Akamai's latest State of the Internet Connectivity Report notes the average global broadband speed rose 23% since last year to 6.3 Mbps, but that the United States still lags a significant number of nations in terms of wired and wireless connection speeds. The Akamai study, which logs connections from millions of Akamai customers, found that the United States saw an average speed of 15.3 Mbps, putting the country in sixteenth place. The US ranked 22 in terms of average peak broadband speed of 67.8 Mbps.
The US' rather mediocre ranking is thanks to a number of factors, not least of which being geography and an overall lack of competition in the market, both of which have resulted in a significant amount of last-generation DSL customers telcos have little incentive to upgrade.
South Korea continues to be the global leader in broadband speeds at 29 Mbps, an 8.6 percent gain over the fourth quarter of last year. Norway and Sweeden nab the number two and number three spots, at 21.3 and 20.6 Mbps, respectively.
The United States actually fares notably worse when it comes to average mobile connection speeds, clocking in at 5.1 Mbps -- behind nations such as Turkey, Kenya, and Paraguay. Previous studies have clocked the US at around 55th for average LTE connection speed. Those who put stock in rankings shouldn't feel too badly however, as the United States came in second in the ranking of DDoS attack origin countries, and is the number one source country for web attacks, most aimed at retailers.
The Akamai report also offers up some interesting state-by-state comparisons of broadband speed, noting that Washington DC holds first place for average fixed-line broadband connection speed at 24 Mbps. That's followed by Delaware (21.2 Mbps), Rhode Island (20 Mbps), Massachusetts (19.9 Mbps), and Utah (19.7 Mbps) to round out the top five fastest states. That's in stark contrast to Kentucky, which found itself in last place in the majority of the state rankings.
The full Akamai report can be viewed here (pdf), with a video synopsis provided below.
so because we are have more land mass we should be proud of sucking?
Jesus Christ, this perverse mentality needs to die. If we had this mentality the transpacific rail road, telegram, telephone, highways etc etc would've never been build. So enough "well we are huge" is embarrassing to tell anybody outside the US" well we have copper cable and they would answer copper?? that was a thing during my parents time". We need to lead in technology not suck at it and be proud of it .
According to this Net Neutrality==Armageddon Washington Post article, the US has the most advanced mobile networks and the most fiber.
said by Post Article :
...During the 20 years in which U.S. Internet infrastructure was left largely to engineering-driven self-governance, investors pumped nearly $1.5 trillion into competing network technologies and competing providers, giving the United States four times as many wired connections as any other country, along with the most advanced mobile networks and the most fiber. More U.S. homes have access to broadband than they do indoor plumbing. And except for the very newest high-speed services, U.S. broadband prices are actually lower than they are in price-regulated Europe...
5.1 Mbps (average) is enough to handle rich media, so what's the difference? Also if you added up the land mass of the top 10 they are still probably smaller than Texas.
Not sure you can boil the entire US down to one number, so these types of comparisons are useless because as everyone know in metro areas LTE flies and a vast majority of the population lives in dense population areas (over 80%).
Now for the other 20% well blame it on the fact the US doesn't treat broadband/connectivity as a national treasure.
