Virginia has the fastest internet speeds in the United States

If you want the fastest broadband Internet in the US, consider moving to Virginia. That’s the takeaway from a new bit of research from communications firm Broadview Networks, which ranks average broadband speeds for all 50 United States and the District of Colombia. Virginia tops the list with an average connection speed of 13.7 megabits per second (about 1.7 megabytes per second), while Alaska pulls up the rear at a relatively meager 7Mbps (about .875 megabytes per second). Delaware and Massachusetts are tied for second fastest at 13.1Mbps; Rhode Island and the District of Colombia round out the top five with average speeds of 12.9 and 12.8Mbps, respectively.

If you’re looking for the fastest Internet service in the US, you should pack your bags for Virginia. With an average of 13.7 megabits per second, Virginia tops the country for the speediest Internet access, according to Broadview Networks. What state has the slowest broadband speed? Alaska, with an average of 7 Mbps. How fast is the home of Silicon Valley — California? It comes in No. 20 with an average of 10.9 Mbps. Broadview Networks created a map (seen above) that shows which states have the fastest Internet service and which ones lag. The cloud services provider got the data from Akamai’s “State of the Internet” report (PDF) released in June. Looking at the map, one can see that the West Coast, Midwest, and Northeast (except for Maine) tend to have the fastest Internet, while some Southern states, like Arkansas and Kentucky, seem to have slower service. According to Akamai, if a state has an average speed higher than 10 Mbps it counts as having “high broadband.” In all, 26 states achieved this status. And, no state fell into the “low broadband” category, which is an average lower than 4 Mbps. Kansas was the state that showed the most improvement over last year, with a 91 percent increase in speed. This is likely due to Google’s inauguration of its super-high-speed fiber Internet service in November 2012.