US continues to lag far behind others in broadband speed

http://reclaimthemedia.org/broadband/cable/us_continues_lag_far_behind_ot0440

Submitted by jonathan on Sun, 2009-10-04 09:09

Agence France-Presse:

Sweden ranks third in the world in average Internet connection speed, way ahead of the US.

The report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) -- four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps, ranked 28th.

Japan trails South Korea with an average of 15.8 mbps followed by Sweden at 12.8 mbps and the Netherlands at 11.0 mbps, the report said.

It said tests conducted by speedmatters.org found the average US download speed had improved by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second between 2008 and 2009 -- from 4.2 mbps to 5.1 mbps.

"The US has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet," the report said. "Our nation continues to fall far behind other countries."

"People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the US average upload speed," the report said.

South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, Denmark and Taiwan were the top five countries listed in terms of access to high-speed Internet in a survey of 58 countries released earlier this year by Boston-based Strategy Analytics..

US President Barack Obama has pledged to put broadband in every home and the FCC has embarked on an ambitious project to bring high-speed Internet access to every corner of the United States. According to the CWA report, the fastest download speeds in the United States are in the northeastern parts of the country while the slowest are in states such as Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
article originally published at Agence France-Presse.

Two choices for "broadband" internet access in this town. Comca$t cable or Qwest DSL. And the Qwest DSL completely blows. So I'm stuck paying some fucking Repuke bastards in Philadelphia $60 a month for internet access because there's nobody around to compete with them.

If Comca$t, Time Warner, Cox, and whomever else does cable was allowed to compete with each other in any market they chose, the fair competition might get the prices down, and the speeds up.