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UK Has Fastest Mobile Internet While US Lags Behind, Says Report (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: Content delivery network Akamai says the UK has the best average mobile connection speeds in the world. The State of the Internet report claims that British mobile users were able to get average speeds of 27.9 Mbps when connecting to Akamai's HTTP/S platform in Q1 2016, beating most countries in Europe by an average of more than 10 Mbps, and the United States' average speed by more than 20 Mbps. For comparison, the U.S. had an average connection speed of 5.1 Mbps, which was lower than Turkey, Kenya, and Paraguay, and on par with Thailand. Many European countries more than doubled the average U.S. speed, including Slovakia with 13.3 Mbps, France with 11.5 Mbps, and Germany with 15.7 Mbps. Algeria was only 2.9 Mbps slower than the United States' average with 2.2 Mbps, and they had the lowest average speed of countries included in the report. Akamai says its data shows that regular internet connections have continued to increase in speed, jumping 12 percent from Q4 2015 to 6.3 Mbps in Q1 2016, which is a year-on-year boost of 23 percent. Peak connection speed also rose to 34.7 Mbps, a 6.8 percent increase from the last quarter, and a 14 percent increase year-on-year. In addition, mobile data traffic is rising from just over 3,500 petabytes per month in Q1 2015 to more than 5,500 petabytes per month in the same period this year.
We're paying about 10 times as much for 10 times slower speeds with 100 times smaller monthly data caps.
US population is geographically* spread out. It's generally more expensive to provide service to a spread-out population, and that should be factored into any rating system.
* I added that adverb to reduce the probability of fat jokes.
Table-ized A.I.
Second.
TFA beat you.
Is this the new measure for life satisfaction: ISP bitrates? Can the average consumer tell the difference between a 30 mbps connection and a 100 mbps connection? No, they can't, because most sites don't deliver anything above 20 mbps. These reports are stupid.
Close, but you forgot AI. That's every 3rd story.
Neutrino!
The UK is pretty small. I didn't see stats for Australia but I know I can get over 40Mbps in Sydney or Brisbane but drive from Sydney to Brisbane and and most of the way you are lucky to get 2G dialup speed for the 1000km journey.
Does UK enjoy the same amount of Freedom that America has?
Not even close!
***AMERICA!***
Significantly more when you look at the details.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Can we have a poll on whether to remove the EU tag from stories about the UK?
Throw in several Google and FB per day, along with a dupe every couple days. Bam, done.
You mean the freedom to have their tax dollars go nowhere. I don't think they want that.
Such a awesome vapid comment. Posted by AC, because coward.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
..is fast wireless, when you packets cant brexit the island?
Silence is a state of mime.
The area of the UK is about 95K sq miles, about the same as the state of Wyoming. The 48 contiguous states are 30X larger than the UK in area.
So yeah it is a lot easier to deploy infrastructure when the amount you have to deploy is 30X less.
Hm? UK at Brunch? The little island it becomes again.
Freedom to get ripped off by Comcast and the other ISP oligopoly bandits?
Table-ized A.I.
I would like to set up a wall around the UK isps. Instead of sending all our web traffic out of the country or to places like the EU, let's keep our traffic British.
I don't care about throughput to the point of a pissing contest when I am so harshly limited by total bandwidth.
so far, and mostly thanks to EU who has stopped UK from going batshit crazy on human rights.
but now Brexit has fixed that. so, I guess UK and USA will have the same level soon. and I don't mean that as a good thing.
Wires are faster and you aren't broadcasting your traffic to everyone in the coffeeshop.
Despite everyone having faster home and mobile internet than typical US households, the US seems to make the most money off the internet.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This comparison is somewhat misleading because the entire UK is only about the size of 2-3 US states:
http://www.travelersdigest.com...
That's only because Brits don't enjoy anything. They have as much freedom as Americans, they just don't enjoy having it.
The French have more freedom than Americans, but they only enjoy complaining about everything.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Forced relocation of US residents so that wireless coverage is more efficient to provide.
We've done forced relocations in the US numerous times, so there is precedence here.
*Salutes Andrew Jackson*
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Who cares how fast we can connect to Akamai? Worthless.
UK mobile Internet may be faster, but ours is more expensive.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
UK has good mobile internet speeds because the GCHQ insists upon it. The better to spy on you, my pretties!
Land of the CCTV and hate speech laws, and all while under the glorious dictatorship of the EU.
so far, and mostly thanks to EU who has stopped UK from going batshit crazy on human rights.
but now Brexit has fixed that. so, I guess UK and USA will have the same level soon. and I don't mean that as a good thing.
Right.
The EU human rights laws prevented a lot of human rights violations by UK conservative governments.
It seems likely that Brexit might be prevented my parliamentary votes or a second referendum called because many voters were misled by lies during the first referendum. I certainly hope that is the case, since I'm British and European.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
*Europe* is a very densely-populated area while *America* has great swaths of sparsely-populated regions, some as big as entire European nations. What if we compare, say, New England to (Old) England? Is the disparity still as great? I think not...
Does UK enjoy the same amount of Freedom that America has?
Not even close!
***AMERICA!***
Significantly more when you look at the details.
How so? If the local government wants to censor you in a European country, they just have to label what you said as hate speech, regardless of whether or not it actually is. For example, it's illegal to collect WWII memorabilia in Germany, because it's considered "hateful" to do so, along with walking in any manner resembling a goose step.
In the US meanwhile, so long as you aren't calling for somebody to be physically injured or killed, you can do or say whatever you want without fear of adverse government action against you.
Let's also not get into the fact that pretty much everywhere you go in a populated area, your actions are likely being recorded on camera, and you have no right to defend yourself in the event of a home invasion.
the map of North America which showed the precise location of every single cell tower for just one of the telecoms, it would be an eye opener for most.
The sheer number of towers are just staggering.
Consider the range of an LTE signal, now calculate how many damn towers it takes just to cover one State.
Multiply that by the cost to put up a tower, the fiber systems to feed it and all the other costs associated with it and you begin to understand just how expensive it is to provide all the coverage everyone demands.
Having supah-high-speed everywhere would be amazing. Just not cheap.
Ah, democracy. This thing we all cherish, except when a vote doesn't go our way.
they need mobile net cause ...brexit
I really loath seeing the Us so behind in so many things. Why the heck do we not wake up and see that the US has better technology widely distributed throughout our population than any other nation? And to make it worse we have people chanting that the US is number one, endlessly and stupidly. If people would get into reality and realize that we are having a huge problem then we could work towards a better solution.
My office is in the Essex/Suffolk "bad-lands". I can't even get a phone signal let alone mobile internet.
I have 3.5 Mbit/s coming in over ADSL and about 500 Kbit/s out. That's as good as it gets for miles.
In the nearest town my connection craps out at about 13 Mbit/s (hypothetical - not theoretical!). But that's good enough for me.
matthew @ kuiash
Does your snark apply even in cases of election fraud, Mr Snarky?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Ugh. I tried for FP, but the Internet is so slow in Canada, this is the soonest the post uploaded.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
... from what I saw there, it's quite common to have a 3/4G connection as a main home connection. I live in France, and here, we all have optic fiber ,vdsl or adsl at worst, but I never visited any home where the main internet access is a 3/4G connection. That may explain a lot about the quality of the service.
-- moo
of third-world country mobile Internet.
Does UK enjoy the same amount of Freedom that America has?
Not even close!
***AMERICA!***
Significantly more when you look at the details.
How so? If the local government wants to censor you in a European country, they just have to label what you said as hate speech, regardless of whether or not it actually is. For example, it's illegal to collect WWII memorabilia in Germany, because it's considered "hateful" to do so, along with walking in any manner resembling a goose step.
All the goose-stepping, WWII collecting Americans must be loving this thread....
In the US meanwhile, so long as you aren't calling for somebody to be physically injured or killed, you can do or say whatever you want without fear of adverse government action against you.
You must be so proud
Let's also not get into the fact that pretty much everywhere you go in a populated area, your actions are likely being recorded on camera, and you have no right to defend yourself in the event of a home invasion.
I'm not aware of a single CCTV camera within a 1 mile radius of my home. Plenty of council ones in the town centre, but not in the wider suburbia.
Oh, and how's that mass surveillance working out for you?
In the UK, at least, you can use "reasonable force" to defend yourself. But it's true, I can't use disproportionate force, like shooting someone dead for wanting to steal my TV. We grew out of that in the early 19th century.
Mr Farage? Is that you?
But the UK also has shit tethered Internet, so...
Is this a geographic average (were they testing areas in the middle of nowhere) or a population average? That'll probably make quite a bit of difference.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
That really depends on how you rank different aspects of freedom, and whether you consider so-called "positive freedoms" (healthcare, welfare, etc.) to actually be freedoms. It also depends on whether you are on the side of freedom of speech or on freedom from hate speech - depending on which ideological side you fall on, those will give quite different results.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
All the goose-stepping, WWII collecting Americans must be loving this thread....
If you only believe in freedom for people you agree with, you don't believe in freedom.
In the UK, at least, you can use "reasonable force" to defend yourself. But it's true, I can't use disproportionate force, like shooting someone dead for wanting to steal my TV.
In the US, you can't shoot someone dead for *wanting* to steal your TV; in some states, you can shoot them if they *try* to steal your TV. Do you think you shouldn't be allowed to defend your possessions at all, or what would "proportionate" force look like to you? In the UK, in many cases you aren't allowed to carry anything that would actually help you defend yourself. I'm not even talking about guns; effective pepper spray and knives are banned in many areas.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
>That really depends on how you rank different aspects of freedom
Indeed it does.
> (healthcare, welfare, etc.)
I've tried both. Healthcare and welfare wins hands down, both as an individual and as an employer.
> whether you are on the side of freedom of speech or on freedom from hate speech
The EU rules do a pretty good job on this. The US has some good rules, but they get violated all the time and the highly litigious natures of the US does more to suppress free speech in the US than actual criminal laws do in either place.
The US is pretty bad on stupid laws. Jaywalking, excessive copyright laws, alcohol laws etc.
The industry that appreciates what I do is in the US, so that's where I am and the US or the UK are certainly not the worst places to live, but we shouldn't let that cloud our judgement of how free they are.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The EU rules do a pretty good job on this. The US has some good rules, but they get violated all the time and the highly litigious natures of the US does more to suppress free speech in the US than actual criminal laws do in either place.
I'm going to have to partially disagree with you on this; I don't think hate speech laws are a good thing, as they're far too easily abused by those in power. I will agree that litigation does have a chilling effect on free speech, although I'm not sure it's worse than the criminal laws.
The US certainly does have its fair share of stupid laws, but enforcement of those can sometimes be lax - which, admittedly, doesn't make up for the laws existing in the first place. I'm not sure what the jaywalking laws are in the UK, but enforcement varies drastically across the US. On the East Coast in particular, they really aren't applied; I've jaywalked with cops sitting right there before and nobody cared. I've heard the West Coast tends to enforce those quite a bit more; on the other hand, you can lose your driver's license in Germany for doing that, so at least it's not uniquely American. Alcohol laws are somewhat influenced by state; the drinking age is certainly too high though.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Hello, I live in Ukraine. Our 3G is around 50-60Mbps.