Broadband and mobile Internet speeds are slowly and steadily increasing increasingly across the world, according to the latest findings of Akamai’s (s AKAM) State of the Internet Report for the second quarter of 2012. The Cambridge, Mass.-based Internet services company collects the data from its vast global network.

Broadband observers should be delighted to note that the U.S. saw a 76 percent year-over-year growth in the number of connections at high broadband levels — speeds greater than 10 Mbps during the quarter. It is not surprising as many U.S. customers are leaving slower DSL connections and are switching to cable or other higher-speed options such as fiber networks.

Some key findings from the report:

• The global average connection speed increased 13 percent to 3.0 Mbps from the first to second quarters of 2012, continuing a trend of strong growth.
• South Korea continued to have the highest average connection speed at 14.2 Mbps for the quarter.
• Japan was second at 10.7 Mbps and Hong Kong was third at 8.9 Mbps.
• Among top countries ranked by average measured connection speed, Japan experienced largest year-over-year percentage growth (21 percent)
• Year-over-year trends remained generally positive, with global average connection speeds increasing by 15 percent, including growth in seven out of the top 10 countries.
• The global average peak connection speed grew 44 percent year over year, including increases of 10 percent or more across all of the top 10 countries.
• The global average peak connection speed one again showed strong improvement, growing 19 percent in the second quarter to 16.1 Mbps.
• Worldwide, 126 countries saw increases, six of which grew in excess of 100 percent between the second quarters of 2011 and 2012.  In contrast, only eight countries saw year-over-year declines.

However, it wasn’t all good news:

• The global high broadband adoption rate declined slightly in the second quarter, losing 1.6 percent.
• Seven of the top 10 countries also had negative quarter-over-quarter changes, with wildly varying magnitudes of change, ranging from a trivial loss of just 0.6 percent in Latvia (to 26 percent) to a much more concerning decline of 24 percent, seen in both the Netherlands and Belgium (to 17 percent and 14 percent respectively).
• After moving up in the first quarter of 2012, the global broadband adoption level saw a minor decrease in the second quarter, losing 2.8 percent and declining to 39 percent.

However, U.S. broadband had a great summer:

• Nine of the top 10 states saw positive quarter-over-quarter changes in average connection speeds, with the largest increase seen in Delaware.
• Top 10 states saw average connection speeds increase on a year-on-year basis.
• With 41.6 Mbps, Delaware had the highest average peak connection speed.
• A total of 37 states and the District of Columbia saw their high broadband (higher than 10 Mbps) adoption levels increase quarter-over-quarter.

In this edition of SOTI, Akamai is introducing a new Mobile Connectivity that includes mobile browser data from Akamai IO for the month of June 2012.

• The volume of mobile data traffic doubled from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2012, and grew 14% between the first and second quarter of 2012.
• The fastest mobile average connection speed in the second quarter of 2012 was 7.5 Mbps, delivered by a mobile provider in Russia.
• A UK The fastest mobile average peak connection speed for the quarter came from a provider in the U.K. at 44.4 Mbps.
• Mobile browser data from Akamai IO for the month of June shows approximately 38 percent of requests on cellular networks came from Android Webkit.  Some 33 percent came from Mobile Safari; and about 4 percent from Blackberry.
• However, add Wi-Fi, the numbers shift in favor of Mobile Safari, which accounted for an average of approximately 60 percent of requests.  Android Webkit represented about 23 percent. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise since many folks own iPod Touches and iPads that use Wi-Fi for connectivity.