A new nationwide study release by Speed Matters shows what many Americans already know: the U.S. lags behind many other countries in terms of broadband speeds.

You read that right, the country that first developed the Internet trails many other countries.

The Speed Matters Speed Test, which is a project of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), measures the speed of a user’s Internet connection. The 2009 report, based on aggregated data from more than 413,000 Internet users who took the online test between May 2008 and May 2009, shows that the average Internet download speed in the U.S. has increased by only 1.6 megabits per second (mbps), from 3.5 mbps in 2007 to 5.1 mbps in 2009.

That might sound good, but compare that to South Korea: 20.4 mbps, or four times faster than the U.S. The United States ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speeds, in fact.

The negative of faster U.S. speeds would be that, if you give the U.S. faster speeds, people on capped broadband plans, which are becoming pretty popular among ISP, would simply reach their caps faster.

The five fastest states are: Delaware (9.9 mbps), Rhode Island (9.8 mbps), New Jersey (8.9 mbps), Massachusetts (8.6 mbps) and New York (8.4 mbps), all in the NE. I’ll bet there’s see some Verizon FIOS impact there, both for Verizon customers and competitors trying to keep up.

Mississippi (3.7 mbps), South Carolina (3.6 mbps), Arkansas (3.1 mbps), Idaho (2.6 mbps) and Alaska (2.3 mbps) have some of the slowest Internet connection speeds, according to the study.

As the CWA notes in a press release, the U.S. is still the only industrialized country without a national policy to promote high-speed Internet access. However, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) that was signed into law earlier this year included a provision calling for a national broadband plan by spring 2010 and $7.2 billion in broadband grants for unserved and underserved areas.

The full report (.PDF) is available online, for those in states not listed above. It could either depress, or elate you.

I guess elate is a little strong, as only if we were seeing South Korean speeds (without a cap) would I be elated.