Average U.S. downstream speed improved 31% year-over-year to 9.8 Mbps.

Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report for Q3 2013 shows the average U.S. broadband user now enjoys some serious speed: 9.6 megabits per second in downstream data delivery, to be exact.

That’s an increase of 31% from the year-earlier measure, reflecting an ongoing progression of performance improvements brought to the marketplace by leading cable and DSL providers as well as newer platforms like fiber-to-the-home networks.

Download Akamai's Q3 2013 State of the Internet report here

The U.S. isn’t alone in experiencing better broadband. Average connection speeds rose 29% year-over-year, with all of the top 10 countries/regions climbing 27 percent or more. Globally, 133 qualifying countries/regions saw year-over-year increases in average connection speeds, from 0.2 percent in Egypt (to 1.2 Mbps) to 259 percent in Réunion (to 6.8 Mbps), according to Akamai.