Video Streaming Grows 100% to 300% in a Year

You probably would not be surprised to learn that use of Internet-based video streaming apps are growing. You wouldn’t be surprised to learn that revenue also is growing.

But you might be surprised to learn that the leading video streaming  apps in China, the United Kingdom and the United States are largely different.

With the exception of YouTube and Netflix in the United States and United Kingdom, the top 10 video streaming apps in China, U.K. and U.S. markets are unique to each country.

Global Internet Access Speed Grows 3.5% in 2Q 2015

The global average Internet connection speed increased 3.5 percent to 5.1 Mbps in the second quarter of 2015, says Akamai.

Average connection speeds among the top 10 countries or regions all remained well above 10 Mbps and like the previous quarter, six of the 10 had average connection speeds above 15 Mbps.

Globally, 110 out of 144 qualifying countries/regions saw average connection speeds increase from the previous quarter, with growth rates ranging from a modest 0.4% in Senegal (1.5 Mbps) to a substantial 67% in Tunisia (2.8 Mbps).

On a global basis, the average connection speed increased 17 percent, year over year.

In the second quarter, global average peak connection speeds also increased 12 percent to 32.5 Mbps.

Speeds increased in every top 10 country or region except Sweden (62.8 Mbps), which remained unchanged from the first quarter.

Singapore (108.3 Mbps) saw the only double-digit quarterly gain, with a 12 percent increase, while the remaining eight countries saw increases ranging from 0.6 percent in Romania (72.1 Mbps) to 7.8 percent in Macao (62.6 Mbps).

Eight of the top 10 saw average peak speeds greater than 70 Mbps, while Sweden and Macao saw speeds above 60 Mbps.

On a global basis, 107 of the 143 qualifying countries or regions saw average peak connection speeds increase from the first quarter.

The findings are part of Akamai’s Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report.

Data and graphics from the Second Quarter, 2015 State of the Internet Report can be found on the Akamai State of the Internet site.

India Govt. Communications Spend is 23% of Total IT Budget

There is a very good reason why information technology spending levels in countries such as India are important for communication providers. IT spending includes communications as a segment. When IT grows, communications grows. When IT shrinks, communications tends to shrink.

But some segments might be more important than others. Compared to many other markets, a higher percentage of government IT spending in India and possibly elsewhere goes to communications services.

The government in India will spend US$6.88 billion on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of 5.2 percent over 2014, according to Gartner.

Telecom services will be a $1.6 billion market. That means telecom services represent 23 percent of overall  IT spending, a far-higher percentage than would tend to be the case in developed markets.

The mobile network services will reach $787 million, representing 11 percent of total IT spending by Indian government entities.

The forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data center, devices and telecom services by state, local and national government.

IT services (which includes consulting, implementation, IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing) is expected to grow 10 percent in 2015 to reach $1.6 billion USD – with the business process outsourcing sub-segment growing by 21 percent.

Lack of "Killer App" is Not a Barrier to Internet Adoption

Usage of social networking platforms has become nearly universal, just about everywhere people have mobile phones. The point is that there really is not a shortage of “killer apps” that must be developed to create reasons for people in developing nations to use the Internet.

In India,in 2015, there were 350 million Internet users, up 44 percent since 2014, according to We Are Social.There were 134 million social media users, 590 million unique mobile users, 159 million mobile Internet users and 97 million mobile social media users.

In both rural and urban areas, social networking is a key driver of Inrternet use in India, according to Digital Strategy Consulting. The most popular app or site in India is now Facebook, the group says.

In May 2015, almost 90 percent of the U.S. digital media population visited social networks, which accounted for more than 300 billion minutes of users’ attention.

The category has shifted quickly to mobile, with 80 percent of time spent  now coming from smartphones and tablets.

The average 18-44 year-old smartphone social networking user spends in excess of 25 hours per month consuming social content on that device, while the numbers are considerably lower for those age 45 or older.

Netflix CEO Says All TV will be Online in a Decade or Two

There might not be too many who would disagree with the prediction.

http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-ceo-says-all-tv-will-be-on-internet-in-10-to-20-years-2015-9?nr_email_referer=1&utm_content=TechSelect&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru

Skype Outage

Fortunately, I haven't HAD to use Skype during the outage. Others undoubtedly were not so fortunate. Skype said:

We have detected an issue with the status settings of Skype.

Affected users will not be able to change their status, their contacts will all show as offline and they will be unable to start Skype calls to them.

Instant messages are still being delivered as usual. The status issue also doesn't affect Skype for web, which can be used to make calls and send instant messages.

Australia NBN Launches its Fiber to Node Services

The Australian NBN has launched its fiber to the node Internet access service, part of its goal of connecting eight million premises to the NBN network by 2020, of which more than 1.6 million homes and businesses are expected to be connected using FTTN by perhaps mid-2018.

NBN aims to have 500,000 FTTN premises ready for purchase and use by consumers by mid-2016, with 3.7 million active commercial lines active by mid-2018.

The initial FTTN rollout began in Belmont, New South Wales.

As the nation’s authorized wholesale network, NBN--despite some concern--should settle into a reasonable business model, if construction costs wind up contained, and not again wildly underestimated.  

After all, every fixed network connection essentially will be supplied by NBN on behalf of its Internet service provider customers, including Telstra, Optus, Optus Wholesale, Exetel, TPG, iiNet, AAPT, SkyMesh, Harbour ISP and M2 Group (Dodo, iPrimus, Commander).

Since business customer revenue generates about half of all industry service revenues in Australia, it is possible business segment revenues will represent much of the revenue for the NBN.