The world's fastest Internet access—who's got it? Posted by Scott Woolley January 23, 2011 6:00 AM New research ranks the countries with the fastest Internet connections, and all 50 U.S. states too. The speed at which people around the world connect to the Internet is climbing at a 14% annual clip and now averages nearly 2 megabits per second, according Akamai's "State of the Internet" report that is due out tomorrow. There remain huge variations around that average speed. South Koreans hook into the Internet at 14 megabits a second, seven times the global average, earning them the top spot on Akamai’s list.
The global Internet continues to grow bigger and faster at an impressive pace, the report's data show. The number of devices hooked to the Internet climbed 20% in the last year (ended September 30), but it's the increases in speed that are the most eye-catching. The Akamai data give a unique window into the rapidly evolving Internet. As the world's biggest "content delivery network," the company's servers blast out billions of webpages, iTunes songs, and videos daily, sending them to users of every major wired network and wireless network on the planet. That makes it easy to record how many bits the world's different networks can deliver in a second. In one surprise, Russia took the top spot in mobile download speeds, with one wireless operator there getting average connection speeds of 6 megabits per second. (Akamai doesn't disclose which company it was.) Still, sky-high wireless speeds often say as much about the crowding of the network as they do about the quality of the technology. After
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all, you can go faster on a traffic-free county highway than you can on the Autobahn at rush hour. In some places like South Korea, average speeds have declined because more people are accessing the web from mobile devices. (Wireless download speeds are climbing, but will always lag fiber-optic connections.) In the U.S., Delaware remained atop the list, aided by its population density and competitive market. Over 97% of Internet connections in Delaware now exceed 2 megabits per second. Average speeds are 7.1 megabits per second, meaning if Delaware were a country it would edge out Romania as the world's fourth fastest. Here's a list of all 50 U.S. states: STATE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 DELAWARE UTAH DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA RHODE ISLAND VERMONT NEW HAMPSHIRE MASSACHUSETTS CALIFORNIA NEVADA Avg Kbps 7145.8376 6412.2288 6407.6024 6297.0088 6151.1512 6066.608 5937.2 5799.2384 5603.4288 5504.8216 5502.9464 5496.9112 5470.1712 5449.7456 5448.7496 5411.5744 5404.8072 5346.4 5326.0992 5302.932 5208.2856 Avg Mbps 7.1 6.4 6.4 6.3 6.2 6.1 5.9 5.8 5.6 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.4 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.2
10 MINNESOTA 11 NEW YORK 12 WASHINGTON 13 INDIANA 14 CONNECTICUT 15 MAINE 16 WISCONSIN 17 MICHIGAN 18 VIRGINIA 19 MARYLAND 20 HAWAII 21 NEW JERSEY
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22 OKLAHOMA 23 TEXAS 24 OREGON 25 PENNSYLVANIA 26 NORTH CAROLINA 27 ILLINOIS 28 SOUTH CAROLINA 29 NORTH DAKOTA 30 GEORGIA 31 FLORIDA 32 NEBRASKA 33 COLORADO 34 SOUTH DAKOTA 35 TENNESSEE 36 WEST VIRGINIA 37 ARIZONA 38 KANSAS 39 NEW MEXICO 40 OHIO 41 ALABAMA 42 IOWA 43 MONTANA 44 MISSOURI 45 LOUISIANA 46 WYOMING 47 KENTUCKY 48 MISSISSIPPI 49 IDAHO 50 ALASKA 51 ARKANSAS