The last time I looked at the Akamai report (they rank international broadband standings) was the Q4 2012 report. Here is how the US stood then:

• Average Measured Connection Speed by Country/Region – US is #8
• Average peak connection speed – US is #13.
• Adoption of high broadband (defined as 10 Mbps down) the US is #8

Here is the ranking in the most recent report (Q2 2013):

• Average Measured Connection Speed by Country/Region – US is still #8
• Average peak connection speed – the US isn’t listed, which means below #10 (US average peak connection is 36.3 Mbps – the #10 peak average is 39.5 in Taiwan)
• Adoption of high broadband (defined as 10 Mbps down) the US dropped to #10

The report also looks at top rankings for US states. But Akamai only reports on the Top Ten of each listing. Minnesota isn’t in the Top Ten of any metric.

At the Minnesota Connect summit earlier this month there was a lot of discussion about the broadband speed goals defined in by Statute – the goal is 5-10 Mbps upstream and 10-20 Mbps downstream. Some people claimed this was too slow. Some people claimed the upload speeds were artificially high since 3 Mbps is more practical and easier to get to. BUT folks seemed to forget that the other less finite was goal to be a broadband leader.  We’re not there. We’re not at a point of ubiquitous access to 5-10 Mbps upstream and 10-20 Mbps downstream. We’re not making the US Top Ten lists. And the US is often not making or barely making the Top Ten International lists. We’re not leaders.

I also make a point of spelling out the full goals because re-watching the Connect Minnesota conference I noted that one of the panelists (Andrew Sackreiter from AT&T Mobile) tried to correct Brent Christensen (from MN Telecom Alliance). Brent has referred to the speeds goals (5-10 Mbps and 10-20 Mbps) and Andrew tried to rein it back to 5 Mbps and 10 Mbps. But the speed goals really do include the high and low range. Brent was on the original Task Force that set the goal. Interestingly enough the difference had also come up at the last Minnesota Broadband Task Force monthly meeting.

That being said, and having attended the original Task Force meeting where speeds were discussed along with the goal to have world class access, I don’t think the numbers matter as much as the fact that we’re not comparing favorably to the competition – down the street or across the world.

On a high level the most noteworthy trend came from the mobile connectivity corner…

In the second quarter of 2013, average connection speeds on surveyed mobile network providers ranged from a high of 9.7 Mbps down to a low of 0.5 Mbps. Average peak connection speeds ranged from 54.9 Mbps down to 2.2 Mbps. Based on traffic data collected by Ericsson, the volume of mobile data traffic almost doubled from the second quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2013, and grew 14% between the first and second quarters of 2013, while mobile voice traffic increased 5% from the second quarter of 2012 to the second quarter of 2013.