decline to a rate of 29%, South Korea again led the world in 25 Mbps broadband adoption, just as it has for all of the other broadband adoption metrics in the second quarter. Its adoption rate was nearly double that of second-place Hong Kong, which dropped 2.9% from the first quarter to 16%. Year-over-year, global 25 Mbps adoption dropped slightly, by 0.5%, in contrast to the 20% yearly growth seen in the first quarter. Two of the top 10 countries saw losses: South Korea’s adoption rate dropped 24% and Hong Kong’s declined 11%. In the United States, five states had 10% or more of unique IP addresses connect to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps.

The global percentage of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai that met the 4 Mbps broadband speed threshold increased 1.1% to 64%, with most of the top 10 countries/regions showing small changes compared to the previous quarter. Globally, 107 countries/regions qualified for inclusion for this metric, and 85 of them saw quarterly growth in 4 Mbps broadband adoption rates, down from 100 in the previous quarter. Year-over-year the percentage of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai at average speeds of at least 4 Mbps increased 8.1%, continuing the positive trend that began in the first quarter.

In the second quarter of 2015, 27% of unique IP addresses globally connected to Akamai at average speeds above 10 Mbps, an increase of 2.1% over the previous quarter. Six of the top 10 countries/regions saw quarter-over-quarter increases, ranging from Sweden’s (53% adoption) 1.3% gain to Singapore’s (50% adoption) 8.4% rise – a gain that pushed Singapore into the top 10 this quarter, just ahead of Latvia (49% adoption). Among the 71 qualifying countries/regions, 46 saw quarter-over-quarter increases, ranging from 0.2% in Malta (31% adoption) to 118% in Kazakhstan (16% adoption).

Fourteen percent of unique IP addresses globally connected to Akamai at average connection speeds of 15 Mbps or above, up 2.5% from the first quarter. Despite declining for the third quarter in a row, South Korea remained the clear leader in 15 Mbps broadband adoption at 53%, while second-place Hong Kong saw an adoption rate of 40%, a slight increase from the previous quarter. Overall, quarterly gains were seen in 35 qualifying regions/countries, compared with only 46 in the previous quarter. Year-over-year, the global 15 Mbps adoption rate grew 9.9% with gains among all of the top 10 except South Korea, where adoption rates declined 21%.

IPv4 and IPv6

Reversing the trend seen in the first quarter, the number of unique IPv4 addresses worldwide connecting to Akamai dropped by about 8.6 million in the second quarter. Six of the top 10 countries saw a quarterly decline in unique IPv4 address counts in the second quarter, compared with three in the previous quarter. Brazil saw the largest decline at 4.6%, while China saw the smallest at 1.5%. On a global basis, IP address growth was lower than in the first quarter. Roughly half of the countries/regions saw a quarter-over-quarter increase in unique IPv4 address counts, with 34 growing 10% or more. Of the countries/regions that saw unique IPv4 address counts decline, 25 lost 10% or more as compared with the previous quarter.

European countries continued to dominate the 10 countries/regions with the largest percentage of content requests made to Akamai over IPv6 in the second quarter of 2015. Similar to previous quarters, Belgium maintained its clear lead, with 38% of content requests being made over IPv6. Switzerland (23%) saw the largest increase, enjoying a 168% jump over the previous quarter, moving into second place globally, with nearly a quarter of content requests coming over IPv6. As with the previous quarter, the only two non-European counties among the top 10 were the U.S. and Peru, both of which saw significant double-digit quarterly improvements to adoption rates of 19% and 17%, respectively. Belgium’s Telenet (53%) joined Verizon Wireless (71%) and Brutele (67%) in the second quarter in seeing more than half of their requests to Akamai made over IPv6, though Verizon and Brutele’s figures were unchanged from the previous quarter.

Internet Disruptions and Events

This quarter’s report also highlights Internet disruptions and events in Gabon, Cameroon, Iraq and, most notably, those affecting Nepal as a result of the deadly April 25 earthquake. Immediately following the disaster, Akamai saw traffic to the country drop to 11% of previous levels, before recovering over the following days. A May 12 aftershock caused additional problems before traffic again returned to normal over the course of several hours.

Mobile Connectivity

The number of mobile data subscriptions is increasing rapidly, driving growth in data traffic along with a continuous increase in the average data volume per subscription. Based on traffic data collected by Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic grew by 15% between the first and second quarters of 2015, and increased 55% year-over-year.

Mobile connection speed and browser usage data are absent from this quarter’s report due to ongoing changes being made to further refine Akamai’s mobile network identification algorithms.

Ask the Expert

State of the Internet Report Editor David Belson will respond to “Ask the Expert” questions submitted via the Akamai Community Wednesday, September 23, through Friday, September 25.

About the Akamai State of the Internet Report

Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. For additional information on the metrics in the report and how they are analyzed, please visit http://akamai.me/sotimetrics. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit http://www.stateoftheinternet.com/soti-reports. To download the figures from the Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report, please visit: http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q215_figures.zip

About Akamai

As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company’s advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere. To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are helping businesses move faster forward, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

This Akamai news release was sourced from:
https://www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2015-press/akamai-releases-second-quarter-2015-state-of-the-internet-report.jsp

Opinion

North America Runs Out Of New IPv4 Addresses

The need to adopt IPv6 became a little more urgent this week when ARIN was unable to meet a request for IPv4 addresses.The request, the American Registry for Internet Numbers said, was larger than the available inventory in the regional IPv4 free pool.”If you take a smaller block, you can’t come back for more address space for 90 days,” John Curran, CEO of ARIN, told ArsTechnica. “We currently have nearly 500 small blocks remaining, but we handle 300 to 400 requests per month, [so] those remaining small blocks are going to last between two and four weeks.”ARIN allocates addresses for Canada, the USA and North Atlantic and Caribbean islands, has now joined its counterparts being unable to meet demand for IPv4 addresses. It has also seen companies willing to spend large amounts to purchase IPv4 addresses. For example, back in 2011 Microsoft paid Nortel $7.5m for 666,624 IPv4 addresses.ARIN still has limited amounts of IPv4 address space available in smaller block sizes and they encourage customers to monitor the IPv4 Inventory Counter on the ARIN homepage and the breakdown of the remaining IPv4 inventory found on their IPv4 Depletion page:
https://www.arin.net/resources/request/ipv4_countdown.htmlOrganisations needing larger amounts of address space are encouraged to make use of the IPv4 transfer market for those needs. ARIN is also reminding organisations of the ample availability of IPv6 address space, and encourages organisations to evaluate IPv6 address space for their ongoing public internet network activities.

Opinion

Europe Continues To Lead IPv6 Adoption With Belgium Out Front: Akamai

Europe is the global leader when it comes to IPv6 adoption according to the Third Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report from Akamai, with Belgium growing to more than one quarter of its requests to Akamai coming over IPv6, and Germany seeing more than 10 percent of requests over IPv6.Greece’s adoption of IPv6 is also growing strongly, with its adoption rate more than tripling over the previous quarter. At a network provider level, Belgium’s Brutele and Telenet both saw on the order of half of their connections to Akamai come in over IPv6.But IPv4 addresses continue to grow. In the quarter, more than 790 million IPv4 addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform from more than 246 unique countries/regions. The global number of unique IPv4 addresses making requests to Akamai grew by nearly two million quarter-over-quarter, a nominal increase after a loss of seven million in the second quarter.Looking at the top 10 countries in the third quarter, the unique IP count in the United States saw a small gain of approximately 20,000 addresses. In addition to the United States, Brazil, France and Russia saw nominal increases in unique IPv4 address counts, while the remaining six countries saw unique IPv4 address counts slightly decline from the second quarter. Fifty-eight percent of countries saw a quarter-over-quarter increase in unique IPv4 address counts, with 28 countries/regions growing by 10 percent or more.Cable and wireless providers continued to drive the number of IPv6 requests made to Akamai, many of which are leading the way for IPv6 adoption in their respective countries. Verizon Wireless and Brutele saw more than half of their requests to Akamai made over IPv6, with Telenet close behind.When it comes to security, the volume of observed attack traffic targeting web ports (HTTP, HTTPS, HTTP Alternate) declined significantly in the quarter. In addition, the number of attacks against websites and applications reported by Akamai customers remained consistent quarter-over-quarter. These trends, Akamai notes, may be indicative of attack vectors shifting away from the application layer to focus on network layer targets – this is consistent with an observation made in the latest report.Akamai customers reported 270 DDoS attacks for the second quarter in a row. Overall, this represents a 4.5 percent reduction in attacks since the beginning of 2014 and a four percent decrease in comparison to the third quarter of 2013.In contrast to the second quarter’s report, the number of attacks fell in both of the Americas, with 142 attacks, and in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, with 44 attacks.However, the number of attacks in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region rose by 25 percent from the previous quarter to 84.The report also looked at connectivity with slight declines seen across average and average peak connection speeds, high broadband adoption, and 4K readiness. Only broadband adoption saw an increase, but it was only one percent. The long-term trend is the key indication Akamai notes, and the continued strong growth we continue to see points to ongoing improvements, on average, in the state of broadband connectivity around the world.For mobile, the report notes that despite dominating four of the five metrics for fixed connectivity, South Korea only led the mobile metrics for average connection speed in the third quarter, with Singapore seeing the highest average peak mobile connection speed and Japan seeing the highest level of mobile broadband adoption. Interestingly, high fixed connection speeds also led some of these same Asia Pacific countries/regions to have the highest “mobile penalties” – that is, pages loading significantly faster on average over broadband connections than over mobile connections.South Korea’s highest average mobile connection speed grew from 15.2 Mbps to 18.2 Mbps in the third quarter. Iran had the lowest average mobile connection speed at 0.9 Mbps, and was the only qualifying country with an average speed below 1 Mbps. Slovakia joined South Korea above the 10 Mbps “high broadband” threshold at 10.9 Mbps.Average peak mobile connection speeds again spanned an extremely broad range in the third quarter, from 98 Mbps in Singapore down to 3.3 Mbps in Iran. Nine countries/regions had average peak mobile connection speeds above 50 Mbps, while another 40 saw speeds above 10 Mbps.And on internet disruptions, once again, internet connectivity was problematic in Syria, with multiple disruptions seen during the third quarter. Iraq saw multiple disruptions as well, due to issues with the major network service providers in the country. Gambia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone all saw Internet outages that may have been due to issues with submarine cables, while a brief issue in Venezuela was related to a power outage in the country.More information is available, along with the report to download, from:
www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2015/press-010815.htmlThere are also blog postings and further information used in the above report available on the Akamai site.

ICANN and Governance

OECD Report: The Economics of Transition to IPv6

This report makes the case that IPv6 represents an example of a platform; within the context of IPv6, the sides of the platform are Internet service providers, backbone providers, device manufacturers, content providers, and so forth. The net benefits to adopting the new platform are not distributed equally across sides.For some participants, such as backbone and transit providers and manufacturers of devices such as routers, the transition to IPv6 has been relatively swift. For these participants the benefits of adoption were clear, and adoption demonstrated the technical ability of the company and fitness of its network.For others, such as many content providers for the Web, enterprises contemplating deployment of IPv6 within internal firm networks, and providers of consumer electronics equipment such as DVD or Blu-Ray players or televisions, the transition has been slower. For them the benefits have not been as clear, and many legacy devices, networks, customers and suppliers have not transitioned.This OECD report is available for download from:
www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-technology/the-economics-of-transition-to-internet-protocol-version-6-ipv6_5jxt46d07bhc-en

Opinion

Akamai Releases Second Quarter 2014 ‘State of the Internet’ Report

  • Global average connection speed above the 4 Mbps “broadband” threshold for the first time
  • Global DDoS attack numbers decline, showing 15% year-over-year drop
  • Global unique IPv4 address count drops quarter-over-quarter for first time in history of report

[news release] Akamai Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications, today released its Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds and broadband adoption across fixed and mobile networks, overall attack traffic, global 4K readiness, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation, and traffic patterns across leading Web properties and digital media providers.The report also includes insight into the OpenSSL “Heartbleed” vulnerability, SNMP Reflection Attacks, and Storm and Zeus crimeware.Data and graphics from the Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for iPads and iPhones.”The number of ‘firsts’ we’re seeing in the Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report make this a particularly interesting quarter,” commented David Belson, editor of the report. “We’ve experienced our first quarterly decrease in global unique IP address counts, the global average connection speed has risen above the 4 Mbps ‘broadband’ threshold, and Akamai’s customers experienced a reduction in the likelihood of repeat DDoS attacks.”Highlights from Akamai’s Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report:Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Connectivity
The global average connection speed increased 21% from the first to second quarter of the year. At 4.6 Mbps, the global average connection speed exceeded the 4 Mbps “broadband” threshold for the first time.Eight of the top 10 countries/regions saw double-digit percentage increases from the first to the second quarter of 2014, though South Korea kept its first place average connection speed (24.6 Mbps) with only a 4% quarterly increase. Impressive 18% quarterly growth for Hong Kong (15.7 Mbps) pushed it ahead of Japan, which now matches Switzerland with an average connection speed of 14.9 Mbps. Four of the top 10 countries experienced year-over-year increases of more than 50% in average connection speeds, led by South Korea’s 84% annual rise. Yearly increases were seen in 136 qualifying countries/regions, from 197% in Uruguay (5.6 Mbps) to 1.2% in the United Arab Emirates (4.6 Mbps).The global average peak connection speed also saw a significant uptick, with a 20% increase to 25.4 Mbps from the first quarter to the second quarter of 2014. All but one of the 139 qualifying countries/regions experienced average peak connection speed increases this quarter, ranging from 2.3% in Iraq (30.4 Mbps) to 65% in Jersey (43.2 Mbps). This is a significant improvement from the first quarter of 2014, when 92 qualifying countries/regions saw quarterly declines in their average peak connection speeds. Year over year, the global average peak connection speed was up by 34%. A total of 125 countries/regions experienced increases over the year, from 0.1% in Lebanon (4.2 Mbps) to 225% in Uruguay (49.7 Mbps).The global high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption rate continued to see strong growth in the second quarter of 2014, reaching 23% thanks to a 12% increase during the quarter. Six of the top 10 countries/regions had more than half of their connections to Akamai at speeds of 10 Mbps or above in the second quarter, whereas only two of the top 10 reached that level during the first quarter. Israel saw the most growth in the second quarter as compared to the prior quarter, with a 67% improvement, and while Japan saw the only decline with a nominal 0.3% decrease, it remained third on the list, with 54% of its connections at or above 10 Mbps. South Korea and Switzerland lead the pack with 78% and 56% adoption rates, respectively. Year over year, the global high broadband adoption rate was again up by 65%, the same as the first quarter of 2014. Romania and Israel boasted impressive yearly increases of 200% and 156%, respectively.The global broadband (>4 Mbps) adoption rate grew 5.6% quarter-over-quarter to reach 59%. Both South Korea and Bulgaria reached 95% broadband adoption in the second quarter, and five other countries/regions had adoption rates of 90% or more. Quarter-over-quarter increases were seen in all but two of the 94 countries/regions that qualified for inclusion. Growth ranged from just 0.3% in Japan (86% adoption) to 1,263% in Algeria (3% adoption). Year over year, the global broadband adoption rate increased 18%, with only the Bahamas and Morocco experiencing drops in adoption. The Bahamas (71% adoption) lost 0.1% and Morocco (9.9% adoption) lost 16%.4K Readiness
Following the introduction of “4K Readiness” in the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, Akamai has again identified candidate geographies that are most likely to sustain connection speeds above 15 Mbps, as Ultra HD adaptive bitrate streams typically require bandwidth between 10 and 20 Mbps. The findings do not account for other “readiness” factors, including availability of 4K-encoded content or 4K-capable televisions and media players.In total, 51 countries/regions qualified for inclusion this quarter, and 12% of connections globally were at or above the 15 Mbps threshold. This is up 17% over last quarter’s 11% readiness rate. South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan topped the list, at 62%, 34% and 33%, respectively. Year over year, the global 4K readiness rate nearly doubled, growing by 98% to 12% of all connections at 15 Mbps or above.Attack Traffic and Security
Akamai maintains a distributed set of unadvertised agents deployed across the Internet to log connection attempts that the company classifies as attack traffic. Based on the data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. It is important to note, however, that the originating country as identified by the source IP address may not represent the nation in which an attacker resides.In the second quarter of 2014, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 161 unique countries/regions, which was 33 fewer than the first quarter of the year. According to Akamai’s observations, the highest concentration of attacks (43%) came from China. Observed traffic from second-place Indonesia more than doubled quarter over quarter to reach 15%, while the United States followed with 13%, up slightly from last quarter’s 11%. The composition of the top 10 countries/regions remained the same from quarter to quarter, but the group was responsible for a greater portion of observed attack traffic: 84% as opposed to 75% last quarter. Furthermore, 70% of attack traffic originated from the Asia Pacific region, while the lowest volume of 0.3% was observed to originate from Africa.Attack traffic concentration across the top 10 targeted ports increased quarter-over-quarter to 71% from 55%. For only the third time in the history of the report, Port 445 (Microsoft-DS) fell to the second-most targeted by attackers. Port 80 (WWW/HTTP) took the lead in the second quarter when its attack traffic nearly doubled to 15% but, interestingly, was not the most targeted port among any of the top 10 countries/regions.Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack Traffic
In addition to observations on attack traffic, the State of the Internet Report includes insight into DDoS attacks based on reports from Akamai’s customers. Akamai customers reported 270 DDoS attacks in the second quarter, down from 283 in the first quarter, marking the second consecutive quarter with a decline and a drop of 15% year over year. This trend supports assertions from the Prolexic Q2 Global DDoS Attack Report, suggesting that volumetric attacks targeting Layers 1-4 have increased while application attacks targeting Layers 5-7 have declined.Though the global number of DDoS attacks is down, the Americas showed an 11% increase in the number of attacks, claiming 57% of all reported attacks. Meanwhile, Asia Pacific has experienced the largest decline in reported DDoS attacks quarter over quarter, dropping 23% from the first quarter to the second, accounting for 25% of worldwide reported DDoS attacks. Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) remained in third place with a modest decline of 14%, amounting to 18% of all reported DDoS attacks. In the second quarter, attacks against the high tech sector continued an upward trend with a 60% increase, whereas the public sector saw the biggest decline (54%).For the first time since Akamai began tracking repeated attacks against targets, the number of customers that saw subsequent attacks declined from one in four (26%) to nearly one in six (18%). Only two customers were targeted by DDoS attacks more than five times, with one customer seeing as many as seven total attacks, as opposed to the high of 17 attacks the previous quarter.IPv4 and IPv6
In the second quarter of 2014, more than 788 million IPv4 addresses connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform from more than 238 unique countries/regions. For the first time in the history of the State of the Internet Report, the global unique IP address count declined quarter over quarter, by a nominal 0.9%; however, this was 4.8% more than the same time last year. While only two of the top 10 countries/regions (Brazil and Japan) saw IP address counts increase from the first quarter, 46% of all countries experienced quarter-over-quarter increases in unique IPv4 address counts, with 26 countries/regions growing by 10% or more.”Though even a minimal quarter-to-quarter decline is unusual in the history of this report, we see no reason for concern,” said Belson. “It may be due to providers working to conserve limited IPv4 address space, or likely was a result of increased IPv6 connectivity and adoption among leading network providers. That said, globally, 69% of countries and regions still showed year-over-year increases in unique IPv4 address counts.”As for IPv6 adoption, the largest number of requests continued to come from cable and mobile providers, led by Verizon Wireless, with 50% of its requests to Akamai coming over IPv6. Four other providers, Telenet, Brutele, Kabel Deutschland and XS4ALL had more than one-third of their requests take place over IPv6. European countries continued to dominate the IPv6 adoption list, holding seven of the top 10 positions.Mobile Connectivity
In the Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, 56 countries/regions qualified for inclusion in the mobile section. South Korea’s average mobile connection speed grew slightly from 14.7 Mbps to 15.2 Mbps to maintain its top position, while Vietnam hit a global low of 0.9 Mbps. Average peak mobile connection speeds among qualifying countries/regions ranged from 108 Mbps in Australia down to 4.7 Mbps in Vietnam.The report also examines the percentage of connections to Akamai from mobile network providers at “broadband” speeds (more than 4 Mbps). In the second quarter, Denmark reported the highest level of mobile broadband adoption at 92%, whereas Brazil, Croatia, Paraguay, Vietnam and Bolivia all had mobile broadband adoption rates below 1%.About the Akamai State of the Internet Report
Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet. To download the figures from the Second Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, please click here.About Akamai
Akamai® is the leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications. At the core of the Company’s solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, providing extensive reach, coupled with unmatched reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.This Akamai news release was sourced from:
http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2014/press-093014.html

Opinion

Europe Leads With IPv6 Adoption, While DDoS Attacks Decline: Akamai

Europe continues to lead in IPV6 adoption with eight of the top ten countries, the latest Akamai State of the Internet report finds while DDoS attacks decrease by 20 percent quarter-over-quarter, but rise 27 percent year-over-year.The report, covering the first quarter of 2014, found more than 795 million unique IPv4 addresses from 240 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform. This was 1.6 percent more than in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 7.8 percent more than a year prior. Quarterly growth was seen in six of the top 10 countries/regions. Brazil was again a standout with 12 percent and 50 percent of quarterly and yearly growth, respectively.European countries continued to lead in IPv6 adoption, taking eight of the top ten slots. Belgium grew nearly 200 percent quarter-over-quarter, jumping to first place with 14 percent of its traffic over IPv6. The United States and Peru were the only two countries from the Americas within the top 10, while Japan fell out of the top 10, leaving the Asia Pacific region unrepresented within the group.Looking at attack traffic and security, the report found the concentration of attacks decreased significantly as compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, with the top ten countries/regions originating 75 percent of observed attacks, down from 88 percent in the prior quarter.On Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack traffic, the report found most regions of the world saw a decline in reported DDoS attacks during the first quarter of 2014. The Americas continued to account for approximately 49 percent (139) of all attacks, followed by the Asia Pacific region with 31 percent (87) of attacks and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) receiving the remaining 20 percent (57) of DDoS traffic. The enterprise sector saw a 49 percent quarter-over-quarter reduction in attack traffic, while public sector attack traffic grew by 34 percent, primarily attributable to attacks against government targets within Singapore.The report also covers global mobile connectivity (South Korea was fastest with average download speeds of 14.7 Mbps), 4K readiness (globally, 11 percent of connections were at speeds of 15 Mbps or above, fast enough to stream 4K TV, in the first quarter) and global average connection speeds and global broadband connectivity (global average connection speed climbed 1.8 percent to continue its steady growth over recent quarters, and while global average peak connection speeds dropped 8.6 percent in the first quarter of 2014, year-over-year trends remained positive with a 13 percent increase).For more information, see the Akamai news release below, or follow the link to the Akamai site where there are links to download further information. The news release was sourced from: www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2014/press-062614.html.Akamai Releases First Quarter 2014 ‘State of the Internet’ Report

  • Global average connection speeds up 1.8%, while global average peak connection speeds drop 8.6%
  • Europe continues to lead in IPV6 adoption with eight of the top 10 countries
  • DDoS attacks decrease by 20% quarter-over-quarter, but rise 27% year-over-year
  • 11% of global connections are “4K ready”

Akamai Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications, today (26 June) released its First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform™, the report provides insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, overall attack traffic, network connectivity/availability issues, and traffic patterns across leading Web properties and digital media providers.The report also includes insight into NTP reflection and WordPress XML-RPC pingback attacks, the status of IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 adoption, and global 4K readiness.Data and graphics from the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site and through the Akamai State of the Internet app for iPads and iPhones.Highlights from Akamai’s First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report:Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Connectivity
The global average connection speed climbed 1.8% to continue its steady growth over recent quarters, and while global average peak connection speeds dropped 8.6% in the first quarter of 2014, year-over-year trends remained positive with a 13% increase.With the global average connection speed at 3.9 Mbps as of quarter-end, it is expected that the measurement will surpass the 4 Mbps broadband threshold next quarter. In the first quarter, nine of the top 10 countries/regions saw increases in average connection speeds, including an 8% jump for first place South Korea (23.6 Mbps), which is now 9 Mbps ahead of second place Japan (14.6 Mbps). Of the top 10 countries, only the Czech Republic experienced a decrease in average connection speed, remaining in eighth place with a 1.9% drop.With the global average connection speed at 3.9 Mbps as of quarter-end, it is expected that the measurement will surpass the 4 Mbps broadband threshold next quarter. In the first quarter, nine of the top 10 countries/regions saw increases in average connection speeds, including an 8% jump for first place South Korea (23.6 Mbps), which is now 9 Mbps ahead of second place Japan (14.6 Mbps). Of the top 10 countries, only the Czech Republic experienced a decrease in average connection speed, remaining in eighth place with a 1.9% drop.Year-over-year, global average connection speeds grew by 24% and increases were seen in all but seven countries/regions. Growth ranged from a low of 0.7% in Panama (2.6 Mbps) to a high of 196% in Sudan (3.2 Mbps). South Korea showed a 145% increase from the first quarter of 2013, a growth rate that nearly tripled Ireland’s 47% increase, which ranked second in year-over-year growth among the top 10.Increases in global average peak connection speeds during the first quarter of 2014 ranged from 0.2% in Colombia (16.8 Mbps) to 76% in Sudan (13.4 Mbps). A total of 43 qualifying countries/regions saw quarter-over-quarter increases in their average peak connection speeds, whereas 92 qualifying countries/regions saw declines.The year-over-year story remains positive. Since the first quarter of 2013, global average peak connection speeds increased 13%. Yearly growth rates among the top 10 countries/regions ranged from 0.3% in Hong Kong (66 Mbps) to an impressive 206% in Uruguay (45.4 Mbps).Global high broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption rates in the first quarter improved by 9.4% quarter-over-quarter, climbing above the 20% mark for the first time, to 21%. Once again, all of the countries/regions in the top 10 had high broadband adoption rates of 30%, with South Korea (77%), Japan (54%) and Switzerland (45%) topping the list. The year-over-year growth rate was 65%, with six of the top 10 countries/regions seeing increases of 50% or more.The global broadband (>4 Mbps) adoption rate grew a nominal 1.7% from the fourth quarter of 2013 to reach 56% in the first quarter of 2014. Of the countries/regions that qualified, 76 had higher broadband adoption rates this quarter – growth ranged from 0.2% in Canada (82% adoption) to 1,208% in Sudan (21% adoption). Since the first quarter of 2013, global broadband adoption rates grew by 24%, with extremely large year-over-year upticks seen in Kenya (1,100% to 4.9% adoption), Uruguay (3,298% to 34% adoption) and Sudan (5,926%).”While there continues to be room for improvement in high broadband adoption and average peak connection speeds in some areas of the world, the trends we’re seeing remain very positive,” said David Belson, the author of the report. “Steady year-over-year growth suggests that a strong, global foundation is being built for the enjoyment of next generation content and services like 4K video and increasingly connected homes and offices, and that connectivity will continue to evolve to support the growing demands these emerging technologies will place on the Internet.”4K Readiness
With 4K (Ultra HD) adaptive bitrate streams generally requiring between 10 – 20 Mbps of bandwidth, the new “4K Readiness” metric presented for the first time in the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report highlights the percentage of connections to Akamai at speeds above 15 Mbps, with the goal of identifying candidate geographies most likely to be able to sustain such streams. The findings do not account for other “readiness” factors, including availability of 4K-encoded content or 4K-capable televisions and players.Globally, 11% of connections were at speeds of 15 Mbps or above in the first quarter. Seven of the top 10 countries/regions on the 4K readiness list overlapped with those on the global high broadband connectivity list. South Korea led the list with 60% 4K readiness while Japan had 32% of its connections at that level in the first quarter. Of the top 10, the Czech Republic had the lowest level of 4K readiness with 17%. Overall, 47 countries/regions qualified for inclusion.Attack Traffic and Security
Akamai maintains a distributed set of unadvertised agents deployed across the Internet to log connection attempts that the company classifies as attack traffic. Based on the data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks. It is important to note, however, that the originating country as identified by the source IP address may not represent the nation in which an attacker resides.During the first quarter of 2014, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 194 unique countries/regions – six more than the fourth quarter of 2013. China was again responsible for originating the most attacks, but dropped slightly from 43% in the fourth quarter of 2013 to 41% in the first quarter of 2014. The United States followed in second place, but also saw a decline from 19% to 11%, and Indonesia saw a slight uptick from 5.7% to 6.8% to secure third place. Overall, the concentration of attacks decreased significantly as compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, with the top 10 countries/regions originating 75% of observed attacks, down from 88% in the prior quarter.Port 445 (Microsoft-DS) remained the most targeted port in the first quarter of 2014, but the associated attack traffic volume was down to 14% of observed attack traffic (from 30% in the third quarter of 2013). Conversely, Port 5000 (Universal Plug & Play/UPnP) saw a significant increase during the quarter – from less than a tenth of a percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 to 12% this quarter – an increase of more than 100 times. Port 23 (Telnet) ranked third with 8.7% of observed attack traffic.Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack Traffic
In addition to observations on attack traffic, the State of the Internet Report includes insight into DDoS attacks based on reports from Akamai’s customers. The number of DDoS attacks reported in the first quarter of 2014 declined to 283 from 346 in the last quarter of 2013. This represents a 20% decrease quarter-over-quarter and a 27% increase year-over-year.Most regions of the world saw a decline in reported DDoS attacks during the first quarter of 2014. The Americas continued to account for approximately 49% (139) of all attacks, followed by the Asia Pacific region with 31% (87) of attacks and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) receiving the remaining 20% (57) of DDoS traffic. The enterprise sector saw a 49% quarter-over-quarter reduction in attack traffic, while public sector attack traffic grew by 34%, primarily attributable to attacks against government targets within Singapore.IPv4 and IPv6
In the first quarter of 2014, more than 795 million unique IPv4 addresses from 240 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform. This was 1.6% more than in the fourth quarter of 2013 and 7.8% more than a year prior. Quarterly growth was seen in six of the top 10 countries/regions. Brazil was again a standout with 12% and 50% of quarterly and yearly growth, respectively.European countries continued to lead in IPv6 adoption, taking eight of the top 10 slots. Belgium grew nearly 200% quarter-over-quarter, jumping to first place with 14% of its traffic over IPv6. The United States and Peru were the only two countries from the Americas within the top 10, while Japan fell out of the top 10, leaving the Asia Pacific region unrepresented within the group.The report also lists the top 20 network providers based on their number of IPv6 requests made to Akamai during the first quarter. The highest request volumes came from cable and wireless providers in the United States. Verizon Wireless had the highest percentage (45%) of requests over IPv6, while 12 other providers also had more than 10% of their requests to Akamai over IPv6 during the first quarter. European providers were also heavily represented, including three providers from Belgium with strong showings. KDDI (Japan) and Telekom Malaysia were the only two providers to represent the Asia Pacific region, while Telefonica del Peru was the only South American provider on the list.Mobile Connectivity
In the first quarter of 2014, average mobile connection speeds ranged from 1.0 Mbps in Argentina to 14.7 Mbps in South Korea. Though the latter was the only country/region with average mobile connection speeds above the 10 Mbps high-broadband threshold, 20 countries/regions had average connection speeds above the 4 Mbps threshold. A total of 56 countries/regions qualified for inclusion in the mobile section. Note that starting with the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, mobile connectivity is being aggregated at a country level, rather than at a provider level.Average peak mobile connection speeds among qualifying countries spanned a broad range, from 114.2 Mbps in Australia down to just 5.0 Mbps in Iran. In total, 43 countries showed average peak connection speeds above 10 Mbps.The State of the Internet Report now includes a broadband adoption statistic within the Mobile Connectivity section. This quarter, Ukraine had the highest level of mobile broadband adoption, with 89% of mobile connections to Akamai from the country at speeds above 4 Mbps.About the Akamai State of the Internet Report
Each quarter, Akamai publishes a “State of the Internet” report. This report includes data gathered from across the Akamai Intelligent Platform about attack traffic, broadband adoption, mobile connectivity and other relevant topics concerning the Internet and its usage, as well as trends seen in this data over time. To learn more and to access the archive of past reports, please visit www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet. To download the figures from the First Quarter, 2014 State of the Internet Report, please visit: http://wwwns.akamai.com/soti/soti_q114_figures.zip.About Akamai
Akamai® is the leading provider of cloud services for delivering, optimizing and securing online content and business applications. At the core of the Company’s solutions is the Akamai Intelligent Platform™ providing extensive reach, coupled with first class reliability, security, visibility and expertise. Akamai removes the complexities of connecting the increasingly mobile world, supporting 24/7 consumer demand, and enabling enterprises to securely leverage the cloud. To learn more about how Akamai is accelerating the pace of innovation in a hyperconnected world, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, Domain Name Registry

Centr Publishes May European ccTLD News

CENTR small logoCentr has published their latest European ccTLD News. The May 2014 edition includes updates on:

  • Article: IPv6 and DNSSEC in the Czech Republic
  • Technies visit NASK/.PL
  • Registrar Market Shares: Who’s selling the ccTLDs?
  • Q+A with Lise Fuhr (.dk and CENTR Board)
  • ccTLD news highlights and statistics.

To download the May edition, go to:
https://centr.org/news/05-30-2014/european-cctld-news-may-2014