May 30, 2008 : Akamai Reports State of the Internet

📅 May 30, 2008 - Content delivery network operator Akamai Technologies (akamai.com) announced on Wednesday that it had issued the first installment of its "State of the Internet" report.


Beginning with the period from January to March 2008, Akamai says the State of the Internet report will be a quarterly report based on data gathered across Akamai's global server network.

The report will include data on the origins of attack traffic, network outages and de-peering events, as well as a look at broadband connectivity by geography. Akamai says it will also document trends seen in this data over time, providing some deeper analysis.

During the first quarter of 2008, for example, Akamai says it observed attack traffic originating from 125 unique countries around the world. China and the US were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for some 30 percent of this traffic in total.

Akamai also observed that, from a global perspective, South Korea had the highest measured levels of "high broadband" connectivity while Rwanda and the Solomon Islands topped the list of slowest countries, with 95 percent or more of the connections to Akamai from both countries occurring at below 256 Kbps.

The company says the report will aggregate publicly available news and information about notable events seen throughout the quarter, including Denial of Service attacks, website hacks and network events. Some of the news events highlighted in Akamai's inaugural report include the undersea cable cuts in January that severed Internet connectivity between the Middle East and Europe and a routing change by a telecommunications provider that caused a popular Internet video sharing site to go offline for several hours.

"Akamai is in a unique position to provide an in-depth look at the current state of the Internet and illuminate emerging trends," says Brad Rinklin, VP of marketing at Akamai. "Our hope is that this report will serve as a key indicator on important developments with the Internet, and provide guidance to companies launching initiatives that leverage the Internet as a primary delivery mechanism."

Akamai says it is planning to release its second quarter "State of the Internet" report in August.

Akamai reported in March that a jury awarded it $45.5 million after ruling for it in a patent infringement case against rival content delivery network operator Limelight Networks.