Rhode Island has the third-highest percentage of high-speed broadband Internet connections in the U.S., according to a new report, but broadband usage overall appears to be declining in the state.

The report said 47 percent of broadband Internet connections in Rhode Island are high speed, defined in the report as download rates of 5 megabits per second (Mbps) or more.

At the same time, however, Rhode Island is actually losing ground when it comes to its total percentage of Internet connections at all broadband speeds. Broadband is defined as download rates of 2 megabits per second or more.

The information was included in the third-quarter “State of the Internet” report from the enterprise applications company Akamai Technologies Inc., which took usage statistics from its international server network to develop the calculations.

Rhode Island was ranked after New York in the speed rankings. They placed ahead of every state except Delaware, where 55 percent of connections are high speed. Behind them were New Hampshire (46 percent), Connecticut (41 percent) and Massachusetts (40 percent).

Seven of 10 states with the highest percentage of high-speed broadband connections are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, according to the report. The other three are Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nevada.

But the gains in high-speed broadband were not matched in low-speed broadband, according to the report.

“Rhode Island, which held the No. 2 slot [for broadband usage at all speeds] for the prior two quarters, was pushed out of the Broadband Top 10 list entirely, as many states saw significant double-digit increases on a quarter-over-quarter basis,” Akamai said.

Rhode Island dropped to No. 28, with only 66 percent of connections at speeds above 2 Mbps, down by nearly 22 percent from the previous quarter, the report said.

The report also found that the number of high-speed broadband connections in Rhode Island is increasing at a slower rate, up about 9 percent from the previous quarter, than in most other high-speed states. By contrast, Massachusetts had a quarterly increase of 29 percent and New Hampshire was up 44 percent.

The report noted that some of the states that posted gains on both the broadband and high-speed broadband lists were those that are investing in bringing Internet and broadband connectivity to more rural locations. They include South Dakota, New Hampshire, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The slowest states – those with the highest percentages of “narrowband,” Internet connections, or speeds of 256 Kbps or lower – were Washington, Illinois, Alaska, Georgia and New Jersey. Washington, D.C., is also at the top of the slow list.

Elsewhere in the report, Rhode Island ranked eighth in the number of unique IP addresses it has per capita, according to the report. The state has 0.43 unique IPs per capita, compared with 0.82 per capita in first-place Virginia, 0.75 in second-place New Jersey, and 0.51 in third-place Massachusetts, according to Akamai.

Rhode Island was tied for second place, however, for the number of high-speed IP addresses it has per capita. The state has 0.20 high-speed IPs per capita, the same number as Massachusetts. The two states were just edged out for first place by Virginia, which has 0.21 high-speed IPs per capita.

More specific information about broadband usage in the United States should be available in the future thanks to a new federal law, the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which President Bush signed last month. The report calls for more information to be collected by a variety of federal agencies to paint a better picture of Internet usage in the U.S.

Separately, Akamai said last month that it plans to cut 110 jobs worldwide, reducing its work force by 7 percent.