Telecom companies significantly boost internet access in India, but speeds still low: Akamai

The Akamai State of the Internet report for the third quarter of 2016 is out, and it has some exciting news of the increase of connectivity in India. The number of IPv4 addresses in India grew by a startling 5.3 percent, which was more than any other country in the world. For the first time, India joined the top ten countries in the world in terms of IPv6 connections. The adoption rate rose by 715 percent, the next highest adoption rate in the top ten was the United States with a comparatively modest 13 percent increase. The significant increase in the adoption of IPv6 is partially because of the widespread adoption of the standard by Indian cellular service operators, including Reliance Jio, MTS and Idea cellular. Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd broke through in the top five global rankings in terms of IPv6 request volume, coming in behind Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner. All the other providers in the top 5 are US based. No other Indian operator features in the top twenty providers in terms of request volume. (Also Read: Internet in India — There lies tremendous opportunity in despair ) India continued to be the lowest ranked in the Asia Pacific region in terms of average internet speeds, despite seeing a bump in the speeds. The average internet speed in India now stands at 4.1 Mbps, which is a 14 percent increase over the previous quarter, and a 62 percent increase over the previous year. The top ranked country in the region continue to be South Korea, with an average speed of 26.3 Mbps. The average speed of South Korea declined over the previous quarter, and that of India increased, reducing the gap between the top ranked and bottom ranked country in the region. India continued to have the lowest peak connection speeds in the APAC region, at 27 Mbps. Disclaimer: Reliance Jio is owned by Reliance Industries, who also own Network18, the publisher of Firstpost and tech2.