The state of the Internet is under attack (but it’s also faster)

Akamai released data detailing a plethora of attacks against its clients as well as the increase in broadband speeds seen around the world.

Its quarterly State of the Internet report for the fourth quarter of 2013 is chock-full of data about broadband speeds, IPv6 deployment and new types of website attacks. According to the report, the fourth quarter of 2013 saw a rise in the number of denial of service attacks. For the most part these attacks came from inside the US, hit one website and if they didn’t find a weakness, moved on.

The report also gave an update on IPv6 adoption (it’s getting better, but is still not the majority of traffic on any network except Google’s Fiber network).

Overall the global average connection speed reached 3.8 Mbps in the fourth quarter with 5.5 percent quarterly growth and 27 percent growth for the year. The US ranked tenth globally this time around with average connection speeds hitting 10 Mbps, a 25 percent improvement from the year before.

Most notably, the US also saw its fastest broadband get faster, with the average peak broadband speeds hitting 43.7 Mbps.

Finally, on the mobile side speeds are improving and we’re seeing a lot more traffic. Based on traffic data collected by Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic increased by 70 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the fourth quarter of 2013, and grew approximately 15 percent between the third and fourth quarters of 2013.

Overall, Akamai is seeing more people on the Internet with faster speeds. And in the US its data is showing that broadband is getting better, even in the areas where it’s relatively slow today.