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East Coast Broadband Fastest In USA

Death Metal Maniac writes "The study, which was conducted by affordable-broadband advocacy group Speed Matters, found that the nine states with the fastest median download connections are all located on the East Coast. Rhode Island (6.8Mbps) and Delaware (6.7Mbps) have the fastest, and nearly triple the national median download speed of 2.3Mbps. Rounding out the Top 5 states are New Jersey (5.8Mbps), Virginia (5Mbps) and Massachusetts (4.6Mbps)."

14 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Only 6.8Mbps? by adnonsense · · Score: 5, Informative

    I live on the East Coast (of Japan) and have a 100Mbps-rated optical fibre connection. Though the fastest I've got out of it is a piddling 87Mbps.

    Muahaha.

    1. Re:Only 6.8Mbps? by whtmarker · · Score: 4, Informative

      I live on the East Coast (of Japan) and have a 100Mbps-rated optical fibre connection. Though the fastest I've got out of it is a piddling 87Mbps.

      Muahaha.

      We are talking median speed. If you and your 5 neighbors have speeds of 1,1,2,3 and 87 your median speed is 2Mbps.

  2. Re:geh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Meanwhile, as of last week, we STILL cannot buy FIOS in Philadelphia. No matter how much I want to give Verizon my money, they just won't take it.

    That's because FIOS requires major infrastructure upgrades on the part of Verizon. But they are working on it. It just may be a while till they get to your neighborhood.

  3. Re:geh by FredFredrickson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Up here in NH (One of the many states nobody cares about, apparently), I got a flyer from my new local provider called Fairpoint.

    There was a big controversy over fairpoint buying out NH, Vermont, and Maine, because fairpoint clearly didn't have the resources to roll out fiber optics, and verizon had "plans" to, (apparently not).

    Anyway, I got a flyer from them announcing faster-than-ever 7.1 mbps downloads. Of course, in Boston, Comcast offers 16 mbps, but hey, this was still a nice move from my current verizon dsl at 3 mbps.

    So I called them up and asked how to get started. They did some checking on things, and told me it wasn't available in my area. I was confused. Did they not have my address when they sent me the flyer? I begged them to take money from me, I just want some speed, please! But alas, We live in the USA. In internet terms, we're third world.

    --
    Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
  4. Re:flawed test by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Informative

    They are all flawed in that they don't take your subscription into account.

    It depends who's using the list. If I'm designing web pages, I want to know what people in my target demographic HAVE, not what they can get. If it's a penis size competition, then I question the study's usefulness. Besides, we have the Olympics for that - and China has the biggest gold dick. Though the US has true melting pot of total dicks.

    Interestingly, all of these states are densely populated. From Wikipedia:
    Rhode Island ranked 2
    Delaware ranked 6
    New Jersey ranked 1
    Virginia ranked 14
    Massachusetts ranked 3

    The only think close to an outlier there is Virginia, which is still densely populated over near Washington - which would actually be number 1 if it were a state.

    I guess if I lived in number 4 Connecticut or number 5 Maryland, I'd want to know what was up!

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  5. so far behind by sam_paris · · Score: 4, Informative

    Two years ago, when I lived in Paris, I got 20Mbit. Now I live in New York and get more like 4Mbit.

    Yep, the world's richest country is years behind in technology infrastructure..

  6. Re:Rest of the world by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 4, Informative

    In french urban areas, the standard ADSL is 24Mb/s ATM (8 to 18Mb/s real TCP BW) for 29 to 39E/Mo (with unlimited phone and taxes included), but in a few major cities, 100Mb/s cable is being deployed and sold for the same price.

  7. Re:flawed test by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's not traffic shaping, that's "Powerboost". They are giving you 2-3x your subscribed speed for the first 15 seconds of download.

  8. Re:geh by yuna49 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Boston was supposedly the first metro area they rolled out FiOS, and while almost every suburb has it around here their urban penetration has been exactly ZERO.

    While Slashdotters are often more interested in FiOS internet service, it's cable television services which call the shots. To offer cable in a locality, Verizon must first obtain a license from the city or town. As of now, the City of Boston has not granted them a license. Looking at the City's website, I don't see any evidence that Verizon has applied for a license either.

    Maybe you should call them to see where the licensing procedure stands?

  9. Re:geh by Cheeko · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comcast has been horrific for me. Their customer service is terrible, their software for their DVRs is awful (even their own techs say it), and they engage in all sorts of shady underhanded stuff like forging reset packets, throttling high usage customers (who are within the bandwidth limits they ALREADY paid for).

    Overall they've just been a terrible company to have to deal with.

  10. Re:geh by SkyDude · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe a major part of the problem with Fios in bigger cities is the fiber itself. Last year, Corning announced development of a bendable fiber, which will help the installation in multi-family homes. Not having ever had any experience as a fiber installer, I don't know if this is BS or not, but it seems Verizon is now making plans to penetrate the bigger cities.

    --
    == First cross river, then insult alligator.
  11. Re:geh by Ucklak · · Score: 4, Informative

    Cox

    Arkansas
    $45 for 9mbps
    $60 for 12mbps
    http://www.cox.com/gocox/HighSpeedInternet/

    Arizona
    $45 for 12mbps
    $60 for 20
    http://www.cox.com/arizona/hsi.asp

    Santa Barbara
    $50 for 5mbps
    $65 for 12mbps
    http://www.cox.com/santabarbara/highspeedinternet/packages.asp

    Idaho
    $42 to $56 for
    7 mbps to 12 mbps
    http://www.cox.com/idaho/highspeedinternet/pricing.asp

    --
    if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
  12. Re:Getting around FIOS Limitations by jweller · · Score: 3, Informative

    call fios, get them to turn on the ethernet jack at the ONT, and run your own router instead of the piece of crap actiontec router they give you. then just do port redirects. also check out noip.com

  13. Re:geh by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah. Seems this report isn't based on what's available, it's based on what people actually have. So therefore, in the northeast, where people tend to be more well off, on average, that people would have faster internet connections, on average. You can probably get 10 mbps plus in any major city in the United States.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.