Akamai study finds average US connection speed was 11.7 Mbps in Q2, up 2% YoY, places US in 20th place globally; South Korea takes top place at 23.1 Mbps
Average US Connection Speed Now 11.7 Mbps, 20th Globally — The global average connection speed increased 3.5% to 5.1 Mbps …
Context & Ripple Effects
Akamai's Q2 2015 scorecard put the [[a:|average US connection speed]] at 11.7 Mbps — 20th place globally and barely half of leader South Korea's 23.1 Mbps — while the worldwide average climbed 3.5% to 5.1 Mbps, a figure Akamai's year-end report confirmed was accelerating at 14% with broadband adoption still under 6% [[a:838083]].
The pattern held beyond this quarter: by mid-2016 US fixed broadband averages had jumped 42% to nearly 55 Mbps [[a:872633]], yet on the mobile side the US kept sliding down international tables, ranking 28th in 2017 [[a:919589]] and near the bottom third in Opensignal's device-level study [[a:938809]].
First-order effects
- US ISPs are benchmarked publicly against South Korea's 23.1 Mbps standard, making the US's 20th-place finish an awkward data point for carriers arguing network investment is keeping pace.
- Akamai's quarterly index gives enterprises and CDNs a shared baseline: at 11.7 Mbps average US throughput, latency-heavy and high-bandwidth services face a materially different user base than in top-ranked markets.
Second-order effects
- Measurement pressure feeds carrier marketing wars over whose network is fastest — visible later when Ookla and Opensignal began publishing competing US speed league tables [[a:943647]] that carriers cite selectively.
- South Korea's lead reinforces its position as the reference market for bandwidth-hungry services and devices, giving Korean operators and equipment vendors an early proving ground the US lacks.
Third-order effects
- The recurring split between strong absolute growth and weak relative rank suggests US connectivity is improving off a constrained base — a structural gap that persisted through the 2020 5G data showing US next-gen speeds just 1.8x its own 4G [[a:957246]].
- If national speed rankings keep tracking infrastructure policy rather than market size, they become a standing argument for public intervention in broadband buildout, independent of any single quarter's numbers.
The trend: National internet-speed rankings are hardening into a persistent measure of infrastructure competitiveness, where the US grows fast in absolute terms yet keeps ceding ground to markets like South Korea across both fixed and mobile.