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[Spotted at Xconomy.]

Dwight Silverman | Techblogger, social media manager

23 Responses

  1. Gonzalo says:

    How come the US is behind other countries in speed? US companies have the funds and technology to surpass the rest of the world, but for some reason we’re trailing.

    Can someone explain? Thanks.

    • ken says:

      because we won’t spend the money needed to upgrade the infrastructure of the US. don’t believe for a second we don’t have the technology. it’s all about the idiots in Washington

    • Rob says:

      US companies have the funds and technology but that would require long term thinking – investing in the future. Wall Street doesn’t care about (and often even frowns on) long term strategies with less short-term payoff.

    • Diego Rivero says:

      It’s called “tiering” so as to maximize extortionate rates; besides, the game with these telecommunications blobs is the ubiquitous cell phone hence the “bundles” game. Let’s face it quality of service is not a priority when it comes to the PC desl top and now even the laptop has been pushed to the end of the line. Haven’t you ever wondered why those “hot spots” have sub-standard speeds?

    • Mike Matthews says:

      1) The US started first. A great deal of US telecom infrastructure has been in place for many decades, and much of the initial deployment of broadband services was built on that. Those old wires were pushed as far as they could go, but this led to a lot of low-end broadband capability — much better than 56K modems, but pathetic compared to fiber.

      2) The US is big. Long distances and sparse population make it unprofitable to upgrade aging wires in many locations — especially for the “last mile.” Many rural locations are left out of the party, bringing down the national average.

      3) Monopolistic practices. Consolidation due to acquisitions and mergers of consumer broadband providers over the last 20 years has greatly reduced competition; many cities have only 2 or 3 providers to choose from, and smaller communities are even worse off. With fewer choices available, providers have less incentive to upgrade services to keep their customers from switching to a competitor.

  2. henry says:

    Depends on where you are. I am just outside Houston and att can’t get me more than 2mbps. Will be switching back to Comcast eventually.

  3. w00t says:

    I get 100mb from Comcast…

  4. saved says:

    Well mine is 1.5mgs at the rate of 72.00 dollars a month. Not a great deal but it is all we have in the woods unless we go satellite and that is a nightmare.

  5. Shockwave says:

    When you get rid of these monopolies we have in Texas, then you’ll see some competition that will get the prices down and the speeds up.

    • Sgt Dave says:

      What monopolies? Are you saying Comcast is not a competitor to AT&T or Verizon?

    • Sgt Dave says:

      What monopolies? You have your choice among telephone companies, satellite, and cable television.

  6. Ed T. says:

    I think we have to start by ending the sweetheart deals that municipalities cut with select vendors. The “regulated monopoly” doesn’t appear to be giving us much for our investment.


  7. 42 says:

    To become more competitive on the global scence, we need to foster more competition between Internet Service Providers here in the U.S.

  8. JAy. says:

    If the US really wants to compete with Korea on Average Internet Speed and High Speed Penetration, then they need to force everyone to live in a metropolis, preferably existing ones. The size and population density of the US are what make it so hard for us to compete in these categories.

  9. Someone says:

    We’re actually incredibly fast considering the land area.

    The biggest 10 countries are: Russia, Canada, China, USA, Brazil, Australia, India, Argentina, Kazakstan, and Algeria.

    The next largest country on the 10 high speed penetration is Sweden, down at #56 with 5% of the area of the US. I’m fairly sure that in the listing of states, the same pattern would emerge.

    Once we put the scale of the problem and the amount of costs in proportion, we’re not doing so bad. We can always do better, but the consumer will have to pay for it.

  10. Tom_in_Cypress says:

    It’s kind of not fair to compare a single city (DC) with a state as huge as Texas is it? Compare Houston or Dallas with DC and see how much the gap shrinks.

    Or Harris county vs Utah (similar populations).

    Texas’ numbers are going to be skewed low due to the vast amount of rural area. The top ranking states are almost 100% urban (Utah being an exception).

  11. SaltWaterCroc says:

    We pay more for less service. Thanks, Comcast!

  12. J says:

    Those Asian dudes are doing pretty good.

    • craig says:

      Amd amazingly S. Korea with the World’s fastest connections speeds is right next door to N. Korea. I wonder what kind of speeds their citizens get? OK OK that was a trick question. I think the Wunderkind boy who runs things there feels his subjects are better off with no Internet. Knowledge is power and he gets that all too well.

  13. Gary says:

    I live in Jackson County, never mind high speed internet. I can not even get a Verizon telephone land line to work for more than 2 weeks at a time. Cell phone works some what, but do not expect to carry on a conversation without being dropped at least a couple of times by AT&T. We have radio internet that is slow but reasonably reliable for the country. Would love to have internet service that I used to get from Road Runner at my Houston home. It is way past time to upgrade the infrastructure to at least come into this century.

  14. Andra says:

    Nothing surprising here. This is all common sense.

    When you have high population density with relatively high income earners, you are about to built these infrastructure easier. You can get 105GB speed from Comcast in the city, but try getting that in the country side.

  15. craig says:

    We may be backwards in the US and Texas when it comes to internet access speeds, I am currently topped out at 6 MBPS with with the “fastest” speed AT&T says they can give me, but thanks to that Representative from Texas we have crystal clear HD TV. What the heck do we want our cake and be able to eat it too? Right now the best definition I can watch videos is at 240p and sometimes things are jerky and out of sync at that speed needed to power that low def image and sound.

    A recent article in the Chronicle said that AT&T wants to do away with their land lines by 2020. What’s going on here. I smell a rat. Profits most always has a way of overriding customer service as the top prioity.

  16. Ed from Texas says:

    I’m curious what these numbers represent. If it’s availability in general, then I would agree that Texas and the U.S. large land areas would help account for our relatively low speeds due to lack of penetration outside the major urban centers.

    However, if this represents what actual subscribers are getting, then I would say the U.S. is in piss poor shape. You would expect most actual users to be collected around those major population centers and we should be getting average speeds more comparable with these other nations.