US Broadband Speeds Trail Finland, Latvia, Czech Republic

Technology

Published: December 17, 2015 1:25 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 3:58 pm

When it comes to broadband Internet speeds, the United States is solidly an also-ran. The average broadband speed in the United States in the third quarter of 2015 was 12.6 megabits per second (Mbps). South Korea, the country with the highest average, churns out 20.5 Mbps.

The average global speed for the quarter was 5.1 Mbps, up 14% year over year. South Korea remained in first position, even though its average speed dropped 19% from a year ago. Sweden ranked second in the quarter with an average speed of 17.4 Mbps.

The data were reported Wednesday by Akamai Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), a global content delivery network services provider.

The highest average peak speed in the third quarter was posted by Singapore, with a mind-boggling 135.4 Mbps. Hong Kong’s peak average ranked second with 101.1 Mbps, the only other country to post a speed above 100 Mbps. The U.S. average peak speed was 57.6 Mbps, behind even Uruguay, which boasted a peak average of 60.2 Mbps.

Akamai also tracks cloud security data. The number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks increased by 180% year over year in the third quarter, with the largest topping out a 149 gigabits per second (Gbps), well below the 249 Gbps logged by the largest attack in the third quarter of 2014.

The online gaming sector accounted for half of all DDoS attacks in the third quarter. The top five countries for DDoS attacks in the third quarter were the United Kingdom (26%), China (21%), the United States (17%), India (7%) and Spain (7%).

The most common targets for Web application attacks are retail operations, and the United States was the source of 59% of such attacks. U.S.-based retailers were the target of 75% of Web application attacks.

A few other data points from Akamai’s report:

Globally, 5.2% of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, a 6.3% increase over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, global 25 Mbps adoption increased by 15%, in contrast to the 0.5% yearly decrease seen in the second quarter.

In the U.S., 10 states had 10% or more of unique IP addresses connected to Akamai at average speeds of at least 25 Mbps, with the District of Columbia holding the top spot at 22% adoption.

In the third quarter of 2015, 27% of unique IP addresses across the world connected to Akamai at average speeds above 10 Mbps, an increase of 2.4% over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, this was a 19% increase.

The full report is loaded with more statistics and data on the state of the Internet.