State of the Internet: Mobile Web's Explosive Growth

In 1999, it was the rapid growth of wired web services that was the top story. Fast-forward to today, and it's the massive and seemingly unstoppable growth of the mobile Internet that's all the rage.

The demand for mobile Internet (and its subset, mobile web) is upending all expectations and predictions. Between Apple and Google, about 500,000 new portable Internet devices are getting connected to the Internet. In its State of the Internet Report for the second quarter of 2010, content distribution network Akamai notes there are 19 mobile carriers around the world offering connections with average real world speeds of over 6.1 Mbps, while 29 carriers have an average speed of 1 Mbps.

On the wired Internet side, the continuous deployment of fiber-based broadband networks and new DOCSIS 3.0-based cable broadband networks is causing a sharp increase in broadband speeds in some parts of the world. According to Akamai data, the average connection speed on a global basis was around 1.8 Mbps; up 6.1 percent from the second quarter of 2009, and up 3.8 percent from the second quarter of 2010.