Akamai said 11% of the globe is ready to deliver Ultra HD streams, though its new ‘4K-Readiness’ metric does not factor in the availability of 4K-encoded content or 4K-capable TVs and media players.
Across the U.S., a total of 39 states had 4K readiness levels of 10% or more, with Massachusetts (27%) and Delaware (26%) having over a quarter of their connections to Akamai at speeds above 15 Mbps, according to Akamai. Hawaii (6.2%) and Kentucky (6.1%) had the lowest 4K readiness rates, as seen through Akamai’s speed-focused lens.
Globally, 11% of connections were at speeds of 15 Mbps or more in the first quarter of 2014, Akamai noted. Among individual countries, South Korea, at 60%, was tops, followed by Japan (32%), Hong Kong (26%), Switzerland (23%). China (0.3%) and India (0.2%) were at the bottom list of 47 countries/regions that qualified for Akamai’s 4K-readiness metric.
As of the first quarter, 21% of globe had connections of 10 Mbps or more, up 9.4% versus the previous quarter, and up 65% from the year-ago period. About 77% of South Korea hit that 10-meg-plus benchmark, followed by Japan (54%), Switzerland (45%), Netherlands (44%), Hong Kong (43%), Latvia (37%), the United States (36%), Denmark (35%), Belgium (35%) and Czech Republic (34%).
Source: MultiChannel.com