What Akamai Says about Indonesian Internet at Q2 2011

You might not know much about Akamai, but actually most of the data you download or the streaming facilities you use are provided by Akamai’s infrastructure. Akamai is everywhere to make sure that your data is comfortable and optimal. Every quarter, Akamai writes a report on internet condition around the world and about the interesting things dealing with it. Lately, Akamai released a report entitled State of the Internet for Q2 2011. What does it say?

Since this report is predominantly about broadband and internet security, there's not much in it about Indonesia, it's not even among the countries highlighted across Asia Pacific. There are however several interesting points to consider that may be taken into account when discussing Internet usage in Indonesia. Akamai noted that for Q2 2011, Indonesia's national average was at 643 kbps. Since this is the average speed, it would account for example, for FastNet users in Jakarta to have a 3 Mbps connection and 256 kbps or less in other areas.

Does it seem fast? Maybe for many Indonesians that speed is pretty fast, but in the first two quarters of 2009, the average Internet connection speed in Indonesia reached 900 kbps. Specifically for mobile connectivity (not only mobile phones but also GSM/CDMA modems), Akamai (which collaborates with Ericsson for this) recorded an average speed in Q2 2011 of 518 kbps (from just one mobile operator). Even so, the total data usage per person on average shows quite a high number, nearing 4GB per month per user.

What about other countries? Let's not go too far and pick Malaysia as the country to compare. As it turns out, in the first two quarters of 2009, the average Internet speed in Indonesia and Malaysia are similar, but try looking at the chart towards Q2 2011. If the trend for Indonesia tends to decrease (it is weird), the trend for Malaysia is positive with 1908 kbps in the end of the period. For mobile connectivity, Akamai took the data from 3 mobile operator in Malaysia, and each of them has the internet access rate about 1003, 787, and 1423 kbps.

If there is broadband, there is narrowband as well. Narrowband, according to Akamai, is defined as the connectivity with speed rate lower than 256 kbps. Based on Akamai’s report, there are 31% internet connection in Indonesia belongs to the narrowband. Although it is still a big number, it decreased 18 % from the previous quarter, and decreased 13 % from the last year report. It is a good trend which means there are more and more Indonesian internet connection changed from narrowband to broadband.

To sum up, it might be incomplete if we do not share which country is the “winner” for broadband connection in the world. We can be little bit proud since the best three are Asia Pacific countries. The defending champion are South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan. The internet access rate in Korea is 13.8 Mbps, while Hong Kong and Japan reach 10.3 and 8.9 Mbps. Anyway, when will the internet access be that fast in Indonesia?