From a global perspective, California's Internet speeds are pretty damn good

25 September 2015 by Steve Blum
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California has the 11th fastest average Internet speed in the world, according to the latest Akamai State of the Internet report, which looked at Internet traffic over its content delivery network during the second quarter of 2015. Clocking in at 13.7 Mbps, the Californian average is ahead of the U.S., which finished 18th overall with 11.7 Mbps, but behind several European countries – Sweden (16.1 Mbps), Switzerland (15.6 Mbps), Netherlands (15.2 Mbps), Norway (14.3 Mbps), Latvia (14.2 Mbps), Finland (14.0 Mbps) and the Czech Republic (13.9 Mbps) are fourth through tenth – and way behind the top three finishers, South Korea (23.1 Mbps), Hong Kong (17.0 Mbps) and Japan (16.4 Mbps).

The peak speed reached by Californians on Akamai’s network was 62.1 Mbps, a 28% increase from a year before. Although California didn’t have any new gigabit-class system rollouts, Akamai did give credit to Comcast for offering a new 250 Mbps service package in some areas of California, and promising gigabit speeds somewhere down the road.

Among U.S. states, California ranked 10th. Top spot on that list went to Delaware with a 16.7 Mbps average. Utah boasts the fastest Internet in the West, with 15.2 Mbps and Washington leads the Pacific coast with 14.7 Mbps.

There’s a lot of work still to be done in California, but every so often you should sit back and be happy about the good things we do have. A 13.7 Mbps average hides wide swings in the underlying numbers, but it also means we don’t have as far to go as most of the world does in order to get best of class Internet service extended to every Californian. It’s a winnable battle.