Why is American internet so slow? Behind Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

[onehandle]

According to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. The leaders in the world are Hong Kong at 72.49 Mbps and Singapore on 58.84 Mbps. And America? Averaging speeds of 20.77 Mbps, it falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

Its upload speeds are even worse. Globally, the U.S. ranks 42nd with an average upload speed of 6.31 Mbps, behind Lesotho, Belarus, Slovenia, and other countries you only hear mentioned on Jeopardy.

So how did America fall behind? How did the country that literally invented the internet — and the home to world-leading tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Facebook, Google, and Cisco — fall behind so many others in download speeds?

Susan Crawford argues that "huge telecommunication companies" such as Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and AT&T have "divided up markets and put themselves in a position where they're subject to no competition."

http://theweek.com/article/index/257404/why-is-american-internet-so-slow


How's that Comcast/Time Warner merger looking to you?



http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024609888

[pangaia]

1. The American average is 20.77 Mbps!

Holy cow.. Mine is about 1.5 !!!Of course that's Frontier Uncommunications DSL.

[A Little Weird]

3. That seems super high to me too

My download speed is 1 Mbps. I can't really imagine how fast 20 Mbps would be!

[MillennialDem]

12. Megabits per second, not megabytes - so divide that # by 8

[n2doc]

5. I might get 4 on a good day

Of course, I have 2choices here- ATT or Comcast. Nothing else is allowed.

[rurallib]

22. you got to pony up some big bucks for that speed

at least around here. Not sure but I think that is the $120 package.

[L0oniX]

27. Yea ...mines also 1.5 @ $40 a month for Brighthouse cable ...fucking ripoff.

[bemildred]

2. Because without a fake scarcity of bandwidth, they can't charge you for it. nt

[GoneFishin]

40. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding!

yep.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Population density

the US is much more suburban and rural and has a lower population density than anywhere in Europe (for instance). Urbanised areas of the US have fibre-to-the-premises and high-speed residential and business internet with speeds of up to 100Mbps or faster, but this is limited to a few metro areas. For a lot of the country? Fibre isn't an option, which means they're stuck with the fastest speeds that can be carried by copper wire (or they don't even have the infrastructure for that, and your only "broadband" options are wireless and satellite).

[Bluenorthwest]

8. And there is the actual answer....

nt

[Sgent]

9. That *might* explain the average

it doesn't explain why low internet speeds are the norm in almost every major city as well as rural areas.

[peabody]

24. Exactly.

I live in San Jose, the so call Silicon Valley. On a good day, I'd be lucky to get 12 Mbps.

[TexasProgresive]

15. This same country used to be even more rural

and had the will and resources to build power and telcom networks that provide universal service. The real problem is that free market thingie. It takes the federal and state governments to force these monopolies to serve the public.

I'm wondering if those numbers for the US take into account the many who have no internet access or dial up only?

[LittleGirl]

18. +1 that's it. eom

[redqueen]

25. Nope. Other countries with similar population distribution don't have this problem.

The woman who wrote the book I mentioned in post 21 goes over every excuse used by the Telecom industry.

[mwooldri]

30. Fibre not an option? Tell it to these folks:

http://b4rn.org.uk/

British Telecom wasn't coming any time soon with any decent Internet access. So, rather than waiting for the companies, the local community decided to take it upon themselves, with volunteers, to roll out their own gigabit fibre network. The company was set up as a co-operative, and they're offering gigabit internet for #30.00 GBP a month (about $50/mo).

What it will take to get gigabit Internet in the rural parts of the USA is to get the community together and not wait on the likes of Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc to build out the networks. The big telcos have managed in some parts of the country to put in legislation that effectively makes it impossible for local government (city, county) to set up their own network. Time for the people, I say.

Mark.

[amandabeech]

38. Most towns are wired for cable.

Outside town its dial-up, satellite dish or one of those hot-spot pads. Getting fast speeds on the dish is expensive even though there are usually more than one provider. Another problem with the dish is that not everyone has good sighting. One of my Mom's neighbors had to put up a tower on the side of their barn.

[NuttyFluffers]

6. because we're the freest of the free, with the most choices evar

and if you disagree you're an un-american, ex-pat, latte drinking, elitist with two brain cells to rub together!

now someone go to the local supermarket and find me a nice, cold, unsweetened (artificial or not), non-alcoholic beverage in a can. i'm an american, and everything i imagine is readily at my fingertips.

<-- do i really have to? really?

[NightWatcher]

7. Last week I had att (4.6 Mbps). This week I have comcast (50+ Mbps)

Comcast sux and their customer service is abysmal, but now I can surf so fast.

[LiberalEsto]

36. I have Comcrap and the speeds are 14.17 and 11.61

Can't remember which is download and which is upload.
They just doubled our monthly bill for internet only from the introductory price of 39.99 to more than $85 a month.

There's no alternative except Verizon, which we dropped because of repeated service outages and slow speeds, or mybe one of the satellite services.

[LonePirate]

10. The refusal of US telecommunications to upgrade their systems is the cause

Most have no viable competition so consumers must pay inflated prices for subpar service. The corporate giants have no impetus to upgrade their infrastructure and cut into their high profit margins which are unthreatened by government regulation, thanks to ALEC and Republican lawmakers.

[OKNancy]

11. Cox.. download 32.59 upload 20.19

I've been happy with Cox. I sure hope they don't get swallowed up by comcast.

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. Telecom Act of 1996

started this mess and consolidation.

[TexasProgresive]

16. There you go

And I would back it up to the breakup of Ma Bell. It is ironic that the breaking of a regulated monopoly lead to unregulated monopolies.

[Berlin Expat]

17. Here in the Czech Republic,

the local company I have as my internet provide is running at 100 Mbps, but it's not WiFi; I use a cable.

Still, it's good. And it runs about $28 per month, unlimited, no data caps.

[LittleGirl]

19. we have century link

and they just upgraded the fiber in the neighborhood and of course, we pay 9 bucks more a month now too. Got that surprise bill in January. Lucky us!

It's still slow as shit most days.

[Crunchy Frog]

20. It's because those other countries

are socialist hellholes where overbearing governments oppressively promote the building and maintenance of infrastructure.

The heroic John Galts are enslaved by government regulations.

We may have slow internet in America, but at least it's Freedom Internet.

[OldEurope]

34. No. Because they WERE socialist hellholes until the UssR broke down.

At that point of history America (and other Western countries) already had a infrastructure (of wires) that was sufficient. Hungaria or Estonia had nothing like that. My uncle from Budapest e.g. had his telephone connection shared with several neighbors. So in those countries there were huge opportunities for new technologies such as fibre optic cables or wireless connection. And they needed to do something, so the countries invested in infrastructure.
We in the West had problems with this because nobody wanted to notice that our copper cables would be outdated within a decade. So nobody wanted to pay for better infrastructure here.

[redqueen]

21. Susan Crawford has written a book detailing the situation.

Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age

Here's an interview with the author:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/06/272480919/when-it-comes-to-high-speed-internet-u-s-falling-way-behind

[niyad]

23. thank you, just added that to my list of depressing books to read.

[redqueen]

28. You're welcome.

Hopefully it's not too depressing.

[jsr]

29. +1

[Marr]

33. Sounds interesting-- I'll pick that one up.

There are so many examples of huge corporations retarding technological progress with their political influence.

[L0oniX]

26. Cost per Mbps might be a better way to rate. Can anyone afford an OC3 connection to ones home?

[malthaussen]

31. But look at the bright side! We're the most expensive!

That's what matters in Corporate-USA.

-- Maql

[onehandle]

32. Most expensive Internet. Most expensive Drugs. Most expensive Healthcare...

America. Fuck Yeah?

[LiberalEsto]

35. Deregulation. Lack of competition. Mergers.

And they've all been poised like vultures, hungrily waiting for the end of Net Neutrality so they can offer even worse service, and charge more for it.

[Agony]

37. because Capitalism works

always the best product for the best price

[Codeine]

39. Our infrastructure is older than theirs.

Early adopters often end up falling behind as those who embrace technologies later on have newer, more efficient equipment.

You can see the same phenomena at work with our debit/ATM technology -- we went widespread with it way before everyone else did, but now our system has been largely supplanted by newer, more secure tech. Now we're scrambling to play catch-up in the wake of the huge Target security breach.