Akamai's "The State of the Internet" survey reveals that the rest of the world is speeding past the United States in Internet connectivity.
Akamai, one of the companies that can actually pull off a survey like this, has released its quarterly "The State of the Internet" report that outlines the relative speeds and penetrations of Internet connectivity in the U.S. and around the world.
It lists today's poor performers, which are actually stunningly fast by the standards of the Internet a decade ago when everyone was struggling. Many of us can recall the days of the fractional T-1. These megabit-per-second shared lines were considered the Rolls-Royce of connectivity.
The 600-page report delves into everything from IPv6 adoption to sources of Internet attack traffic. For anyone who follows the news, there are few revelations except for the fact that apparently Washington, D.C. has the worst Internet overall speeds of any place in the country. This also happens to be where the FCC lives and where Congressional hearings discuss topics like Internet speed and connectivity. It's all too hilarious.
After D.C., the worst states in the U.S., as far as overall Internet speed is concerned, are: Missouri, Georgia, Alaska, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, and Texas.
Korea leads the world with a 17.5 Mbps average. Japan and Hong Kong are next, with 9.1 Mbps. The U.S. is number 13 on the list after Holland, Latvia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Romania. We average 5.8 Mbps. The average connection speed globally is 2.3 Mbps. This is humiliating, but the U.S. has not even been in the top 10 for more than a decade.
Number one city in the world is Taegu, South Korea with an average connection speed of 21.8 Mbps. The top six cities were all in Korea and the next eight were in Japan. An American city, Boston, finally makes the list at number 51 with 8.4 Mbps followed by North Bergen, New Jersey at number 52. Jersey City, New Jersey comes in number 58.
Curiosities, as far as I'm concerned, were Monterey Park, California at number 59 with 8.2 Mbps and Manchester, New Hampshire at number 68 with 7.8 Mbps.
It proves that, if you do some research, you can find some hotspots around the world where you can do business at high speed. At that point, you have to be concerned with uptime and backup connectivity. Places like New Caledonia, in the southwest Pacific Ocean, are highlighted for their initiatives such as soon-to-be implemented fiber to the home. Nobody even talks about fiber to the home in California anymore, at least since the housing market collapse.
The report is peppered with enticing snippets, too, such as these cocktail party facts:
"Fully one quarter of Moroccan households boast a broadband connection - up from just two percent in 2004."
"Argentina has one of the most developed broadband markets in Latin America, with some of the fastest and least expensive plans on offer."
"Romania is one of the leading countries in the world in terms of high speed internet access in larger cities, but fixed broadband internet penetration is still low in Romanian regions and rural areas."
There is a lot to be learned from reports like these, but the main lesson is that the world is moving fast on Internet technology and we need to be a leader, not a follower. This means everyone in Washington, D.C. should look over this data carefully—assuming, of course, they can actually manage to download it with their slow connections.
You can Follow John C. Dvorak on Twitter @therealdvorak.
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