Akamai has recently released The State of The Internet - Q4 2008, and it's nice to see that Malaysia is one of the 10 Asia Pacific countries appended in the report. However, even to compete in this region, there are still some catch-ups to do in terms of internet penetration and broadband adoption.



Note: 10 Asia Pacific countries surveyed are Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan.

Average Speed (kbps): 1037

As expected, our broadband average speed is around 1 Mbps, thanks to Streamyx. We are ranked no.8 among the 10 countries, with China and India not far behind us even with their geographical barrier. South Korea is way ahead of everyone, with average speed of 15 Mbps!

% Above 5 Mbps: 0.9%, % Above 2 Mbps: 4.3%

No surprise here as well, less than 1% of internet users in Malaysia are connected with more than 5 Mbps, and 4.3% above 2 Mbps. Again, we are only above China and India even with their huge population.

% Below 256 Kbps: 17%

Looking at observed “narrowband” (below 256 Kbps) connections, we are one of the slowest countries in this region, just behind India with 26%. Perhaps, local ISPs (especially those with HSDPA) can rebrand their service to narrowband instead of broadband. But, they will most probably still charge us at "broadband" price though.

Unique IP Addresses: 882,866, Unique IPs per Capita: 0.03

Unique IPs per Capita is another way to look into internet penetration in the country, which means there is approximately one unique IP address in every 32 Malaysians. Of course, each individual can have multiple IPs (desktop, laptop, mobile) and multiple individuals may be represented by a single IP (through a proxy server).

Conclusion

MCMC has just announced the broadband penetration rate at 21.1% as of Q4 2008. It is quite a sizable increase from 17.5% in Q3 2008. While we (oops service providers I mean) celebrate the steady progress, the authority and ISPs must not forsake quality for quantity. In short, it must be value-for-money!