In 2008, Akamai Technologies began publishing a quarterly report on the State of the Internet based on connections to its massive network. The company's report on the fourth quarter of 2008 confirms what a lot of us have read about the U.S.'s relative broadband competitiveness, but also offers a surprise about Appleseed's home state of New York.

As of the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. ranked ninth worldwide in the percentage of all Internet connections with speeds of 5 Mbps or greater (25 percent). Not surprisingly, the top two countries during the same time period were South Korea (69 percent) and Japan (54 percent).

% of Internet connections above 5 Mbps, top ten countries(Source: Akamai State of the Internet, 4th Quarter 2008)

Here's the surprise: as of the fourth quarter of 2008, all New York State Internet connections averaged 5.37 Mbps, with 46 percent of connections averaging more than 5 Mbps. On a list of states ranked by the percent of Internet connections faster than 5 Mbps, this puts New York in third place, behind Delaware (62 percent) and New Hampshire (56 percent).

% of Internet connections above 5 Mbps, top ten states(Source: Akamai State of the Internet, 4th Quarter 2008)

To put this in perspective, if New York State were a separate country, it would rank third in the percentage of Internet connections faster than 5 Mbps – just behind South Korea and Japan.

Akamai also reports the number of "high broadband" IP addresses (those faster than 5 Mbps) per capita. In the U.S., New York ranks second behind Massachusetts with 0.19 IP addresses per capita. If New York were a separate country, the state would rank second – just behind South Korea with 0.21 high broadband IP addresses per capita.

One thing to keep in mind is that this data includes all Internet connections that are connecting to Akamai's network – households and businesses using direct fiber connections, cable modems, DSL and other technologies. New York’s average could be influenced by the number of office buildings with fiber connections. Nonetheless, this suggests that New York State is holding its own in the race to provide the kinds of broadband speeds necessary for next-generation applications – from telemedicine and grid computing for computational biology to video conferencing and entertainment.