Message from Michael - World Internet Speed - January 26, 2011

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        January 26, 2011                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

      THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT

      THOSE WONDERFUL PEOPLE OUT THERE IN THE DARK

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – BIRDS, BUBBLES AND BOWLS

 

 

      THE RACE IS NOT TO THE SWIFT:  But if it were, Japan and South Korea would be the hands down winners, according to the latest report on the state of the Internet from Internet backbone provider Akamai.  As usual, South Korea had the highest average connection speed in the world (14Mbps), followed by Hong Kong (9.2Mbps) and Japan (8.5 Mbps).  The United States came in 12^th with an average of 5Mbps.  And as usual, South Korea had the highest average PEAK connection speed in the world (39 Mbps), followed by Hong Kong (36 Mbps) and Japan (31 Mbps).  Next in line were the three small European countries of Romania (30 Mbps), Latvia (23 Mbps) and Belgium (20 Mbps).  The U.S.A. came in 7^th with 20 Mbps.  Note the word ‘peak’ which translates to the highest average speed achieved.  Some cities in South Korean actually hit peak speeds of 50-plus Mbps, with Taejon claiming the top spot with an average peak speed of 57.6 Mbps.  Just for the record, the country with the slowest Internet connections in the world is Mayotte, a small island ‘collectivity’ between Africa and Madagascar, with an average speed under 256 Kbps.  But don’t feel too bad for them.  From what I could see, it has some stunning beaches.  South Korea also had the highest percentage (72%) of users with what is considered high broadband connectivity (higher than 5 Mbps), followed by Japan (60%), Hong Kong (53%) and Romania (50%).  The U.S. came in 9^th with a third of its users (34%) having what is considered high broadband connectivity.  But the U.S.A. is number one in one category.  Proving that time and chance happeneth to us all, the U.S.A. is the top source for “attack traffic” in the world accounting for one-eighth (12%) of all such traffic.  Our comrades in Russia were second (8.9%) followed by our good friends in China (8%) and Brazil (7.9%).

Just for the record, Delaware was the state with the highest average connection speed (7.1 Mbps), followed by Utah and the District of Columbia (6.4 Mbps), Rhode Island (6.3 Mbps) and Vermont (6.1 Mbps).  A reminder – the average U.S. speed was 5 Mbps.  And although California as a whole came in 8^th on the list with an average of 5.8 Mbps, it had seven of the top ten cities with the highest average speed.  The capital of the Silicon Valley, San Jose, came in number one (8.3 Mbps).  Delaware also had the highest average peak speed (28 Mbps), followed by Rhode Island and the District of Columbia (25 Mbps).  Again, San Jose was tops in terms of individual cities with 34.2 Mbps.  Also, just for the record, Akamai defines anything over 2 Mbps as ‘broadband.’  The U.S. had been criticized in the past for setting 756 Kbps as the standard for broadband, but the Federal Communications Commission has raised that definition standard to 4 Mbps.

All right, let’s look at more global issues from the Akamai report which, it should be noted, is for the third quarter of last year.  According to the report, the global connection speed has increased 14% year to year, reaching an average of 1.9 Mbps.  The global average PEAK speed has increased by a third (35%) year to year, reaching an average of 8.1 Mbps.  The report says the general broadband connectivity (speeds above 2 Mbps) has increased 6.5% year to year with three out of five (60%) of the world’s Internet users having broadband connectivity. And guess what?  The top countries were not Asian.  Little Monaco came in first with 96% of its users having broadband connectivity, followed by Tunisia (95%) -- a fact that even the report authors found surprising.  Then, the Isle of Man (also 95%), and then South Korea and Hong Kong (93%).  The report also notes that the number of IP addresses worldwide has increased 20% year to year, reaching more than 553 Million in this latest report.  As you would probably expect, mobile connectivity is on the rise as well, according to the report.  And just for a change of pace, the top speeds don’t come out of Asia.  A service provider in Russia provide the top average connection speed for mobile devices, with an average of 6 Mbps while a provider in Slovakia provided the top average PEAK connection speed for mobile devices, of 23 Mbps.  With the increase in mobile Internet use comes… what else… an increase in mobile attack traffic.  But this time the leading source is not the U.S.A. It came in 8^th with 3.1% of the mobile attack traffic, just behind China (3.4%) and just ahead of Russia (2.6%).  No, this time the leading offender is – Italy with more than a quarter of the mobile attack traffic (28%).

      THOSE WONDERFUL PEOPLE OUT THERE IN THE DARK:  It sometimes seems that some celebrities share Norma Desmond’s view about the public and her fantasy about her impact.  Well, a study by advertising research firm Ace Metrix found that when it comes to advertising, many celebrities aren’t ready for their close-up.  It found that advertisements using celebrity endorsements don’t perform any better, and in some cases, perform worse than regular, non-celebrity ads.  The study measured what the firm and advertisers call “lift.”  How the ad ‘lifts’ the image or impact of the product.  Celebrities like Tiger Woods (Nike), Lance Armstrong (Radio Shack), Kenny Mayne (Gillette), Dale Earnhardt (Nationwide Insurance) and Donald Trump (Macy’s) actually had ‘negative lift.’  And then there’s Oprah Winfrey.  Her three endorsement ads, for Liberty Mutual and Progressive Insurance, had a positive influence.  However, part of the reason for that, according to the study, is that her ads had relevance.  The Liberty Mutual ad focused on texting and driving; the Progressive ads talked about cell phone use and distracted driving.  The point made by the study is that advertising executives would be better advised to “focus on the creative content… grab attention… demonstrate relevance, and inform viewers.”  Especially since, the study says, celebrity endorsements are expensive, costing upwards of $50 Billion in the industry.  The study of more than 2,600 ads found that only an eighth (12%) of the celebrity ads had positive lift of ten percent or more over the industry average while a fifth (20%) had negative lift of ten percent or more.

As a side note, the New York Times Media Decoder blog notes a trend toward what is called “promercials” which combine commercials with promotion.  For example, ABC’s Cougar Town had Diet Dr. Pepper integrated into the plot.  But it also had ‘promercials’ in which the program plot lines were outlined, just like a regular promotion spot.  Then the creators added the line that Cougar Town was ‘unbelievably satisfying’ – just like Diet Dr. Pepper.  You remember previous messages about branded content?  Well, the backers of promercials say their approach is a variation, which they are calling ‘branded entertainment.’         

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  A 14-year-old boy has created the latest and hottest game app.  That would be news enough.  But the game is so popular, it has replaced Angry Birds as the number one game app on iTunes.  Instead of squawking birds crashing into a castle full of pigs, fans try to get a bubble to a goat.  As reported by the technology blog for ABC News, the game, Bubble Ball, has been downloaded two million times.  It is described as a “physics puzzle game.”  The boy, Robert Nay, of Utah, wrote 4,000 lines of code to create the game.  A survey of American taxpayers reports that eight percent of Americans think it is okay to cheat “a little here and there” on their taxes while four percent say “as much as possible.”  And here’s the funny part (to me at least), the survey was done by the Internal Revenue Service.  So, these people admitted to the IRS that they think it’s okay to cheat.  The national Bowl Championship Series between Auburn and Oregon on ESPN has become the most watched program in cable television history with 27.3 Million viewers, says Nielsen.   

This isn’t cocktail chatter, but more like “worth noting” – The Washington Post reports that “uber-Billionaire Warren Buffett is retiring from its board of directors, although Post CEO Donald E. Graham says the board will continue making calls to the “402 area code.”  Broadcast website RBR/TVBR notes that Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, still owns the Buffalo News.  Also in the worth noting column: -- Beet.TV reports that Google is dropping the h.264 codec for the WebM codec for online video.  This sounds like ‘news for geeks’ but it’s worth noting because a) h.264 has been the ‘standard’ for online video for years and b) well, Google is Google, and that could translate into a huge impact.  As long as we’re in the world of ‘geekdom,’  forty years ago in 1971, Intel created the 4004 computer chip which is generally credited with helping the world go digital. 

      FACTOID OF THE WEEK:  According to an article in Media Post Publications by tech writer and consultant Nate Pagel, ten years ago it cost $300 to transfer a gigabyte of video.  Today it costs 30 cents.  Now, normally, I try to verify such statements online, but I haven’t been able to source this one… yet.  But it was too good a factoid not to pass on, even if it is with a caveat.   

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