[FYI] New Global Internet Statistics - Strategic Note

Terry Kuny Terry.Kuny at xist.com
Wed Aug 27 11:43:15 EDT 1997


================================================================
Biannual Strategic Note                               26 Aug 1997


  INTERNET SURVEY REACHES 19.5 MILLION INTERNET HOST LEVEL
              GROWTH TREND NOW APPEARS LINEAR

--Herndon VA, USA.  The latest results from the Internet's most 
basic and longest continuing measurement of it's size were just 
released by Mark Lottor of Network Wizards at Menlo Park CA USA.  
The Domain Survey attempts to discover every host on the Internet 
by doing a complete search of the Domain Name System.  The results 
were gathered during July 1997.  The raw data plus some Network 
Wizards charts are available at <ftp://ftp.nw.com/zone> or 
<http://www.nw.com/>.  The latter also provides important
reachability information for each top level domain.

Lottor's measurements show that the Internet currently consists
of countless autonomous networks, representing 1,301,000 domains, 
with 19,540,000  "advertised" connected computers in 214 countries
and territories. Because of the unknown and potentially unlimited 
numbers of multiuser computers and network or application gateways, 
it is not possible to correlate any of this information with the 
number of end users.  However, see Quarterman's estimates at
<http://www.mids.org>

Further processing and analyzing Lottor's data over the past
several years reveals the following newsworthy and strategic
highlights:

o The figure of 19.5 million hosts represents a current annual 
  host growth rate of 52 percent.  On the basis of this latest
  number, in analyzing the growth curve over the past seven 
  years, it now appears that the Internet host growth metric
  has made a significant transition from exponential to linear.  
  An almost perfect least-squares-fit analysis shows that since 
  the Jan 1996 count, the host growth rate has been linear at 
  18,339 hosts per day.

o On the other hand, the proliferation of WWW servers - as
  measured by WWW prefixed hosts, appears to manifest
  continuing exponential growth - increasing by 256 percent
  annually to a new high of 755,000 hosts.

o The growth rate transition is probably due to fundamental
  shifts in the architecture of the Internet, its applications
  (especially the WWW), and usage patterns.  This would include
  the increasing tendency of hiding large numbers of hosts 
  behind firewalls, outsourcing, and shared use of common hosts.
  It also includes possible disincentives arising from second
  order factors like sufficient very large numbers of people 
  who can maintain hosts, as well as the attractiveness of 
  pooling resources at common sites for bandwidth sharing and
  other considerations.  As the Internet scaled through its 
  seventh order of magnitude, it was apparent that the growth
  could not remain exponential indefinitely.

o The largest single domain is .com with 4.50 million hosts,
  and now constitutes 23 percent of all hosts.  This relative
  percentage is down another two percent over the past six months -
  meaning there is a continuing growing preference for country 
  domain use being demonstrated worldwide.

o Among country and global top level domains above the 10,000
  mark, the most rapidly growing included:  Malaysia, Turkey
  Russia, Korea, Russian Fed., Ukraine, China, Indonesia, 
  Argentina, Hong Kong, Thailand, and New Zealand.

o In absolute numbers, the most rapidly growing domains were
  .net, .com, .edu, .US, Japan, Australia, Germany, .org, and
  .UK with six month increases in excess of 100,000 hosts. 
  (See below.)  Among the major countries outside the USA,
  the host growth rate in Japan is consistently the largest.

o Without subsequent processing to attribute the three
  letter global domains to a country previously done by
  John Quarterman of MIDS <http://www.mids.org/>, it's 
  not possible to determine final country figures.  However, 
  it appears approximately that the same 60% - 40% balance 
  between USA versus non-USA, proportions remain.  Quarterman 
  should be contacted regarding the availability of this 
  information.

o Hosts in 214 country domains appear to have connectivity.
  The domains of a record 27 countries or territories appeared 
  on the host count for the first time - apparently connecting 
  since Jan 97.  (See below)  Increasingly, some very remote 
  places are achieving connectivity.  However, it is possible 
  some of these hosts may not be actually physically located 
  in the country.


Very attractive new graphic presentations of all these values 
and trends can be found at several locations including:

<ftp://ftp.genmagic.com/pub/internet/trends-v97ppt.zip>  PowerPoint 97
<ftp://ftp.genmagic.com/pub/internet/trends-v95ppt.zip>  PowerPoint 95
<ftp://ftp.genmagic.com/pub/internet/trends-v4ppt.zip>   PowerPoint v4
<ftp://ftp.genmagic.com/pub/internet/html.zip>       HTML

*******************************************************************
* This analysis and material is made available to the Internet    *
* community. The material may be copied and distributed providing *
* attribution is given to the sources.                            *
*******************************************************************

Tony Rutkowski
Herndon VA 22071
USA
tel: +1.703.437.9236
fax: +1.703.471.0596

=================================================================
             Fastest Growing Internet Domains in 1997
                      (in absolute numbers)
                                                        6 month
                   31-Jul-96    31-Jan-97    31-Jul-97  Increase
                   ---------    ---------    ---------  --------
.net               1,232,902    1,548,575    2,164,815  616,240
.com               3,323,647    3,965,417    4,501,039  535,622
.edu               2,114,851    2,654,129    2,942,714  288,585
USA-dom              432,727      587,175      825,048  237,873
Japan                496,427      734,406      955,688  221,282
Australia            397,460      514,760      707,611  192,851
Germany              548,168      721,847      875,631  153,784
.org                 327,148      313,204      434,654  121,450
UK                   579,492      764,000      878,215  114,215
Canada               424,356      603,325      690,316   86,991
Netherlands          214,704      270,521      341,560   71,039
Korea                 47,973       66,262      132,370   66,108
Italy                113,776      149,595      211,966   62,371
Sweden               186,312      232,955      284,478   51,523
France               189,786      245,501      292,096   46,595
New Zealand           77,886      113,900      155,678   41,778
Norway               120,780      171,686      209,034   37,348
Russian Fed. (RU)     32,022       50,097       81,104   31,007
Denmark               76,955      106,476      137,008   30,532
Belgium               43,311       64,607       86,117   21,510
Russia                13,601       19,094       38,363   19,269
Switzerland          102,691      129,114      148,028   18,914
South Africa          83,349       99,284      117,475   18,191
Poland                38,432       54,455       70,500   16,045
Malaysia               8,541       25,200       40,533   15,333
Spain                 62,447      110,041      121,823   11,782
Singapore             38,376       49,700       60,674   10,974

N.B. - these counts are country or global (e.g., .com)
top level DOMAINS.  Total COUNTRY counts consist of the
country domain counts PLUS any .com, .net, .org, .mil
or .int global top level domains that may also be located 
in the country.  In the past, about 80% of these top level 
domains have been in the USA.  Consult Quarterman for 
complete country totals.


----------------------------------------------------------------
              Fastest Growing Internet Domains in 1996-97
                (in relative annualized percentages)
                                                         Annual
                   31-Jul-96    31-Jan-97    31-Jul-97  Increase
                    ---------    ---------    ---------  -------
Papua New Guinea                        1           79   15600%
Tonga                      3            7          417   13800%
Cote d'Ivoire              4          202          248    6100%
Qatar                      6           21          365    5983%
Burkina Faso               1            1           48    4700%
Ghana                      6          203          275    4483%
Netherlands Antilles       2           46           84    4100%
Tanzania                                3           62    3933%
Guadeloupe                              7          127    3429%
Lesotho                                 1           16    3000%
Mali                       1           15           29    2800%
Guyana                     3           52           57    1800%
Botswana                               24          238    1783%
Angola                     1            2           18    1700%
Niger                      2            5           34    1600%
Moldova                   10           97          168    1580%
Cuba                       4           15           67    1575%
Burundi                                 1            8    1400%
Zaire                                   1            8    1400%
Saint Kitts and Nevis                   2           12    1000%
Congo                                   1            6    1000%
French Polynesia                       25          147     976%
Honduras                  86          408          590     586%
Trinidad and Tobago       66          141          423     541%
Zimbabwe                  45          176          272     504%
Senegal                   46           69          275     498%
Guatemala                159          274          882     455%
Isle of Man                             6           19     433%
Swaziland                 49          226          240     390%
Malaysia               8,541       25,200       40,533     375%
El Salvador               43          226          200     365%
Macedonia                 94          284          429     356%
Azerbaijan                18            6           81     350%
Mauritius                 47          122          211     349%
Belarus                  103          255          451     338%
United Arab Emirates     469        1,802        1,994     325%
Guernsey                                5           13     320%
Namibia                   84          262          350     317%
Vanuatu                    8            7           32     300%
Bahrain                  236          841          896     280%
Saint Lucia               20           21           74     270%
Liechtenstein            134          213          479     257%
Bolivia                  154          430          538     249%
Kenya                    133          273          457     244%
Norfolk Island                         73          160     238%
Vatican                    3            5           10     233%
Virgin Islands (US)       11           18           35     218%
Armenia                  105          175          332     216%
Lebanon                  359                     1,128     214%
New Caledonia             19           23           59     211%
Belize                     8           12           24     200%
Greenland                140          215          417     198%
Turkey                 7,743       13,194       22,963     197%
Peru                   2,269        5,192        6,510     187%
Russia                13,601       19,094       38,363     182%
Paraguay                  85          187          239     181%
Venezuela              1,679        2,417        4,679     179%
Zambia                    92          173          255     177%
Korea                 47,973       66,262      132,370     176%
Nepal                     60           60          165     175%
Croatia                2,480        4,883        6,705     170%
San Marino               277          457          734     165%
Sri Lanka                234          349          611     161%
Nicaragua                285          531          743     161%
Monaco                    99          219          258     161%
Russian Fed. (RU)     32,022       50,097       81,104     153%
Morocco                  351          477          888     153%
Georgia                  119          210          298     150%
Pakistan                 386          511          959     148%
Bulgaria               2,254        3,653        5,515     145%
Ukraine                4,499        6,966       10,513     134%
Egypt                    817        1,615        1,894     132%
Gibraltar                 60           78          138     130%
Dominica                  27           55           62     130%
China                 11,282       19,739       25,594     127%
Barbados                   9           21           20     122%
India                  2,176        3,138        4,794     120%
Romania                2,725        8,205        5,998     120%
Jordan                    79          140          170     115%
Cyprus                   919        1,481        1,973     115%
Maldives                               33           51     109%
Kazakhstan               545          807        1,136     108%
Lithuania              1,335        1,775        2,761     107%
Uzbekistan                74          122          153     107%
Indonesia              5,262        9,591       10,861     106%
Argentina              9,415       12,688       18,985     102%
Hong Kong             24,133       49,162       48,660     102%
Thailand               6,362        9,245       12,794     101%
Nigeria                                 4            6     100%
New Zealand           77,886      113,900      155,678     100%

---------------------------------------------------------------
Country or Territory Hosts First Appearing Jul 1997

American Samoa
Bhutan
Buinea-Bissau
Cambodia
Cameroon
Cape Verde
East Timor
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Grenada
Kyrgyzstan
Libya
Marshall Islands
Martinique
Montserrat
Myanmar
Niue
Palau
Pitcairn
Rwanda
Samoa
Seychelles
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Sudan
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Virgin Islands (British)




More information about the Web4lib mailing list