Surprise, Surprise: U.S. Broadband Is Slow. Really Slow.

[Guest]

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.

Surprise, Surprise: U.S. Broadband Is Slow. Really Slow. : Read more

 

[Guest]

QQ more. Australia has a pathetic network (fastest most people can get is 1.5mbit) and we pay through the nose for it...

 

[heffeque]

This article shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, right?

 

[blackwidow_rsa]

Ha USA's lines are lightning compared to south africa's 'broadband'. We're still stuck at 384/512 speeds, stupid monopoly!

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[terror112]

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

 

[nachowarrior]

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.

 

[Guest]

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...

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[terror112]

[citation][nom]Suzuki[/nom]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...[/citation]

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..

 

[badboy4dee]

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

 

[usapatriot]

The fastest I can get is 6mb down/3mb up in South Florida.

 

[techguy911]

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.

 

[Drez143]

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.

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[magicandy]

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.

 

[Guest]

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/nettimittari/statistics.aspx
Vastaanotto=Download
Aikaväli=period
Päivä=day
Vuosi=Year
Näytä mittaustulokset=Show results

 

[Guest]

I have 100Mb/s connection and I live in Finland so go f yourself humpuukia cos statistics can lie

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[techguy911]

The story here since then the company has expanded the test to whole city:

http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712/