The latest Akamai Report is out Q4 (2016). They measure worldwide broadband adoption and speeds. Turns out Minnesota is pretty middle of the pack. Really Minnesota doesn’t even rank well enough to make the report (they only list “top 10) but the folks at Akamai are kind enough to send me our stats.

I’ve included below charts from the report – followed by Minnesota stats…

Average connection speed:

We rank #26 with an average connection speed of 16.2 Mbps – that’s a slight increase over Q3 (1.5 percent) but a nice increase from 2015 (8.5 percent).

Average peak connection speed:

We rank #27 with an average peak connection speed of 76.3 Mbps – that’s an increase over Q3 (3.5 percent) but a very nice increase from 2015 (24 percent).

4 Mbps broadband adoption:

We rank 29 with 88 percent having access. That’s an increase of 1.1 percent from Q3 and 5.1 percent from 2015.

10 Mbps broadband adoption:

We rank 26 with 60 percent having access. That’s an increase of 6.5 percent from Q3 and 16 percent from 2015.

15 Mbps broadband adoption:

We rank 25 with 39 percent having access. That’s an increase of 5.2 percent from Q3 and 20 percent from 2015.

25 Mbps broadband adoption:

We rank 26 with 14 percent having access. That’s an decrease of .1 percent from Q3 and an increase of 17 percent from 2015.

There’s a slight dip in growth in the 25 Mbps category. We weren’t the only state to see a decrease there and the decrease is slight (.1 percent) so that isn’t too concerning. What is concerning is the stronghold we have on middle of the pack standing!

It is disheartening to rank #27 for peak connection speed with 76.3 Mbps. It’s not great to be #27 – but again more concerning is that while the average peak for the state is 76.3 Mbps 12 percent of the state doesn’t have access to 4 Mbps. That’s quite a digital divide.