Asia top for internet speeds - and attack traffic
Cities in Asia dominate the list of the top 100 fastest internet speeds in the world, with Japan alone contributing 59 of the top 100.
But while Asia provides the fastest link to the internet in the world, it is also the source of the largest amount of attack traffic -- the hackers who cause mayhem with worms and viruses -- according to cloud optimization service provider Akamai.
Hong Kong and Singapore were also high on the list, along with cities in South Korea -- which contributed 10 to the top 100 -- and Australia.
The fastest city in Europe is Brno, in the Czech Republic, according to Akamai's "State of the Internet" report for the second quarter of 2011, released Tuesday, while the California city of San Jose took the top spot for the Americas.
South Korea also had the highest nation-wide average connection speeds in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Hong Kong and Japan.
Most countries reported solid growth in average speeds, although speeds in Singapore were up an impressive 47 percent on the previous year and 8.5 percent from the first quarter, putting the city-state firmly in 29th position globally.
The list of the fastest cities was based on a study of more than 604 million unique Internet Protocol addresses from 238 countries and regions around the world that are connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform.
The flip side to the speed of connections in Asia is the correspondingly high number of attacks that can be traced back to the region, the company said.
Fully 10 percent of the worms and viruses that were discovered during the quarter came from Taiwan, with Myanmar in second pace with 9.1 percent. Myanmar had been in first place in the previous quarter.
The Asia-Pacific and Oceania regions combined accounted for 47 percent of the attack traffic, Europe was to blame for 30 percent, around 20 percent could be traced back to the Americas and a mere 3 percent originated in Africa.
JR
