Akamai's State of the Internet Report

The average Internet speed in the United States has made significant gains over the past year but still trails behind a number of smaller, heavily urban countries. According to a new report out by Akamai, the average Internet download speed in the United States is 15.3 Megabits per second (Mbps). To put that in context, Netflix recommends 5 Mbps to stream HD movies and the government has set a goal of 25 Mbps for high-speed Internet service. Those speeds, measured in the first quarter of 2016, are well above the global average. But they don’t put the United States in the top 10 fastest countries, led by South Korea, Norway, Sweden and Hong Kong. Most US states saw double-digit increases in speed. Delaware, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Utah, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Virginia and Washington had the highest US Internet speeds. The city of Washington (DC) had average download speeds of 24 Mbps, the fastest when compared against the 50 states.

Mobile Internet speeds used on smartphones are much slower around the world. The average mobile download speed in the United States is 5.1 Mbps. That is slower than most countries in Europe, which is led by the United Kingdom with an average mobile speeds of 27.9 Mbps. The report also looked at the frequency of cyberattacks in the first quarter of 2016. The retail industry was by far the most frequent target of attacks to their web applications. Distributed Denial of Service attacks were most frequently directed at the gaming industry.