With FiOS, Time Warner’s Road Runner Turbo and Cox’s Premier Internet service, you’d think that California would be at the top of the chart for speedy Internet.

But no. Even with access to speeds of 50 megabits per second,  California lands right in the middle of the country when it comes to real-time Internet speeds, according to a new report out today by the Communications Workers of America.

Then again, as with most studies, this one is biased and has questionable methods for collecting data.  The numbers are based on 230,000 people who wandered over to the SpeedMatters.org web site to take its “Speed Test” between May 2007 to May 2008. (I didn’t, did you? In fact, I only take online speed tests when I think my connection is slower than it should be.)

The project by the CWA aims to make sure every one in America has access to affordable, high-speed Internet. Here’s a link to the full report.

Nevertheless, results show that Californians had a median download speed of 2.5 mbps. Nationwide, the median download speed was 2.3 mbps.

Rhode Island (hmmm… the smallest state) was the leader for the second year in a row with 6.8 mbps. Alaskans had the most sluggish, at .8 mbps. (That means, says the study, the same file that takes 30 seconds to download in Rhode Island,takes four minutes in Alaska.)  As you can see from the chart, some states had a lot more people taking the speed test than others. In fact, California had 22,173 tests, while Delaware, which ranked second fastest speed in the nation, had 361 people. Check out your own state HERE.

Around the world, Japan ranked at the top with 63 mbps while South Korea had 49 mbps and France came in at 17 mbps.

The other factoid I gleaned: 15 percent of Americans use a dial-up modem to access the Internet.

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