The rise of 4K television has prompted Akamai to create a list of nations that have sustained average broadband speeds of 15 Mbps needed to deliver current streams of 4K television content. Akamai calls these nations “4K ready,” and sadly, the U.S. doesn’t rank in the top 10, according to the first quarter data from Akamai’s 2014 State of the Internet Report. Only 17 percent of the U.S. is 4K ready, according to Akamai’s broadband measurement, putting the country at 17 in the global rankings.
Overall, only 47 countries qualified for inclusion in Akamai’s metric, which doesn’t actually take into account the amount of 4K content available in the region. Of those, almost half of the countries had 4K readiness rates above 10 percent, while the lowest readiness rates in terms of the percentage of connections that were above 15 Mbps were found in India (.3 percent) and China (.2 percent).
Unsurprisingly the top 10 countries that are 4K ready match up pretty closely to the countries with the highest average broadband speeds. Seven of the 10 countries on that list are the same.
Globally broadband boosters also got good news. For the first time in Akamai’s seven years of doing these reports one in five broadband subscribers worldwide had speeds of more than 10 Mbps. And in many places those speeds are increasing.
When it comes to broadband in the U.S. some states are doing pretty well with the lowest average speeds found in Alaska at 7 Mbps on average. However, as a nation, we’re not in the top 10 globally (we’re ranked 12th) based on our peak speeds. Yet more than a third of the population of broadband subscribers does have what Akamai considers “high broadband” speeds of greater than 10.5 Mbps. In fact the U.S. average broadband speeds are 10.5 Mbps, far below South Korea’s average speeds of 23.6 Mbps.
Other interesting facts worth noting from the report are:
- Google Fiber appears to be having an effect on Kansas broadband speeds — the state saw a year-over-year jump of 97 percent improvement of its speeds to 34.4 Mbps — the largest jump in the country.
- China is by far home to the most online attacks with 41 percent of attacks originating from the country, followed by the U.S. as a distant second originating 11 percent of the attacks.
- If you’re searching for the fastest peak mobile broadband speeds, head to the Outback. Australia’s mobile peak speeds reach 114.2 Mbps. The slowest peak mobile broadband speeds are found in Iran at 5 Mbps.
- Want the country with the most consistently fast mobile broadband speeds? Visit Ukraine where 89 percent of mobile subscribers get greater than 4 Mbps. The U.S. only has a third of its mobile subscribers getting speeds of greater than 4 Mbps.
- The global average connection speed continued is now 3.9 Mbps.
Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
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