Surprise, Surprise: U.S. Broadband Is Slow. Really Slow.
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: broadband, Internet
Chicago (IL) - U.S. broadband speeds are the focus of a recently conducted study by Communications Workers of America (CWA) union and the results are not especially flattering for broadband service providers on these shores. The U.S. comes in 15th on a worldwide scale, far behind the leaders Japan, South Korea and Finland.
The CWA published the results of its first Speed Matters report in an attempt to get Congress to come up with an improved telecommunications policy. CWA claims that it represents more than 700,000 people in the telecommunications, media, public sector, manufacturing, health care and airline industries. The results of its study are based so-called last-mile connection data of 229,494 U.S. users who took the online speed test between May 2007 and May 2008. The connection speed was determined by sending a request from participant’s computer to CWA’s nearest server to record the time it takes to receive a response. The results have to be taken with a grain of salt, but still provide a good indication of nation’s state of the broadband infrastructure. That said, the results are staggering.
According to the CWA report (PDF download), the U.S. have not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year. Most participants had DSL or cable modem connections, with 15% of the US population still using a dial-up connection. The median download speed in the country is 2.3 Mb/s, up 0.4 Mb/s over the past year. In terms of broadband penetration, the United States trail other industrial nations, ranking 15th in terms of the percentage of residents who access to a broadband Internet connection.
"This isn’t about how fast someone can download a full-length movie," said CWA president Larry Cohen. "Speed matters to our economy and our ability to remain competitive in a global marketplace. Rural development, telemedicine, and distance learning all rely on truly high-speed, universal networks."
Reality check #1: U.S. vs. the rest of the world
You may remember AT&T’s broadband commercial that compare the system’s performance to a supercar. Or Comcast’s current speedracer vs. turtle commercials. These commercials, of course only work in the U.S., if we consider the download speeds generally available on these shores.
A file that takes four minutes to download in South Korea would take nearly an hour and a half to download in the U.S. using the average bandwidth. Japanese users leaves U.S. users behind with an eye-popping 63.60 Mb/s download link. This means that Japanese can download an entire movie in just two minutes, as opposed to two hours or more here in the U.S. Just in case you are wondering: No, Japanese users do not pay more for their broadband connections. In fact, U.S. broadband cost is among the highest in the world.
Japan dominates international broadband speed with a median download speed of approximately 6 MB/s, more than enough to stream DVD-quality video with surround audio in real time. Next on the list is South Korea where download speeds achieve an average of 49.50 Mb/s. Finland and France follow with 21.70 Mb/s and 17.60 Mb/s, respectively. Canada ranked eighth with an average download speed of 7.60 Mb/s. The U.S. came in 15th with 2.35 Mb/s.
Reality check #2: U.S. states vs. U.S. states
The study results show that U.S. download speeds vary across the nation. Rhode Island is the place to be if you want fast downloads - the average download link came in at 6.8 Mb/s. If you live in Alaska, your speed is 0.8 Mb/s. For comparison, a 25 MB file takes 30 seconds to download in Rhode Island, but four minutes if you connect in Alaska.
States with a significant rural population tend to have the slowest speed, such as Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. Interestingly enough, a total of 24 U.S. states dropped in the ranking compared to the last year - Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Vermont. Users in these states experienced slower average download speeds this year than in 2007.
We have been writing for quite a while about the problem of stagnating download speeds of U.S. broadband services and the potential problems that are developing out of this scenario. While providers such as Time Warner Cable, AT&T or Comcast are trying to squeeze more customers in their antiquated networks and are more focused on topics such as speed throttling rather than improving their infrastructure, other nations are slowly but surely running away with greater bandwidths that are likely to enable new services and new business opportunities.
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QQ more. Australia has a pathetic network (fastest most people can get is 1.5mbit) and we pay through the nose for it...
This article shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, right?
Ha USA's lines are lightning compared to south africa's 'broadband'. We're still stuck at 384/512 speeds, stupid monopoly!
the communications companies are no different than the oil companies in the US. Squeeze the people out of the most money from a tired old infrasctructer to make lots of money and invest Nothing into building new systems.
At least canada isn't that bad in terms of bandwidth.. I have a 5mb/s line and it's nice for everything I do, although a 16mb/s line would be nice XD
first let me say that i don't like cell phone companies...
now let me say that verizon took the initiative to start laying out a 100% fiber optic network all across the US when nobody else would even twitch to start adding on to their existing lines... guess what's going to happen when that fiber comes to your neighborhood. Dirt cheap prices and uber fast interwebz.
I say good for them. As soon as it gets here... i'm getting my greasy geek paws all over it.
This news surprised me. I thought US offers the highest connection speed in the world. I subscribe for 100Mbps (UP/DOWN) service in Japan and pay about $50/month. The actual speed range from 20-90Mbps.
You can also subscribe for 1Gbps connection if needed. Cost around $80/month.
Hmm....US is just so slow...
Sheesh what a silly article... are people really gullible enough to think that a Country the size of the US should have nationwide broadband the same speed as Japan and Korea? Those two countries are TINY and have large population concentrations... ideal territory for broadband.
Can US broadband be improved? ABSOLUTELY... but fiber to the home is a large and time consuming investment when you're talking about the coverage areas the US companies have to deal with, and it will take time.
I'm not a huge fan of US ISP's... but if you want to criticize them find something relevant, like the 'pay per gigabyte' profit grab boondoggle they're testing out down south.
This news surprised me. I thought US offers the highest connection speed in the world. I subscribe for 100Mbps (UP/DOWN) service in Japan and pay about $50/month. The actual speed range from 20-90Mbps.You can also subscribe for 1Gbps connection if needed. Cost around $80/month.Hmm....US is just so slow...
Yea but look at the population density in the US compared to Japan, It costs A LOT more to set up a network in the US because of the vast amount of area the networks have to cover. In japan, Its almost like setting up a LAN network. But I still agree that the US' internet is as slow as molasses, and that they really need a network revamp..
Look at them stinkn CEO's RAKING in our $$ for a little "bit" of bandwidth, yaaa pathetic bunch aren't they. I know we can't stream sh*t. The industry is advancing everywhere else but in the U.S. so I say let the government regulate the whole thing! What do we have to lose? Best bet is pay for a dedicated circuit or hop on a tier one provider and the CEO's keep raping (I mean raking)in the money.
The Silent Majority
The fastest I can get is 6mb down/3mb up in South Florida.
Thats nothing some parts of europe around sweden-finland have 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection.
How fast is that?
In less than 2 seconds you can download a full-length movie on your home computer.
Hey Christian Zibreg, a little tip. If you are going to write an article about networks and what not, please know a little about them first.
"Japanese users leaves U.S. users behind with an eye-popping 63.60 Mb/s download link."
"Japan dominates international broadband speed with a median download speed of approximately 6 MB/s"
The conversion is to not just lop off a decimal place. 1 MB = 8 Mb. So a speed of 63.6 Mb is about 8 MB/s. Saying Japan has a 6 MB/s download speed puts it under the 49.5 Mb/s South Korea has.
I live in a rural Texas town and have a 10/1.5 connection for 55 a month...I don't think that's to bad for a city with a population of 23,000 60 miles from a large city.
It IS quite nice here in Rhode Island where a 15mb down/3mb up connection is very affordable (~$60/month). I still don't want to hear anything about Japan though because hearing about their 10x faster yet-lower-in-price connections just makes me sad.
The fastest available here at current time is FIOS with 20mb iirc.
To whomever said that a 40Gbit connection is available in Sweden, that's pretty ridiculous although I think you're stretching the truth a bit. I'd imagine 40Gbit might be a shared bandwidth, but not per-customer. It's currently impossible to even send things that quickly into a computer no matter what connection you use. 40Gbit for personal use is WAY off. You're either talking about a speed shared by an entire neighborhood, or a company's intranet.
Finland has median download speed 21.70 Mb/s. What!!!???
The highest nominal download speed you can order in Finland is 24 Mb/s and in that speed for instance the biggest operator (Elisa) had median speed about 15 Mb/s. You can check this from https://nettimittari.ficora.fi/nett [...] stics.aspx
Vastaanotto=Download
Aikaväli=period
Päivä=day
Vuosi=Year
Näytä mittaustulokset=Show results
I have 100Mb/s connection and I live in Finland so go f yourself humpuukia cos statistics can lie
My problem with the US companies is that they collect user fees supposedly to upgrade networks in rural areas but then invest all their money in FIOS. They collect tax incentives from states to upgrade the network but then don't do what they promise. I can see spending money where they can make the most money but they should be forced to keep a minimum standard in rural areas.
The story here since then the company has expanded the test to whole city:
http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712/
It's pointless trying to get faster broadband speeds in the US and Canada. It just means you'll hit the bitcap earlier in the month!
Broadband in the US and Canada will always lag behind the rest of the technologically developed nations as long as telco's pocket the money earmarked for infrastructure development.
I apologize wrong info about max nominal download speeds in Finland. However according https://nettimittari.ficora.fi/nett [...] stics.aspx only TeliaSonera seems to have any significant number of 100 Mb/s connections and those are still minor compared to the lower speeds. DNA also seems to have 100 Mb/s connections but only few.
Bandwidth speeds will remain slow as long as TV and Video on Demand companies are the major broadband carriers.
They have no real incentive to increase speeds. All it will get them is consumers using their internet connection to get TV and movies for the cheapest price.
The US broadband providers know this and know a 1Gbe to the home connection will spell the end of the massive profits they make off of TV, VoD, and VoIP services.
Municipal fiber to the home along with paying off the major broadband/TV/VoD/VoIP providers to provide their services over that fiber is probably the only way to really ramp up speeds in this country anytime soon.
HAH you think tiny places should have fast internet?!? Where I live (channel islands) we only caught up with the UK last month, and UK is behind EVEN the US.....
The fastest I can get is 6mb down/3mb up in South Florida.
I get 8mb/1mb from Comcast here in South Florida. Who's your provider? The only place I know of, from Martin county down to Dade that cant get faster speeds are the ones serviced by Advanced Cable Communication in Coral Springs and Weston.
Ehm old info anyone? Seen so many yank lads on internet and they always use those damn slow cable modems and think they are "fast" lmao on them daily. Currently using that 24mbit crap ADSL and its not enough really, moving on to 100mbit while moving on to other house here in Finland, YEAH
Hey Christian Zibreg, a little tip. If you are going to write an article about networks and what not, please know a little about them first."Japanese users leaves U.S. users behind with an eye-popping 63.60 Mb/s download link." "Japan dominates international broadband speed with a median download speed of approximately 6 MB/s"The conversion is to not just lop off a decimal place. 1 MB = 8 Mb. So a speed of 63.6 Mb is about 8 MB/s. Saying Japan has a 6 MB/s download speed puts it under the 49.5 Mb/s South Korea has.
Sorry, in networks, 10 bits = 1 byte. encoding is 8/10
And I have 100 MBit here in Ukraine.
I live in NY and have a 10 Mb/s download speed. This is plenty fast enough. When downloading I rarely see my connection speed hit the 10 Mb/s mark as most servers will not eve come close to matching my downstream speed.
That's great if you live in Japan and get 64 Mb/s, but good luck finding a server to download from that will be able to upload to you that fast.
Fair points are made about the vastness of the US vs that of european nations. It is very expensive to build out or upgrade old networks. That is a fact.
I think what should also be considered is that while we have slower connections than that of other geographies, we mostly have unlimited data in those plans. I continually hear about Telcom's in other parts of the world limiting the amount of data you can move in a billing cycle or charging obscene amounts for going over those limits - similar to cell phone carriers today.
So who has it better really? and How much speed does the average user need?
right... 8 bits does not equal 1 byte in this case - the actual length can vary but 10 bits per byte is pretty safe.
FWIW... I live in rural upstate NY... from home (a town of about 500 that doesn't even have cell phone coverage it's so far out) I can get 1MB/s download speeds at the right time of day. From work I can get 3-5 MB/s. I've downloaded full sized software dvd's (from msdn) in a couple minutes... which ain't too shabby.
And even if for some reason people DID have 40gb/s fiber to their home (highly unlikely due to equipment cost), there's no consumer PC hardware in the world that could take advantage of more than a tiny fraction of that bandwidth (a single pc is not capable of hitting 100% utilization of even a gigabit ethernet connection, much less a 40gb one). I've got a $10,000 quad processor workstation with a Raid0 15k U320 array... it can hit 600mb/s or maybe a bit more continuous, you're going to do a lot worse than that from the average home PC.
Well no kidding Australia gets horrible speeds... it's a huge island thousands of miles away from Europe or the US. Or anything.
The problem in the United States is pretty much what the article said and Bob F iterated: there's no incentive to give the consumer anything more. They don't need to compete globally, just locally. The advertising is equally insulting: "Fastest speeds anywhere!"*
(*This statement applies exclusively to the 48 contingent states of the United States of America, but we know you saps will pay for it). Their philosophy? If you don't like it, move to Japan. It's like the gas/oil companies. The reason why gas is double the price it was a year ago? Because they can. The population of Earth hasn't doubled since then, and I'd highly doubt that the entire world economy that's based on oil has doubled. So why do they do it? Because they can. It's all about money and greed. No one cares about you.
Southern Ontario get's fisted as well, the major players (Rogers/Bell) have a virtual monopoly with massively jacked prices ($50+ a month for decent speeds) and have a bandwidth cap.