The U.S. is notoriously laggy when it comes to broadband speeds, but the country broke into new territory this month. According to data from Ookla’s Net Index, which aggregates broadband and mobile data speeds from tests conducted around the world, the U.S. can finally say that it has an average broadband download speed above 30Mbps (megabits per second), with New York, Delaware and New Jersey boasting the fastest speeds in the nation.
The Household Download Index, which is based on nearly 11.6 million broadband tests conducted via Ookla’s Speedtest.net, indicates that the average broadband download speed in the U.S. for the month ending Oct. 24 was 30.8Mbps. To put that into perspective, a 30.8Mbps connection would take 4.6 minutes to download 1GB (gigabyte) in ideal conditions. This places the U.S. in 27th place globally. In October 2013, the U.S. had an average broadband download speed of about 20Mbps and ranked 32nd in the world.
New York is the fastest state with an average broadband download speed of 39.4Mbps, followed by Delaware with 39.0Mbps and New Jersey with 38.8Mbps. Maine (14.9Mbps), Kentucky (15.9Mbps) and Montana (17.5Mbps) are the slowest states, according to Ookla.
Kansas City, Missouri, is listed as the fastest U.S. city with a 68.9Mbps broadband download speed, followed by Austin, Texas, with a 68.2Mbps download speed. (Both cities were early recipients of Google Fiber connections.)
Verizon FiOS ranks atop the list of major ISPs with a speed of 42.3Mbps, followed by Cox Communications with a speed of 39.6Mbps and Comcast with a speed of 38.8Mbps. Of course, all three fall short of Google Fiber’s average download speed of 230.5Mbps.
Ookla’s Net Index also indicates that U.S. households pay $3.50 per Mbps, which ranks 31st in the world.
