U.S. Lags Behind Cambodia, 31 Other Countries in Broadband Speed - Report
Speedtest.net, the website most probably know from testing their homes' internet connection speeds, also collects all of the diagnostic tests from around the world. They use that data to rank countries by internet speed, and according to the most recent update, the United States is still not doing too well.
The connection speed website is run by Ookla, a network diagnostics company, which released the updated results of its testing this week. According to Ookla's site right now, the United States ranks at 32 in fastest average broadband connection in the world. That's behind countries like Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Uruguay.
The rankings, at NetIndex.com, found that the United States' average connection speed was 20.75 Mbps, far below the top spot, taken by Hong Kong, which has a blazing average connection speed of 70.91 Mbps (Mbps stands for megabits per second). Other top spots included Singapore, Romania, South Korea, Sweden, and Japan.
Obviously, judging by the top spots on the broadband list, the smaller the industrialized country, the more likely average speeds will be high. The U.S., while being the birthplace of the internet, has more citizens than those in the top spots and far more landmass, which both physically hinders connection speeds in some areas and also makes putting in the kind of infrastructure for broadband more expensive.
Broadband Adoption and Speed in the U.S.
According to the Leichtman Research Group via GigaOm, the U.S. has about 83.5 million broadband connections as of late 2013. That data only includes subscribers to the major cable and telephone companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, and Cable Vision, among others. It does not include wireless, satellite, or independent service providers. Among major service providers, Comcast has added the most number of subscribers, though many of them are migrating from a DSL connection to faster cable-based broadband.
A Pew Study conducted earlier this year found that 30 percent of Americans are still lacking broadband access, and while the number of Americans with broadband has increased - from 66 percent last year to 70 percent in 2013 - there are big numbers of Americans, especially Latinos, who don't have access.
According to the study, 3 percent of U.S. adults still use dial up, with non-adopters, smartphone-only users, and the aged making up the rest who either don't pay for broadband or simply do not use the internet. "Many dial-up users cite cost and access as the main reasons they don't have broadband, but for adults who don't use the internet at all, a lack of interest is often the main issue," stated Kathryn Zickuhr, the lead author of Pew's report.
32nd Place - Really?
In all fairness, other studies of broadband speed have found the United States higher on the list of broadband, though never at the top. A "State of the Internet" report by Akamai, an industry content delivery firm, from July found that the U.S. was in 9th place.
This sounds better, but the news was actually not favorable - the U.S. slipped one place after being passed by Sweden this year, and the average web connection speed Akamai reported for the U.S. was a much lower 8.6 Mbps.