Study Identifies Fastest Internet Speeds Among Nations, States

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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Nov 27, 2006
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A study by the Communications Workers of America compiled a list that ranked the Internet speeds of industrialized nations around the world. The rank of the US is truly rank: 28th. The average speed of the nation is 5.1 mbps while the average speed of the leader, South Korea, is 20.4 mbps.

The study is not scientific: Some states had far more data points to draw from than others. And in a seemingly arbitrary decision, the study included U.S. territories Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, where slow speeds helped to bring down the average, but inexplicably not Guam and American Samoa.
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I still belive that a lot of that has to do with land area that has to be covered. Make South Korea as big as the US and see if they still maintain that 20.4.
 
BoogerBomb said:
I still belive that a lot of that has to do with land area that has to be covered. Make South Korea as big as the US and see if they still maintain that 20.4.
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I don't believe that would be a problem if each city built its own fiber network. Peering with other cities would be trivial and average speeds would rocket.
 
I'm not at all surprised that the far-flung, sparsely populated areas have the slowest connections. Many cities are getting better connections since the densities make it economically viable. There's just not enough profit to be made providing internet services to cities that don't have at least several hundred thousand people. Like the telephone, there should be universal service for high-speed internet. Nothing too fancy, but fast enough to handle most Internet activities.
 
Another thing to keep in mind that the applications for the broadband portion of the stimulus plan are going to start being accepted soon.. There may be places that ranked as a high priority, like many of those planes states listed, getting a nice boost soon since they are amongst the high need. But I would expect there will be many low and medium needs being increased as well.
 
bigdogchris said:
Exactly.
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BoogerBomb said:
I still belive that a lot of that has to do with land area that has to be covered. Make South Korea as big as the US and see if they still maintain that 20.4.
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One day everyone bitches about how the industry caps and throttles and squeezes every last pennie out of the consumer and then when it comes to National pride they come out with all the excuses of why they should be exploited by these same companies. Give me a break. Stick with one or the other, I'll go with them using our tax money to help build the internet and then rip us off for every last dime they can and then some. Quick question, how many laws are their to protect the consumer vs laws to protect the industry. I'm just talking about digital.
 
Let's get some statistics on how much of this bandwidth is used. Availability is great. If you don't care about price vs. need, you could get 100m/bit connections to everyone right now. There would be very little effective gain from such a project, but your national e-peen would definitely be bigger.

Is US broadband saturated? Is everyone using all the pipes they have access to while they're tweeting and updating their facebook pages? Or playing WoW?

Oh yeah, we could watch more streaming movies if we just had more bandwidth.

International businessmen area always complaining about the inability to video conference with partners in the US due to lack of bandwidth. Yeah.


I still say the US is being smarter about all this. Rolling out trillions of dollars in wire to be able to swing around our e-peen for a few years before it's all forgotten in favor of much cheaper and easier to upgrade wireless systems. Sounds like a great use of resources.
 
A non scientific test, nice.

We had one of these awhile back here posted on [H] with Japan topping all at around 30 or 50mpbs IIRC.

Non scientific tests are useless.
 
I agree with Vryce. For everyday tasks, I don't notice a difference between my old 16 Mbps Comcast connection and my new 300 Mbps connection. Come to think of it, the only time I notice a difference is when downloading stuff with my usenet account.
 
Uncle said:
One day everyone bitches about how the industry caps and throttles and squeezes every last pennie out of the consumer and then when it comes to National pride they come out with all the excuses of why they should be exploited by these same companies. Give me a break. Stick with one or the other, I'll go with them using our tax money to help build the internet and then rip us off for every last dime they can and then some. Quick question, how many laws are their to protect the consumer vs laws to protect the industry. I'm just talking about digital.
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I don't know about you but I have Verizon DSL and they offer good service and rates. I pay $30/month for 3/768k. They also have 15/5 for $50/month ... as well as 50/20 for $140/month on their fiber network. I think those are fair rates.

You also have to keep in mind that who knows if there are any government subsidies in these countries or what. Hell, in the US it's private, maybe in Korea and Japan it's mostly government networks, who knows? There are a lot of things to consider with these #'s and you're trying to pull this all out of the same hat. It's a completely different situation.
 
If they (govt) is so worried about people illegally downloading software, music, movies, games, papers, whatever-else-can-be-downloaded why don't they just make the internet provided companies put a cap on the internet speeds? Say, 1 or 2 mbps? That wouldn't stop people from illegally downloading but it sure would put a dent in it. I don't know how many people could wait a week to download Inglorious Basterds while waiting 30 seconds for their google email account to open. :confused:
 
Hulk said:
If they (govt) is so worried about people illegally downloading software, music, movies, games, papers, whatever-else-can-be-downloaded why don't they just make the internet provided companies put a cap on the internet speeds? Say, 1 or 2 mbps? That wouldn't stop people from illegally downloading but it sure would put a dent in it. I don't know how many people could wait a week to download Inglorious Basterds while waiting 30 seconds for their google email account to open. :confused:
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That would fail since there are to many idiots with unpassworded WIFI.
 
bigdogchris said:
I don't know about you but I have Verizon DSL and they offer good service and rates. I pay $30/month for 3/768k. They also have 15/5 for $50/month ... as well as 50/20 for $140/month on their fiber network. I think those are fair rates.

You also have to keep in mind that who knows if there are any government subsidies in these countries or what. Hell, in the US it's private, maybe in Korea and Japan it's mostly government networks, who knows? There are a lot of things to consider with these #'s and you're trying to pull this all out of the same hat. It's a completely different situation.
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Excuse me. Obama is wanting to give 7.2 Billion to the Industry to get broadband to the country folk who might not be connected yet. What do you call that, sounds like a subsidy to me. You sound like one of them their city folk that watch the Fox news and read the National Enquirer. I think if you check you will find that the taxpayers have paid out untold BILLIONS in subsidies to these companies over the years.
 
The problem is not entirely in the billions spent on subsidies, but in how they are spent. Some companies horde the cash to please investors, others spend it in other ways that don't help consumers. In Japan, the rates are subsidized to an extent. The rates bigdogchris quoted are nice, if you're lucky enough to live near a CO to get those speeds. Of course, if Verizon DSL is the only thing in town offering those speeds, you may end up spending much more though...
 
Handy, a non scientific industrialised nations study with no non scientific industrialised nations results.
 
Someday well pull our heads out of our collective asses and get this entire country wired on fiber optic....
 
So, how many Americans are moving to South Korea with me? :D
 
Freezebyte said:
Someday well pull our heads out of our collective asses and get this entire country wired on fiber optic....
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Yeah, get those hungry people with no food on the curb some fios man! Oh wait, high speed access ISN'T the worst problem in America? Everyone on fiber would be like getting everyone a Prius to reduce our collective "carbon footprint". No flipping of switches on this one, just increasing the funding and speed of conversion.
 
Kenworth said:
Yeah, get those hungry people with no food on the curb some fios man! Oh wait, high speed access ISN'T the worst problem in America? Everyone on fiber would be like getting everyone a Prius to reduce our collective "carbon footprint". No flipping of switches on this one, just increasing the funding and speed of conversion.
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There shouldn't be a hunger issue in our country either, but that's not necessarily due to the lack of funding to support issues related to it. If you notice there seem to be a lot of people who go hungry due to addiction, psychological problems, and sheer stupidity (refuse to get jobs that are "below" them). Often times those people are victims of their own stupidity; the few people who actually are motivated to rise above typically do so. Rags to riches stories are popular, "rags to normal" ones are not.
 
Uncle said:
Excuse me. Obama is wanting to give 7.2 Billion to the Industry to get broadband to the country folk who might not be connected yet. What do you call that, sounds like a subsidy to me. You sound like one of them their city folk that watch the Fox news and read the National Enquirer. I think if you check you will find that the taxpayers have paid out untold BILLIONS in subsidies to these companies over the years.
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What might happen does not equate to what has happened.
 
Kenworth said:
Yeah, get those hungry people with no food on the curb some fios man! Oh wait, high speed access ISN'T the worst problem in America? Everyone on fiber would be like getting everyone a Prius to reduce our collective "carbon footprint". No flipping of switches on this one, just increasing the funding and speed of conversion.
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Except you always run into those homeless guys who won't take your perfectly wrapped fully loaded Subway sandwich when you offer it and tell him its his, pick out what he doesn't like or is allergic to. Such people even dare to snivel and sneer and look at you like you're some kind of idiot, knowing full well their line was "I need money for food." I should know - it happened to me.

At least with high speed internet, I can't think of anyone who'd turn it down. I sure as hell wouldn't. If you told me there was a reasonably priced, no-caps provider in my area that could fulfill all the services we get through Comcast, and meet or exceed their speeds, I'd ask you who I need to give a handjob to get it running service to my house ASAP.
 
I'm willing to bet my PC that the entertainment cartel has a hand in this
 
I would LOVE to be on fiber, but its both not available in the area I live (yet) and still too expensive for me.
Where is my government subsidised fios connection?
:p
 
It's simple, cost.

How much of korea's population is concentrated in the capital, Seoul, compared to the US, where the biggest city is NY, and is likely less the 3% of the total population?

Per Wikipedia, Seoul is 10mil pop for the city, and 24mil(50%) for the metropolitian area.

It is easier to wire up cities, especially cities where the population density is quite high, in some US cities, like phoenix, it is more of rolling suburbs, with low rise apartments(2-3 stories is the most), but we are still a city of 5mil.

Another thing is i wonder how many people have home computer connections, and how many just access from an internet cafe. The cafe's seem popular in the Asian Pacific countries, but non existant in the states.
 
it doesnt have to do with land mass vs structure and when it is built more so, Most of Asia's internet backend is all new, same with alot of Europe., so they used Fiber, north america has had internet for how long?

it would cost a fortune to go and replace it all with Fiber, and also the greedy companies dont want to spend the money, they COULD afford, but want to cheap out in every way they can.
 
Size shouldnt matter much TBH and neither should density, i mean Sweden is slightly larger then California but only a quarter of the population.
Still i belive 99% or so of Sweden have access to atleast 8 mbit , and we have some really remote places here (most ppl live in the south),and i dont think ive even heard of a provider here with a DL cap.

I enjoyed 24mbit ADSL for many years, and some time ago got upgraded to unknown but quite high speed (on a good day a 4.4Gb HD movie takes 4 maby 5 minutes).
Its pretty much fiber to the basement and a gbit switch there.
That sounds fun and all, until you realize that most regular sites dont deliver anything even close to that.
So basically you need p2p to really max it.

Also i dont really agree with the "new" backends, i know that most of the backbone here was made in the 80's, and they used fibre wich back then was -very- expensive.
The advantage ofc we can see now, as the fibre is still there, but now probably delivering 1000 times the capacity as back then.

What your say Obama wants (have done ? will do ? I dont really follow US internal politics) to do now in the US is pretty much what we did in the 80's, and most other european countries have too.

In the mid 90's here the government put aside a huge amount of cash to allow employers to buy computers and then lend/rent them to their employees at VERY low price.
This was to get computers into homes that couldnt afford one, or hadnt even considered getting one.
And guess what, it worked ! the government spent cash, ppl got interrested in the online world, lots of small companies suddenly got a webshop and lots of ppl got jobs.

Ok strayed off topic there a bit, to sum things up : Speed = good !
 
Size shouldnt matter much TBH and neither should density, i mean Sweden is slightly larger then California but only a quarter of the population.
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I agree. My parents live in a Swedish village of 120 people, 30km from a city of 44k people. Its over 300 miles to the nearest Swedish city with a population of over 100,000 people. Yet they have had 10Mb Internet using fiber, for over 5 years now.

In my city of about 145,000, Internet connections of between 20 and 50 Mbps is available depending on the area.

If you look at each US state independently, in most states broadband penetration is still very low relative to the land mass.
 
Until its treated like any other necessary utility then things are gonna remain the same.
 
20.4 mbps? No wonder I can't win a game of starcraft.

OMG zerg rush! Kekekekekeke!
 
The copper in area is so old I'm lucky to have pome service at all. I live in Culver City, CA adjacent ot Beverly Hill, Marina Del Rey, Santa Monica and West Los Angeles, so I'm not out in the sticks somewhere. My upload is @ 100% realitve capacity at idle with an 3mb/768k sevice. I've tried 6 other ISP's inclulding my Telco Verizon with the same results. Verizon techs have told me the copper is so old it's only fit for scrap but Verizon continues to splice the lines in an effort to keep cost down. Back in "04 at X-mas it rained for over a week heavly and I had no dial tone for 6days, no 911 nothing, nodda, zip. It's sad that in less than 10yrs the US has gone from #1 in internet performance to #28. But that what you get with CEO"S who's compensation bonus is tide yearly gross. I live
10,000ft from the CO. Verizon has been rolling out fios for over a year nad still has not reached me.
I cannot play the various flavors is CS online anymore which is my passion because I die due to my connection. Yes I'm a decent player but when your packets sit in que somewhere you can't kill anything. Now I can only play games like TF2 and L4D which aren't as lantacy dependent.
Sorry about the long rant but once I got started I couldn't stop.
 
JimmiG said:
I agree. My parents live in a Swedish village of 120 people, 30km from a city of 44k people. Its over 300 miles to the nearest Swedish city with a population of over 100,000 people. Yet they have had 10Mb Internet using fiber, for over 5 years now.

In my city of about 145,000, Internet connections of between 20 and 50 Mbps is available depending on the area.

If you look at each US state independently, in most states broadband penetration is still very low relative to the land mass.
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+10 My rant exactly. Its nice to have National Pride, but after awhile the truth sinks in and you realize that the rest of the world is moving forward while North America is falling behind. The government doesn't help by doling out wheel barrels full of taxpayers money every time the companies plead poverty. I say if they can't swim let them sink, some other outfit will take their place. Isn't that how these monolithic corporations were created in the first place. The bullshit line of "Were to big to let fail" is a joke against the taxpayers.
 
bacon said:
Until its treated like any other necessary utility then things are gonna remain the same.
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I didn't know this at the time but the cable guy came over to check my lines and told me that here in Canada cable is classified as a necessary utility and has to be repaired within 3 days max. Now if they could do the same with the Internet with a minimum download and upload. When our government came out with the taxpayers cash for internet infrastructure same as down south, thats when the stipulations could have been made or no money.
 
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