• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 23, 2013

Making the Web a friendlier place for streaming video and other data-rich endeavors, the average global connection speed witnessed a healthy 11% gain over the past year, according to new data from content delivery network Akamai.
 
The global average peak connection speed grew 36% in the third quarter of 2012, compared to the same period in 2011.
 
Supporting the speedier Web, the global “high broadband” adoption rate grew by 8.8% from the second quarter of 2012 through the third quarter of the year -- reaching 11% worldwide penetration -- while the global broadband adoption rate increased 4.8% to an impressive 41%.
 
In the third quarter of 2012, average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network providers ranged from a high of 7.8 Mbps to a low of 324 kbps.
 
Seven providers showed average connection speeds in the “broadband” range, while an additional 68 mobile providers had average connection speeds greater than 1 Mbps.
 
Average peak connection speeds for the quarter ranged from 39.2 Mbps down to 2.8 Mbps.
 
Based on data collected by Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic doubled from the third quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2012, and grew 16% between the second and third quarter of 2012.
 
Analysis of Akamai OI data collected in the Q3 indicates that for users of mobile devices on cellular networks connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform, the largest percentage of requests (37.6%) came from devices using the Android Webkit, while devices using Apple’s Mobile Safari were a close second at 35.7%.
 
However, for users of mobile devices across all network types, Apple’s Mobile Safari accounted for 60.1% of requests, with the Android Webkit responsible for 23.1%.
 
Experiencing a bona fide Web boom, Brazil saw the greatest year-over-year growth (39%) in IP addresses during the third quarter of 2012.
 
Overall, analysis of the full set of countries that connected to Akamai’s Intelligent Platform in the third quarter showed that nearly 60% saw a quarterly increase in IP addresses, while nearly 12% saw increases of 10% or more.