(Credit: Getty Images/John Lamb)
The U.S. ranks 14th in average Internet connection speeds at 14.2Mbps, according to Akamai's latest State of the Internet report.
That's a 13 percent improvement from the third to the fourth quarter of 2015 and a 29 improvement over the fourth quarter of 2014.
Those improvements pale in comparison with many of the countries on the top 10 list, however. Norway, ranked third, saw the biggest improvement of the top 10 countries. Its average connection speed jumped 65 percent from last year to just under 19Mbps. At the top is South Korea with 26.7Mbps, a 20 percent improvement over last year.
The fact that the U.S. lags behind the countries with the fastest Internet connection is nothing new; it hasn't reached the top 10 for the last few quarters. But the nation's overall improvement is significant, and many U.S. states would rank among the top 10 if they were separate countries, especially when it comes to average peak connection speeds.
Delaware has the fastest average peak connection speed (APCS) in the U.S. at 88Mbps, followed by D.C. and Massachusetts at 82Mbps and 81Mbps, respectively. Globally, Delaware would rank fourth, below Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Massachusetts would rank eighth.
South Korea's high level of broadband adoption is chiefly responsible for its impressive performance in the Akamai results. Thirty-seven percent of South Korean IP addresses see speeds of 25Mbps or higher, and 81 percent are connected at 10Mbps or higher.
Global average connection speed is 5.2Mbps, with a sharp divide between developed countries and third-world nations, a few of which see average speeds below 1Mbps. At the bottom end of the spectrum are Libya and Yemen, which saw their average connection speed rise 10 percent to 1Mbps, leaving Libya as the only country with an average connection speed below 1Mbps.
Besides measuring Internet speeds, the Akamai report also tracks global Internet attacks, which are mostly of the distributed denial of service (DDoS) variety. Those attacks continue to grow, with DDoS attacks increasing 149 percent compared over the same period in 2014. Attackers' persistence is also increasing, with an average of 24 DDoS attacks per Akamai customer.