The average U.S. broadband connection speed is now 6.6 Mbps, according to the latest Akamai State of the Internet Report, which was based on data collected during the second quarter of 2012. That’s down slightly (1.4%) from the previous quarter but an increase of 16% from the same period of 2011.
The percentage of Americans with average connection speeds above 10 Mbps also increased and now stands at 16% — a 5.5% increase over the previous quarter and a 26% increase over the same period a year earlier.
The percentage of U.S. Internet users connecting at speeds above 4 Mbps was considerably higher, measuring in at 57% — a 4.6% drop from the previous quarter but an increase of 7.9% over last year at the same time.
As usual, Delaware was the state with the highest average connection speed – 12.1 Mbps. Delaware was followed by seven other eastern states – including New Hampshire, the District of Columbia, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia – as well as two western states, Utah and Washington. All states in the top 10 had average connection speeds of 8.3 Mbps or higher.
Delaware also had the highest percentage of people connecting to the Internet at speeds above 10 Mbps and above 4 Mbps. Those numbers were 39% and 94%, respectively.
The 10 states with the highest percentage of people connecting to the Internet at average speeds above 10 Mbps were all in the east, except Washington. All states in the top 10 had 23% or more of Internet users connecting at speeds above 10 Mbps.
Washington also was the only non-eastern state among the top 10 states measured by the percentage of people connecting at speeds above 4 Mbps. All states in the top 10 had 69% or more of Internet users connecting at average speeds of 4 Mbps or more.
