The Fastest ISPs In the US

adeelarshad82 writes "For a second year in a row PCMag partnered with Speedtest to find out the fastest ISPs in the U.S. The results were a product of 110,000 tests ran between January 1, 2012 and September 19, 2012. Collecting data for both download and upload speeds for each test, Speednet was able to calculate an index score for a better one-to-one comparison, where downloads counted for 80 percent and uploads 20 percent. Moreover, rather than testing the upload and download speed of a single file, the tests used multiple broadband threads to measure the total capacity of the 'pipe.' While the results at the nationwide level were fairly obvious with Verizon FiOS crushing its opposition, the results at regional level were a lot more interesting and competitive."

Comments

From What I've seen...

[MilwaukeeMadAss]

I at least think my ISP sends their bills the fastest. Not sure about the "pipe" speed though.

If you don't mind paying through the nose

[smooth wombat]

As I have said repeatedly on here, in my area I have 2 choices: Comcast or Verizon. To get the lowest level of naked broadband service, 15/5, I would have to pay $75/month. From there, it's only how much they can squeeze out of you for minor increments in speed.

Despite this, the U.S. consistently ranks in the middle to the bottom in terms of speed, but always at the top in price.

So for all the talk about broadband penetration, who has what speed, etc, until real competition is injected into the fray or the law about one provider allowing another to use their lines at reasonable rates is enforced, surveys like this are relatively meaningless. If the cost of getting this supposed speed is too high, why bother?

Re:If you don't mind paying through the nose

[girlintraining]

If the cost of getting this supposed speed is too high, why bother?

Same reason we use median income as a measure of economic prosperity. Same reason many states only count unemployment based on the number of people requesting benefits. It makes the situation look less desperate than it is. Truthfully, the average case, the average person, is doing quite poorly in all areas right now.

Over a third of our bridges are structurally deficient and in need of repair. Our interstate roadways are in terrible shape -- you can go to any major city and find areas "coned off" but with no crews or equipment staged at the site. Repairs are taking longer, and running over budget more often. Our telecommunications are badly oversubscribed -- carriers blame the iPhone for sucking up bandwidth, but in all the other G20 countries, the iPhone isn't even competitive with local offerings. You can go to London and see people streaming the BBC on their morning commute, watching TV on their phones. Digital TV has been available in South Korea on their mobile devices since the turn of the century, whereas we only recently switched off our analog systems, and it was a botched job as well -- converters were in short supply, overpriced, and the FCC was ignoring the problems of the conversion and instead focusing on auctioning off the freed up spectrum, for which the general public has seen no benefit from. There are sewers and water mains in New York that date back to the pre-civil war era which haven't seen any maintenance since. Food prices are rising, but consumers here are being duped because manufacturers are subtly shrinking container sizes, or adding more packaging (empty space), to maintain the illusion that you're still buying the same amount for the same price. Meat and vegetable prices have risen so much that people on public assistance can't afford it; The elderly and marginally employed, our most vulnerable citizens, have been thrown under a bus. The ever-widening waist line has become the new symbol of America, and while many outsiders consider this a sign of decadence, in fact it is a sign of poor nutrition -- the cheapest food is processed. Grains, starches, etc., are all cheap, high calorie foods. And while a significant portion of anyone's diet should include them, for the poor, it's their only source of food -- and it's killing us slowly. While every other G20 country has reported either flat or falling mortality rates, ours has sharply risen. The number one cause of death now amongst those most able to work: age 25-40, is suicide.

America is dying, literally and figuratively. And we're lying to ourselves about this simple, naked truth. We're window dressing for a dinner theatre of one... that's why we use misleading statistics and facts. In truth, if you're an average american reading this, more likely than not you're living paycheck to paycheck, trying to do everything you can to get back what you had. You're not fighting for freedom from tyranny, terrorism, or oppression: You're fighting for the right to exist.

meanwhile, in Germany

[rbrausse]

some cable ISPs here are known for unthrottling connections as soon as the URL includes something like /speedtest/ - e.g. NetCologne

Re:meanwhile, in Germany

[RichMan]

In response all websites should have their pages below a /speedtest/ toplevel directory

CHecking In from AOL over Cable (AoC)

[Anonymous Coward]

FIRST POST, CHECK It BItCHES

Speed is not as relevant as it once was

[hwstar]

Speed is not as relevant as it once was. Caps are the big problem now for residential service. The providers are offering speeds in the 10's of megabits per second, but the caps are set so low that the service has no value for the money. There needs to be more competition in residential broadband or more regulation if there is not sufficient competition. The only way out of the caps is to order business service in my area (which I have done, but at $119/mo is quite expensive).

Both AT&T and Cox have caps in place for residential customers in my area. Cox has no cap (yet) for business customers.

If it can only be solved by regulation in certain areas of the country, then a moratorium on dividends or a 100% corporate tax on dividends of companies in areas with little competition might provide the necessary incentives to change things. Communications companies pay ridiculously high dividends to shareholders, and I'm convinced this is one of the roots of the problem. This money could be redirected over the long term to build a better Internet in this country, and the communications companies would stand to benefit from it.

There has been talk recently of the FCC investigating the cap thresholds, but that is just going to lead to a court battle in my opinion (at least in the past it has)

Re:Speed is not as relevant as it once was

[jeffmeden]

We have reached a usage rate where speed in terms of doubling isn't really that big of a deal.
over 10mbs is usually fast enough for netflix. So we can watch a movie over the internet without waiting for hours... That is good speed.

It isn't like the days of the 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 14.4k, 28.8k, 57.6k modems where just downloading a picture was a big deal. For the most part we go to a site, it gives us the content we need. If there is a video we click on it and it plays and streams fast. We are not waiting for hours, or minutes.

Going from 15mbs to 30mbs is not feeling from going to slow to fast. But from good to snappy.

HD video is basically the only thing that can push the limit of current high-tier services. A "true" 3 Mbps is about enough for a typical HD stream, so even a family of 4 each watching a different video will be well served by a 15Mbps connection.

We are seeing the bandwidth pendulum swing back in favor of over-subscribing. As last mile technologies have improved (DOCSIS and DSLAM) the content and the backbones have not. In the next few years, we will see the content improve (HD video at 7 Mbps per stream, or more) and over-subscribed providers will start to crack (like we saw with the first cable/dsl burst in the late 90s). Then, we get to watch as bandwidth caps stay about the same for a decade as backbones catch up, and then we will get to see the whole thing repeat. The circle of life.

Saddest statement in from the study

[crazyjj]

The problem is that Verizon, the only national company providing it to homes in the United States, stopped expanding to new markets a couple of years ago, or at least past the planned footprint. The existing 13.7 million customers get new upgrades (like the new 300Mbps "Quantum" option for $205 a month) and while Verizon expects to grow to 18 million FiOS customers eventually, after that, if you don't have FiOS, you probably never will.

Just sad. Europe and Asia are quickly leaving the U.S. behind. And no one has any plan to do anything about it. From internet pioneer to the back of the pack.

cost

[Scr4tchFury]

I'd like to see $/per Mbit. That would be a way more interesting regional graph.

U-verse really can't compete

[HungryMonkey]

FTA:

Speaking of fiber, what about AT&T? The company did not make the top 15. In fact, the fiber-based AT&T U-verse service got an index of 7.9, putting it at number 22.

I'm really not surprised by this. One of the worst features of U-verse is that the tv and internet share the same bandwidth. After a little at home testing I found that my '18mbs' connection dropped by almost 6mbs per HD channel we were watching or recording. So while you pay for both, you can really only use one at a time. I promptly dropped their cable. The most frustrating fact is that we can't get Fios in my neighborhood. When we called to set it up while moving in the gentleman kindly informed me that if AT&T services my area Fios will not. Still trying to figure out how that is legal...

Download, upload and index

[Todd Knarr]

One thing I notice is that the index rating weights in favor of download speed more than upload. That's IMO misleading. It's OK in a world where people only consume content, but in an environment that includes Skype or Google Voice for telephone and video calls, Google Hangouts, cloud-based storage like Dropbox or Google Drive, workers remoting in to the office using VPNs and remote-desktop software, and mobile devices using WiFi and an Internet connection as an alternative to the regular cellular network, upload bandwidth is becoming as important as download bandwidth. Rating ISP A significantly higher than B when A's upload speed is half of B's and A's downloads are only 20% faster seems to me to be misleading.