U.S. Slips In Broadband SpeedU.S. Slips In Broadband Speed

U.S. cities continue to fare poorly in broadband speeds compared to many cities in Asia, according to Akamai Technologies first quarter 2010 State of the Internet report.

Released Tuesday, the report found that Masan, South Korea, captured the top worldwide spot. The Cambridge, Mass., firm didn't break out Masan's actual figures, but it found that the average maximum connection speed in South Korea was an impressive 33 Mbps. Hong Kong and Japan placed second and third, respectively in Akamai's compilation.

The average U.S. connection was 4.7 Mbps. Alaska had the lowest average connection speed with 2.7 Mbps. Individual U.S. cities, however, captured 12 spots in the top 100 and 7 of the 12 were in California.

In the United States, broadband speeds are becoming an issue in the National Broadband Plan, because the Federal Communications Commission is alarmed that the country is dropping behind so many other nations in broadband speeds and access.

However, the United States still has pockets of high broadband speeds, particularly around universities with strong research & development facilities. In its current report, Akamai concentrated on larger cities, which resulted in the previous quarter's top three cities -- Chapel Hill, N.C., and Berkeley and Stanford, Calif. -- dropping from its rankings. Overall, the U.S. had the 16th fasted average connection speeds.

A total of 61 of the top cities were in Japan. The first European city to show up on the list was Umea, Sweden, which ranked 18th in the top 100 cities.

The United States and China are in a neck-and-neck race for total unique IP addresses, with the two countries combined accounting for about 40% of global connections. However, China is adding connections at a rate nearly double that of the United States.

Russia continued to dominate the attack traffic category with 12% while the United States was in second place with 10%, followed by China with 9%.