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Two-Thirds of US Internet Users Lack Fast Broadband
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."
Cue the usual excuses about it being simply too difficult to offer broadband in such a big country as the United States.
Somewhere far beyond a bunch of ghostly settlers are looking at their descendants very, very ashamed.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
No, it's not because of low population density - for example most Nordic countries have typically much lower ones. And considering how situation with cellular coverage sort of mirrors the broadband one...
One that hath name thou can not otter
I wonder what proportion of "fast" connections are actually fast though...
I live in Japan, and my internet connection is nominally 20mbps -- but in actuality, I usually get less than 3mpbs, because it's a ADSL connection, and I'm just a bit too far from the central office. I understand that in many cases cable internet also has issues with the real speed not living up to what's advertised.
Granted, there are multiple other providers I could use that have their own infrastructure (fiber-to-home, cable, etc), and maybe they're better, but still, I think I'm probably counted as a statistic ("has 20mpbs connection!") somewhere when maybe I shouldn't be ...
[I don't switch because this connection is really cheap, and I just don't care enough; it's "fast enough" for me.]
We live, as we dream -- alone....
The size of the US really doesn't explain why my only two provider options, cable and DSL, are dirt slow and unreliable... in the most densely populated part of the San Francisco Bay area - net capital of the planet.
This space available.
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:
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.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
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
O.o
I can tell you what will happen with this government initiative. They'll do some more studies. They'll have lots of meetings with the telecommunications corporations. They'll form some committees. They'll give some tax money to the industry to encourage the development of improved broadband offerings. The industry will pocket the money and nothing will really change. On the books it'll look like they spent it all on expanding and improving the infrastructure but virtually nobody will see an improvement.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
People on tech sites tend to vastly over estimate the need for, let alone the desire of, many for high speed internet.
One of the most insightful statements I have read here on Slashdot. We often forget that we are so focused on technical needs that we miss what "real people" really need or want.
Hell, you can enjoy life just fine without touching the net for weeks.
Well...now...that's just blasphemy. :-p
Seriously, though. Excellent post. Technology is fun, but it's not everybody's (most people's) cup of tea.
I remember an article about 2 months back where the government said they were going to change the definition of broadband to 5 Mb Down and 1 Mb up. So currently I would be without broadband. I could have 50 Mbit internet, but I really don't want to pay for it. I'm happy with 3M/256K internet, because there isn't anything out there that requires higher speeds. Netflix streams fine at 3Mbit (is SD). And so what it it takes a bit longer to download a Linux ISO. It's not like they have a new release every 3 days. Maybe the issue is that most people don't care to have 10 Mbit interner, because the added cost doesn't actually get them anything they wouldn't have already. What's the point of having 50 Mbit internet when even a HD movie from netflix will stream on 5 Mbit connection.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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?
Well, I remember living in Austria 10 years ago, and many places charged per megabyte. Broadband penetration at the time was EXTREAMELY limited. Why? Because its freakin hard and expensive to run fiber through those mountains.
However, the entire country of Austria is the size of the state of Maryland, with half its population living in Vienna. Germany is the size of Montana, and Switzerland is just slightly bigger than Austria, but not as big as Germany. Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can all fit inside the state of Texas, and still have room for Luxemburg and a few other small countries.
Shoot, the entire CONTINENT of Europe is only 2/3rds the size of the CONTINENTAL US, yet the population is about equal to Italy, Germany, Austria and Switzerland combined.
What does this mean? The population of the US is way more spread out than the rest of the world.
Shoot, remember how I said that Germany was the size of Montana? Look at the population difference, Germany, roughly 80 million in 2000, Montana, roughly 500,000 in 2000.
Remember those costs that I mentioned earlier about Austria complaining about the costs of running fiber through those mountains? I wonder what the cost is to run fiber out to Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and how much it would cost to run broadband to each of those users homes. Pretty sure it won't be offset by paying $19.95 a month for service.
I am sorry, but there is a perfectly good reason that the AVERAGE speed of broadband in the US is not the same as the AVERAGE speed of broadband in the rest of the world.
In our defense, Russia is just barely above us, China, Canada, Mexico, India and Brazil are below us. What a concept - big countries with a lot of area rank low on the list! Gee, I wonder why?