FCC: Internet speeds tripled from 10 Mbps in March 2011 to an average of 31 Mbps in September 2014, but US still ranks only 25th out of 39 nations surveyed
U.S. says its Internet speeds triple in three-and-a-half years — U.S. Internet connection speeds have tripled over 3-1/2 years …
Context & Ripple Effects
The FCC's first Measuring Broadband-style snapshot closes out a year of dueling scorecards. Akamai had put the US at just 11.7 Mbps and 20th place globally in its Q2 2015 study, with South Korea topping the table at 23.1 Mbps, while Akamai's year-end read found the global average at only 5.1 Mbps with barely 5% of users on true broadband (December 2015).
The agency's own numbers tell a more flattering absolute story — 10 Mbps in March 2011 to 31 Mbps by September 2014 — but the 25th-of-39 ranking is the political payload, and it sets the baseline that later measurements would be judged against.
First-order effects
- US consumers get validation for upgrade pressure on their ISPs: the FCC now has official evidence that delivered speeds tripled in under four years, making slower legacy tiers harder to defend.
- For policymakers, the 25th-of-39 rank turns a domestic success metric into a comparative shortfall, giving broadband advocates a federal citation for pushing faster deployment.
Second-order effects
- Measurement vendors gain authority over the debate — Akamai and later Ookla become the de facto arbiters, and their divergent figures (Akamai's 11.7 Mbps vs the FCC's 31 Mbps) force scrutiny of methodology itself.
- Benchmark pressure compounds: within months, independent tests show US fixed broadband at roughly 55 Mbps, up 42% YoY (Speedtest Market Report), suggesting carriers accelerated builds once the gap was quantified.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, broadband becomes a recurring international league table rather than a one-off stat — confirmed by Ookla's 2017 finding of 30% global YoY speed growth (Ookla report) — with national rankings shaping investment narratives.
- Absolute speed growth alone stops being the headline; relative position against peers like South Korea becomes the stickier political question for the FCC and Congress.
The trend: Global broadband speeds are climbing fast everywhere, leaving the US improving rapidly in raw terms while its international rank stagnates mid-pack.