Akamai Examines Ultra HD Streaming Readiness

In its Q1 2014 "State of the Internet" report (here), Akamai Technologies examines the Internet's 4K video readiness:

"Given the growing interest in the streaming delivery of 4K (“Ultra HD”) video, we thought it would be interesting to begin tracking a “4K readiness” metric in the State of the Internet Report. 

With 4K adaptive bitrate streams generally requiring between 10 – 20 Mbps of bandwidth, starting with this issue of the report, we’ll be providing insight into the percentage of connections to Akamai from a given country/region with an average connection speed above 15 Mbps, similar to the high broadband (>10 Mbps) and broadband (>4 Mbps) rankings that we have published for the last several years. 

Globally, just 11% of connections to Akamai in the first quarter were at speeds of 15 Mbps or above, as illustrated in Figure 18. This average is significantly lower than those seen across the top 10 countries/regions. Unsurprisingly, South Korea led the list with 60% 4K readiness, a level almost twice that of Japan, which had 32% of its connections at that level in the first quarter. The Czech Republic had the lowest level of 4K readiness among the top 10, coming in at 17%. 

Not surprisingly, the makeup of the top 10 list for this metric is very similar to the global high broadband rankings, with seven countries/regions appearing on both lists. Sweden, Norway, and Finland appear within the top 10 for this metric, while they are absent from the top high broadband countries list, with the United States, Denmark, and Belgium appearing on that list in their stead. 

Overall, only 47 countries/regions qualified for inclusion in this metric. Of those, 23 countries/regions had 4K readiness rates above 10%, while just six had rates below 1%. The lowest readiness rates in the first quarter were found in India and China, which had just 0.3% and 0.2% (respectively) of their connections to Akamai at speeds above 15 Mbps

See "Akamai Releases First Quarter 2014 'State of the Internet' Report" - here.