Posted on 08/29/2009 9:34:46 AM PDT by libh8er
A report on Internet speed in the United States says the country isn’t likely to catch world leader South Korea for 15 years.
Or for much longer — at current growth rates, the United States will only reach South Korea’s speed today in 15 years.
The report, by the Communications Workers of America, details Internet download and upload speeds all over the United States and some of its affiliated territories. In the last year, the average upload speed in the United States “barely changed,” the report said, and download speed only grew a little, from 4.2 megabits per second in 2008 to 5.1 megabits per second in 2009.
In South Korea, average download speed is four times faster — 20.4 megabits per second. The United States also lags Japan (15.8 mbps), Sweden (12.8 mbps), the Netherlands (11 mbps) and 24 other countries.
At average U.S. speed it takes about 35 minutes to download 100 family vacation photos, and four hours to upload them.
The report said U.S. speeds aren’t sufficient for the needs of in-home medical monitoring, distance learning programs, or to run a modern business from home.
“People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours” at the average U.S. speed, the report said.
California improved its position to No. 11 in download speed among U.S. states and territories in 2009. Last year it ranked No. 22.
Locally, the fastest download speed in San Francisco County was in Zip code 94131, at 14.7 mbps, though that area had slower upload speed than some other bits of the county.
Several Alameda County Zip codes rivalled that speed, and San Leandro’s 94579 area blew them out of the water at a download speed of 60.6 mbps.
The report calls for more investment in the nation’s Internet infrastructure. It also suggests shifting the outdated universal service payments that support voice telephone service over to pay for better and cheaper high-speed Internet service for everyone.
The source of the 'investigation': http://www.cwa-union.org/
Considering most of the USA’s phone network was built with union labor, that says quite about about the CWA being responsible for holding us back.
Most of the smaller advanced countries do have better service and better phone systems. That is a fact, the reason. The size of the United States.
Balderdash. 99% of ALL companies are running just fine, thank you, on what we've got. Would we like it faster? Sure, but it isn't exactly stalling commerce. The repot writers need to check their bias at the door.
15 is probably when their next CONTRACT is up...
The REASON, my friends a CWA.. We can’t AFFORD MORE SPEED,, we’re Paying your effing contracts.
/cynic
In Japan, you can get gigabit residential internet for just over a hundred bucks.
Meanwhile, here, Verizon has the best residential internet at 50/20 megabits for over 150 dollars. And thats only for very select locations.
I can get 25/2 megabits from Cox for $70
But they're working hard on improving it.
And now they want their share of the stimulus pie.
Uh Korea isn’t even the size of California. Japan? Please. Yeah who would have thought wiring up a country with 20 times the landmass and population would take longer then wiring up the Netherlands. LOL.
BTW: My Internet speed is 25 Mbsp Down and 15 Mbps Up. And yes. That makes me a better person than you. ;-)
Because of the lower urban density and the fact a large fraction of the US population lives in rural areas, the result is that the US telcos like AT&T, Verizon, etc. have to deliberately limit their speeds to make longer-distance connections possible. Right now, I'm running EarthLink ADSL at 6 megabits/second download/1 megabits per second upload, mostly limited by the DSL capacity on the AT&T lines.
I now live in Moldova (find that one) part of the ex-soviet union. Average wage less than $200 a month. I am here in the states for my annual visit... Now Moldova is known as the poorest most densely populated country in Eastern Europe, however I have MUCH better internet connection and speed there than here in the U.S. Also much cheaper!! by 50%
We are talking a country where horse and wagon is a common mode of transportation.
When Obama takes over the Internet, he’ll fix it... /s
i'm getting fiber right to my house october 1st, DSL-11Meg max.
There are way too many people in the US on modems though.
It could be argued that it’s allowing other countries to build Internet dominance in some areas.
I’m tired of hearing how the US lags in broadband compared to geographically small countries like SK. The US spans multiple time zones and has every form of geography in the world. It is not as easy to provide broadband to someone in the desert 200 miles from the nearest town as it is to provide broadband to what is basically a city-state in South Korea.
By the way, not to brag, but I have really killer speed here with the rigs I am running in Tokyo. But I have also seen some snazzy stuff next door in Korea, too. (Not North Korea, of course, they are using carrier pigeons up there, outside of the limited guys who are in DPRK cyberwarfare offices)...
that is, the carrier pigeons they have managed not to eat yet
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.