Global IPv4 depletion forces adoption of IPv6: Akamai’s Q3 State of the Internet Report

NEW DELHI: The Third Quarter 2015 State of the Internet Report, released by Akamai Technologies Inc, provides an insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics, notable Internet disruptions, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 implementation.

“While we did observe an increase in the number of unique IPv4 addresses connecting to Akamai, the third quarter of 2015 saw the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for North America completely exhaust its available inventory of IPv4 address space,” explained David Belson, Editor of the State of the Internet Report. “The continued depletion of IPv4 space, in both North America and around the world, should further spur organizations to expand or accelerate their own IPv6 adoption, particularly as the cost of obtaining IPv4 address space may rise as scarcity increases.”

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

Global Average Connection Speeds and Global Broadband Connectivity

• Global average connection speed increased slightly (0.2%) to 5.1 Mbps from the second quarter, accounting for a 14% increase year-over-year.
• South Korea had the top average connection speed at 20.5 Mbps, despite a year-over-year drop of 19% since the third quarter of 2014.
• After a 12% quarterly increase in the second quarter, the global average peak connection speed declined a slight 0.9% to 32.2 Mbps in the third quarter. This accounts 30% year-over-year growth.
• Singapore (135.4 Mbps) and Macao (73.7 Mbps) saw double-digit quarterly gains at 25% and 18%, respectively. Singapore also retained its position as the country/region with the highest average peak connection speed.
• Globally, 5.2% of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, a 6.3% increase over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, global 25 Mbps adoption increased by 15%, in contrast to the 0.5% yearly decrease seen in the second quarter.
• Three of the top 10 countries/regions – South Korea (24% adoption), Hong Kong (14% adoption), and Japan (13% adoption) – saw yearly declines, losing 37%, 15%, and 2.5%, respectively.
• In the US, 10 states had 10% or more of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, with the District of Columbia holding the top spot at 22% adoption.
• The global percentage of unique IP addresses connecting to Akamai that met the 4 Mbps broadband speed threshold increased 2.7% to 65%. Year-over-year growth was 9.8%.
• In the third quarter of 2015, 27% of unique IP addresses across the world connected to Akamai at average speeds above 10 Mbps, an increase of 2.4% over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, this was a 19% increase.
• 15% percent of the unique global IP addresses connected to Akamai at average “4K-ready” connection speeds of 15 Mbps or above, up 5.3% from the second quarter. Year-over-year, the global 15 Mbps adoption rate grew 21% with seven of the top 10 countries/regions seeing gains ranging from 8.9% in Latvia (31% adoption) to 73% in Norway (37% adoption).

IPv4 and IPv6

• Partially offsetting the second-quarter drop, the number of unique, worldwide IPv4 addresses connecting to Akamai increased by about 4.8 million in the third quarter.
• The U.K. saw IPv4 counts hold steady, while the U.S. saw a small 0.5% decline from the second quarter.
• On a global basis, close to 60% of the countries/regions saw a quarter-over-quarter increase in unique IPv4 address counts in the third quarter, compared with roughly half in the second quarter
• 43 countries/regions saw IPv4 address counts grow 10% or more, while 27 saw counts decline 10% or more as compared with the previous quarter.
• European countries continued to dominate the top 10 countries/regions, taking eight of the top 10 spots with the largest percentage of content requests made to Akamai over IPv6 in the third quarter of 2015.
• Despite an 8.4% quarterly drop, Belgium again maintained a clear lead, with 35% of content requests being made over IPv6.
• Verizon Wireless (72%) and Belgium’s Telenet (53%) continued to lead as the two companies with more than half of their requests to Akamai made over IPv6.
• Nine of the top 20 providers had at least one in four content requests to Akamai via IPv6, down from 11 in the second quarter. However, all of the top 20 – up from 17 in the previous quarter – had at least 10% of their requests to Akamai occur over IPv6.