Two-Thirds of US Internet Users Lack Fast Broadband 402
jbrodkin writes "Two-thirds of US Internet connections are slower than 5 Mbps, putting the United States well behind speed leaders like South Korea, where penetration of so-called 'high broadband connectivity' is double the rate experienced in the United States. The United States places ninth in the world in access to high broadband connectivity, at 34% of users, including 27% of connections reaching 5 Mbps to 10 Mbps and 7% reaching above 10 Mbps, Akamai says in its latest State of the Internet Report. That's an improvement since a year ago, when the United States was in 12th place with only 24% of users accessing fast connections. But the United States is still dwarfed by South Korea, where 72% of Internet connections are greater than 5 Mbps, and Japan, which is at 60%. The numbers illustrate the gap between expectation and reality for US broadband users, which has fueled the creation of a government initiative to improve access. The US government broadband initiative says 100 million Americans lack any broadband access, and that faster Internet access is needed in the medical industry, schools, energy grid and public safety networks."
Re:Silly comparison (Score:5, Informative)
I think due to its vast size and rural areas the US is always going to be lagging behind smaller countries in the latest network technology.
I'd much rather see a comparison and insight into why Asian countries are so far ahead of the relatively small and well off European nations. There must be some key cultural differences.
I live in Holland, a small and well off European nation. I don't know the numbers for high speed connections here, but I don't know anyone personally who cannot get high speed internet. My father lives in a tiny village in the most rural of provinces here, and even he has a 100 mbit connection.
Looking it up on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
The Netherlands has the highest broadband penetration in the European Union. According to the OECD, in 2009 DSL was available to approximately 100 % of the population,[1] and in 2008 cable Internet access was available to 92 % of the population.[2] Statistics from the OECD also show that in 2008, 73.97 % of Dutch households had broadband access,[3] with approximately 38 subscribers out of 100 inhabitants in June 2009.[4] Several upload and download rates are available, depending on the network provider.
That means Asia isn't ahead of us - we beat South Korea (and all other Asian countries) with our figures from 2008; we probably have an even higher percentage now.
Does anyone ever get over 2 Mb/s download speeds? (Score:3, Informative)
I am supposed to be one of the lucky ones with a broadband connection. When I do Internet tests it says my download connection is over 20 Mb/s. Nevertheless I have never had a download that goes faster than 2 Mbit/s. In fact I have very rarely had one that goes faster than 1 MB/s. Usually I am happy to get 500 Kb/s. The only downloads that go over 1 mb/s are various ubuntu downloads from canonical.
It is amazing to me that someone could get around 5 Mb/s download.
Re:Usual Excuses (Score:4, Informative)
And as brought out time and again, there are much less dense countries in the world that have bigger pipes and even metropolitan areas in the US don't get all that great of a broadband. Look at individual states and I would say most of the East Coast and West Coast is pretty densely populated but still many don't have broadband or very fast broadband. I don't think there are any providers in the US that provide more than 10Mbps other than those that can afford a business package.
Re:Does anyone ever get over 2 Mb/s download speed (Score:4, Informative)
Make sure your not mixing up Mbps and MBps
Mbps is reported by your isp
MBps is reported by most applications
20Mbps / 8 = 2.5 MBps. which fits with your 2 MB/sec speed
Re:The way of things (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to be missing a few: (in Mbps)
.... and so on
Sure, we're 31 out of 168. Still, why are we so far down the list?