Akamai's 'State Of The Internet' Report Q2 2011: The Top 9 U.S. States With The Fastest Internet

Akamai Technologies, an Internet content delivery network, has released their latest "State Of The Internet" report for the second quarter of 2011. The report looks at the average internet speeds of cities, states and countries around the world.

The data is collected from the approximately 1 trillion requests made to Akamai's global server network per day. Any country where more than 25,000 different IP addresses made requests in the second quarter were included in the analysis.

The United States was found to be in 12th place globally, with an average connection speed of 5.8 Mbps -- much better than the global average of 2.6 MBps, but less than half as fast as the South Korea which boasts an average speed of 13.8 MBps.

One possible reason that the U.S. has relatively slow internet as compared with other developed nations is because the governments in some countries, such as Japan, require broadband companies to use the newest internet technology to guarantee the best service. The U.S., by contrast, "generally relie[s] on the marketplace to determine the cost and quality of broadband," MacWorld reports.

In terms of the fastest American states, there was some noticeable reshuffling from Akamai's first quarter rankings. According to Akamai, "for the first time in recent memory" the number-one state was knocked into second place. The new leader (see slideshow) is the same one that Pando Networks, another content delivery company, found to be the speediest in a study they released back July.

While specific states varied between the two lists, Pando and Akamai were in definite agreement on the fastest region. In Pando's study the Northeast through Mid-Atlantic region boasted 8 out of 10 of the fastest states. While Akamai's list included 3 western states, the rest of the top finishers were on the Eastern seaboard.

But, with one exception, no matter what state you're in, your internet speed is getting faster. Akamai reports that internet speeds in all states except West Virginia have gotten 10 percent faster since last year.

Check out our slideshow (below) to see which states are the fastest in the union.

RATE IT!   |  

VOTE

Turtle

Hare

CURRENT TOP 5 PICK YOUR OWN TOP 5

USERS WHO VOTED

NEW! CREATE YOUR OWN SLIDESHOW

Comments

[D Bear]

02:01 AM on 10/31/2011

I've got comcast in WA state with a base (subscribed) rate of 20Mbps that regularly tests at about 30Mbps. However, certain sites always get routed through 1 or 2 choke points it seems where the rate seems to throttle at about 1Mbps. My friends on the other sides of these points report speeks of 5Mbps or better to the same sites.
Obviously the network topology needs some work and is definitely not uniform at all across the nets.

[Wink]

01:19 AM on 10/29/2011

It sure in hell isn't Pennsylvania.... Comcast......

[SPQR1775]

07:50 PM on 10/28/2011

OOPS, ALL PROGRESSIVE STATES, NOT ONE RED STATES ON HERE!!!!

[barkingcat]

10:20 AM on 10/27/2011

For the NH picture, nice shot of part of the summit of Mt. Washington -- I'm sure that the connection speeds there are blazing fast?

[jorydude]

10:12 PM on 10/26/2011

I have 38 mbps here in SF. Comcast rules..haters hate but i get my information faster than the national average..

[blurredmolly]

10:53 AM on 10/27/2011

wow, I am so jealous.

[JackTheSkipper]

09:48 PM on 10/26/2011

Is anyone here still use dialup? I think they probably do in deep south.

[LotusGeek]

08:48 AM on 10/29/2011

I truly hope you are being sarcastic. As a native Southerner (native of Georgia), I can tell you that speeds here aren't bad at all.We're in the same boat as many other people - at the mercy of the marketplace and what it has to offer. Until relatively recently you only had one choice for cable service, or you could use xDSL. Now there's competition - for instance in my area there's Charter and AT&T U-verse - and this has not only helped us get competitive pricing, but also better speeds as each one tries to out-do the other.

Incidentally, as a customer of AT&T U-verse, I am very pleased. Overall service has been outstanding, and for broadband I get 18mbps down, and 3.5mbs up.

One final note: Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi, and we still have many rural areas outside of the major cities. Obviously the speeds in those rural areas are not increased or improved as quickly as those living in or near a large city, as the cost/foot against the income/foot is much less. So, I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Just a thought.

[kidjudas]

11:33 AM on 10/26/2011

Vermont? I guess they only mean the big cities. Most of that state relies on satellite or dialup.

[munki]

11:29 AM on 10/26/2011

We need to be more careful on touch screens...
One never know what will be transmitted away in ultra speed... Hehe

[PenguinLinux]

11:26 AM on 10/26/2011

What most people fail to ever mention and ask about is this: Why are most Internet connections asynchronous in this day and age? I'd MUCH rather have a synchronous at a lower rate than an asynchronous at a faster rate because the former will be much faster than the latter.

[SamOhSam]

02:31 PM on 10/26/2011

most people actually fail to understand what you are talking about

[DesertShores]

09:17 PM on 10/26/2011

That's OK. He is the same one thats been telling me how Linux was taking over. He has been saying that for 20 years.

[gtoya1331]

12:39 PM on 10/27/2011

omg i so wish id hv said that!!! classic!

[JackTheSkipper]

09:45 PM on 10/26/2011

Ninety percent of the internet usage is download and why waste the bandwidth for nothing on the upload channels. If you use FTP a lot and upload gazillion of your photos to social websites on a daily basis, then I can see your point sync connections.

[Mister Grumpy]

10:40 AM on 10/26/2011

Humm...... funny that government regulations do work in some countries like Japan......... but here in the US they're considered to be evil......... while it seems the free market concept in the US can do no better than 12th in the world........

So it seems free market capitalism isn't all that its cracked up to be is it?.............

[ran6110]

09:59 AM on 10/26/2011

Interesting, for the past few weeks I've been lucky to get 50KBs with Comcast just south of Salt Lake City Utah.

Last night my wife purchased a movie from iTunes and it took over 7 hours to download...

[Lindsay Wheaton]

12:07 PM on 10/28/2011

I have Comcast and I get well over 25 mbps. Super lightening fast! Before with Qwest (now CenturyLink) I got less than 1 mbps. That was ridiculous! I think with Comcast the speed depends on what is available in your area. In my case, my street has fast speeds, but a couple streets over it is slower. I don't get it, lol.

[Lindsay Wheaton]

12:10 PM on 10/28/2011

Should have mentioned that I also live in Salt Lake. Murray, to be specific

[Artos]

01:01 PM on 10/29/2011

What is the speed limit on your street. It could be that yours is faster than the one a couple streets over. Do you live on a major connection street? They usually run about 35 to 40 Mph versus 25 on side streets.

[ZeroKiwi]

09:49 AM on 10/26/2011

All these states listed have very few people or tons of infrastructure. Less people equals more bandwidth, more infrastructure equals bigger pipes.

[Cogent]

09:38 AM on 10/26/2011

i'm at ~100Mbps in jersey

[Tochi Opara]

08:46 AM on 10/26/2011

Just ran a speed test.

20.03 Mbps down and 4.30Mbps up here in MI.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1556318612.png

[KarateKid]

08:27 AM on 10/26/2011

Japan and Europe are already on 5G, aren't they?