Global, U.S. Average Broadband Speeds Accelerate

Average broadband connection speeds continue to rise in the U.S. and abroad, content delivery network giant Akamai found in its latest State of the Internet Report.

Global average speeds reached 7 Mbps in Q4 2016, up 12% versus the previous quarter and surged 26% compared to the year-ago period, Akamai said.

South Korea remained atop that list, with an average of 26.1 Mbps, though that number dropped 2.4% year-on-year. That was followed by Norway, with an average of 23.6 Mbps, up 26% year-over-year, Sweden (22.8 Mbps/20%), Hong Kong (21.9 Mbps/31%) and Switzerland (21.2 Mbps/27%).

The U.S ranked 14th in the world in Q4, clocking in with an average connection speed of 17.2%, up 5.5% from Q3 2016 and up 21% year-on-year. Washington, D.C., at 26.7 Mbps, was home to the fastest average connection speed, followed by Rhode Island and Delaware (22.4 Mbps each), Massachusetts (21.7 Mbps) and New York (20.6%).

For the full story go to Multichannel.com.

(Photo via 
Frankieleon's FlickrImage taken on Feb. 14, 2017 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)