Akamai has released its State of the Internet report for Q3 ’16 finding, among other things, that global average broadband connection speed increased 21% to 6.3 Mbps vs. Q3 ’15. The country with the biggest jump in the past year was South Korea, which increased 28% to an average 26.3 Mbps, with Hong Kong next, up 27% to an average 20.1 Mbps. South Korea continues to have the highest average connection speed.

The US had an average connection speed of 16.3 Mbps, with the top 5 and their improvement over Q3 ’15 as follows: District of Columbia (24.8 Mbps, up 1.8%), Delaware (21.4 Mbps, up 9.8%), Utah (21.4 Mbps, up 13%), Massachusetts (21.1 Mbps, up 11%) and Rhode Island (20.7 Mbps, up 5.4%).

In addition to broadband connections, mobile connections improved as well among the 61 countries that Akamai measured. Topping the list again was the UK, which had an average mobile connection speed of 23.7 Mbps, up slightly from 23.1 Mbps in Q2 ’16. In second place was Belgium, with a 19.3 Mbps average mobile connection speed, down from 21.1 Mbps in Q2 ’16.

As the report notes, connection speeds matter more than ever these days given the proliferation of 4K TVs, virtual reality, mobile devices and of course, multiple users in a household. For many users, signing up for broadband is no longer a simple decision, with speed and quality becoming paramount concerns. As well, here in the U.S. with more video services becoming zero-rated, even more video consumption will be flowing over mobile broadband networks in 2017.

The Q3 ’16 State of the Internet report can be downloaded here.

(Note: Akamai is a VideoNuze sponsor)