European ISPs Exaggerate Performance; US ISPs Slower But More Honest (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: New studies of broadband Internet access across Europe and the U.S. published by the European Commission have found that European broadband Internet access providers advertised download speeds of 47.9 Mbps, but only delivered 38.19 Mbps, while U.S. providers delivered more or less what they advertised. But if you want fast fixed-line Internet access, you're still better off in Europe than in the U.S. Average DSL, fiber, and cable Internet speeds in Europe were all ahead of U.S. average speeds, and at lower prices.

Comments

The magic words being

[Goose In Orbit]

"up to"

ISPs can get away with pretty much any speed that way

Re:I've been saying this

[Mr D from 63]

The EU also cheats the most on broadband emissions testing.

Re:The U.S. has tariffed rates.

[serviscope_minor]

That, and the U.S. is *big* and sparsely populated for the most part, and Europeans have absolutely no clue at the distances involved, which is why they totally fail on the "public transportation in the U.S." and "Internet access in the U.S." and "Taxi service in the U.S." arguments (you can get a Lyft in Alta, UT -- population 389 -- but if you expect a taxi, don't hold your breath, or expect to pay for it to come out from Salt Lake).

For some reason a small cadre of Americans believe that they're different and special.

Let's ignore the sparsely populated areas for the time being.

Many of the big cities are as dense as European ones so there's just no excuse for stuff sucking in the cities. But it does.

Now let's get on to the sparsely populated areas. The USA has a higher population density than Sweden, and Sweden's internet is excellent, so it can't just be a population thing.

So what about land area? The USA is undoubtedly larger. In fact, the USA is about 20x the area of Sweden. But wait, the USA has 50 states! Looking that up... If Sweden was a US state, then it would be the third largest behind Alaska and Texas. So why do the remaining 48 suck? They are mostly smaller!

But what about the population density of the states?

Well if Sweden was a state, it would be the third largest and the joint 16th most sparsely populated.

So let's take Sweden as the example. It's on average larger and has a lower population density than most of the US states. So based on those, why aren't most US states individually better than Sweden?

And if you're arguing that it's harder in aggregate then you're literally arguing that economies of scale don't work.

The US is not particularly exceptional compared to Europe for the majority of it's population. There are some large, exceptional areas like Alaska, but they hardly count to wards the average stats because the number of people there is quite small.

And if you go state-by-state then it's really not all that different at all, because here are European countries that are harder to wire up than the majority of states yet have better internet access than the majority.

You have a severe case of Stockholm syndrome with your ISPs. They're crap, and it's their fault.