Despite a 9% increase in a single quarter, the U.S. fell off Akamai’s latest list of the 10 countries with the highest average broadband connection rates, released today. The average U.S. broadband speed was 10.5 Mbps for the reporting period, which was based on measurements made during the first quarter of 2014. Results were published in Akamai’s State of the Internet Report for the quarter.
Countries on the top 10 list were in Asia and Europe, with average speeds between 10.7 Mbps in Finland and Ireland and 23.6 Mbps in South Korea.
Telecompetitor has reported on Akamai State of the Internet data for several years and this is the first time in our coverage that the U.S. has not been on the top 10 list.
The U.S. did make one of several other Akamai top 10 lists, however. It was ranked number 7 measured by the percentage of broadband users connecting at speeds above 10 Mbps. More than a third (36%) of U.S. broadband users connected at average speeds above 10 Mbps in first quarter. Here, too, all other countries on the top 10 list were in Europe or Asia, with South Korea again topping the list at 77%.
Average Broadband Speed by State
The U.S. state with the highest average broadband connection speed was Virginia, which had an average connection speed of 12.7 Mbps, Akamai said. The top 10 U.S. states measured by average connection speed were all in the more densely populated east, with three exceptions – Washington, which had an average connection speed of 12.5 Mbps; Utah, which had an average connection speed of 12.1 Mbps and Michigan, which measured 11.8 Mbps.
Other states in the top 10 were Delaware, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, New Hampshire and Connecticut. All states in the top 10 had average connection speeds of at least 11.7 Mbps.
4K Readiness
Akamai added a new measurement to its report for this quarter, which the Internet infrastructure company calls “4K readiness.”
“Given the growing interest in the streaming delivery of 4k (‘UltraHD’) video, we thought it would be interesting to begin tracking a ‘4K readiness’ metric… With 4K adaptive bit rate streams generally requiring between 10-20 Mbps of bandwidth, the rankings presented within this section identify candidate geographies most likely to be able to sustain such streams within this range.”
Akamai measures 4K readiness based on the percentage of broadband users who connect at average speeds above 15 Mbps.
The most-ready U.S. state was Massachusetts, where 27% of broadband users connect at average speeds above 15 Mbps. All states in the top 10 were in the east, other than Washington, where 22% of broadband users met the 4K speed target, and Michigan, where 21% met the target. Other states in the top 10 were Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. All states in the top 10 had at least 21% of broadband users connecting at speeds of 15 Mbps or higher.
Mobile Measurements
The average mobile broadband data rate in the U.S. was 5.5 Mbps for the first quarter according to Akamai.
