A telecom labor union-backed group dubbed Speed Matters has released their third annual report on the state of the broadband union. The group, with an obvious interest in increased broadband deployment, has long lamented the fact that the US is only industrialized country without a national policy to promote universal, affordable high speed Internet access. Well, at least for another 176 days, at which point the FCC will unveil our new broadband plan.

The group has logged 413,000 broadband speed tests via their website, and says we're still significantly behind other developed nations. 18% of testers have connections slower than 768 kbps, while 51% of testers have connections between 768 kbps and 6 Mbps. 17% of testers have speeds between 10 Mbps and 25 Mbps, while just 2% of users posted speeds faster than 25 Mbps.

"Between 2007 and 2009, the average download speed in the United States has increased by only 1.6 megabits per second (mbps), from 3.5 mbps in 2007 to 5.1 mbps in 2009," proclaims the report. "At this rate, it will take the United States 15 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in South Korea, the country with the fastest average Internet connections."

Speed Matters also released a complete breakdown of each state and territory's average broadband speed. Montana (2,322 kbps), Puerto Rico (1,043 kbps), Hawaii (2,968 kbps) and Wyoming (2,598) bring up the rear, while Delaware (9,906 kbps), Rhode Island (9,788 kbps), Massachusetts (8,645 kbps) and New Jersey (8,863 kbps) clock in as the fastest states. Recent reports by Akamai confirm Delaware is the fastest state in the union, and that the United States has the 33rd fastest average broadband connections in the world.

"The average download speed of U.S. Internet connections is 5.1 megabits per second, significantly below the averages of countries like South Korea (20.1 mbps), Japan (16 mbps) and Sweden (12.7 mbps)," Speed Matters' Alex Kellner tells Broadband Reports. "Only twenty percent of those who took the Speed Matters speed test have Internet speeds in the range of the top ranked countries," notes Kellner, adding that "18 percent of test takers didn’t meet the FCC definition for current-generation broadband."